Our Trip. (And lots of pics!)

We are home now from our way-fun, short weekend getaway. This is the first time we have done anything like this since Lara has been born, so I'd really been looking forward to our first time family trip!

We went to the Dunes Friday afternoon with our friends. It turned out a lot more fun than we really expected, I think. A chance of showers made me a little pessimistic, but the cloudiness worked out to our advantage. Lara loved the water once she got to used to it. And Dustin stayed pretty busy building a fantastic looking castle.

We headed back to our hotel that night and Lara got busy exploring. It was a decent-sized room, so Lara spent a lot of time opening all the cabinets and drawers. This was the first time for our family to stay in a hotel room, so we had to deal with the question of what to do for putting Lara down to bed. Her bedtime is 8pm, but we knew she wouldn't sleep if we were still up doing things. At 8:30, we just put her in the bed with us, and snuggled and watched TV. At 9pm, it was lights out for everybody!

On Saturday, we got up bright and early and headed to Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

We walked around there a couple of hours, lost one of Lara's shoes, and called it a day. Per a fellow blogger's advice (thanks, Jennifer!) we made reservations at Rainforest Cafe for lunch. This resturant is strange, but really fun. The place is completely decked out in everything rainforest, from the ceiling and walls covered in trees and vines, to the brown concrete floor, to the gorillas and elephants waving their arms and trunks at you. Cha Cha the [poisonous] frog made rounds, giving high 5's at all the tables. Every once in awhile, thunder and lightning will disrupt your meal, while the automated animals go wild. This big guy stared at us during our entire meal, which Lara did not appreciate.

It looks harmless, but it blinks it eyes, waves its trunk, makes loud sounds, and flaps its ears. Generally, it looks like it's about to charge your table. We just kept telling Lara that it was being "silly," and eventually she got over it.

Whew! So now we are home, our family trip a great success.

In other news, my ear surgery is this Tuesday, 10:30. Please be praying for a good recovery. Many people keep saying (to make me feel better) how it will be so good to have the surgery-I will feel better and hear again! Well, as much as I would love that, that is not the case. I will likely not hear any better, and could, in fact, lose the rest of my hearing. I won't really feel any better, simply because I feel just fine now. I am looking forward to getting the white noise out of my ear, though. A follow-up surgery is required, so this is only the beginning. This is one of those surgeries that is really just preventitive (so the cyst will not spread any further); nothing better can be expected. It could be worse though! I will go on to live a long and healthy life, even if I only have one ear and the other is half dangling off. I will be the Nearly Earless Mommy.

On Wednesday, Dustin and I are getting our new bed!!!!!! He finally consented to get me a new one (after years of hogging the blankets and pushing me out of the bed), after I sought the help of family members to convince Dustin.