A Trip with Twins - Part 1

Recently my family set out for our first family vacation...as a family of four, that is. Needless to say it was an adventure. Shaun, my husband, and I decided soon after our girls were born that we would be traveling via car for a few years so that we could avoid the perils of bringing infants on an air plane. You know, the crying, ear pressure, likely diaper explosions, etc. Our thinking was that we could avoid all of that and visit new and exciting destinations while on our way. We tried this out last Thanksgiving when our girls were 6 months old. It went unbelievable smooth. We couldn't have asked for better travelers and promptly patted ourselves on the back upon returning home for our exceptional planning and superior knowledge about traveing with twins.

That was 8 months ago.

We set out on June 30th for Chicago. We always plan to leave at night so that our girls can sleep while we drive. We arrived in Chicago around 5:30am. Am I the last person on the planet to realize the sun rises in Chicago at like 4:00am!?! Are you kidding me? Needless to say, our girlies were wide awake with the sun. We stopped for breakfast around 6:00 and enjoyed our food amidst lots of stares which could only have meant, "What in the world are you doing awake and out of the house with babies at such an hour?" What they didn't know is I had been asking myself that question since about St. Louis!

We finally made it to our hotel, The Wyndham, around 8:45, paid way too much money to valet park, and had the good fortune of getting to check in early...7 hours early to be exact. As a side note, I totally recommend this hotel for any travels to Chicago. It was fabulous! It was downtown and only blocks from everywhere we wished to go! We had a corner room and an entire wall of windows. Like I said, amazing!

Miss G Getting a Closer Look

After naps (afterall we'd been awake for 4+ hours by this point!), we set out for Navy Pier and The Chicago Children's Museum.

Navy Pier

We had lunch on the pier. McDonald's. They HATED it. Enough said. Then we walked, shopped, and just took it all in! We did let the girls out of the stroller some, but because Little Miss G didn't understand why she couldn't jump 30 feet off the pier in order to go swimming, they spent most of the time riding! I convinced Shaun to go on the ferris wheel. Little did I know that somewhere around the top of the ride I would freak out when realizing how stupid I was for taking my 1 YEAR OLDS on such a thing! They, however, loved it and I eventually calmed down!

Mama and Miss L

Dada and Miss G

This museum has an entire floor devoted to early childhood aged children and was so neat!

Not the best picture, but give us a break! We were playing, too!

We ended our adventures for that day and returned to our lavish room. We went swimming at the indoor pool. If you've ever swam inside ,15 stories up and had a birds-eye view of Chicago, you know how weird this swim was!


To say G and L were exhausted would be an understatement. To say Mama and Dada were exhausted would be a gross understatement. So the question becomes 'How do you sleep with two babies, two pack n plays, an two parents in the same room?' I'm not speaking of space...there was plenty of space. The problem is that the parents have to hide. Yes, Dada and Mama spent 30 minutes or so hiding right outside our room, in the hallway while the girls were getting to sleep. Then we draped blankets, which the hotel was gracious enough to offer, over the top of the pack n plays until we were ready to turn in...which was like 5 minutes later! Just when you think you've thought of it all, you find yourself in a hotel room with twins...my experiece is that with twins you definitely learn something new each day.

Stay tuned...Chicago Day 2 soon!