Chicago Vacation, Part Deux: Early Birthday

Since my in-laws have been absent for a good percentage of Mia's milestones, we thought that once the wedding festivities were over (literally -- we went from the wedding brunch directly into the Mia-centric portion of the vacation), we should tack on a couple of days to our trip so that we could celebrate Mia's 1st Birthday, despite it being a bit early. While we were attending all the wedding functions, Mia stayed with her Grandpa, and hung out with my two sisters in law, so that by the time Sunday (and the little party) rolled around, they were all old friends and Mia didn't play shy around anyone.

The birthday party was exactly as expected. A big group of Italian-Americans in B's grandparents basement, eating Italian-American food and chatting. Mia had a lovely time watching her older cousin run around, while being terrified of the balloons that he was pulling after him. Unfortunately, Mia was too excited to sit down and eat anything, and her dinner was basically just a bit of her birthday smash cake. Just as the party was winding down, Mia vomitted like nobody's business, and I was afraid that she had caught another stomach bug, but it turned out to be an isolated incident.

Anyhooo... Chicago weather continued to be basically crappy, so we spent our Monday down at the aquarium. We were joined by SIL the younger. Mia clapped at the belugas and dolphins, and pointed at a great many fish tanks.

Our flight home was scheduled at 6am, so we set our alarm for 3:30am, for a 4am airport departure. Just as I was getting ready to switch Mia from her crib to her carseat, I got a text message that our flight was cancelled. After being on the phone with Southwest for a painless amount of time, we were rebooked for the 5:40pm flight, and I tucked myself back into bed. Other than the dogs having to spend one more night at the vet, we got to spend one extra day in our lovely city. We drove to nearby Oak Park (of Hemingway and Frank Lloyd Wright fame) which is the closest to a city-type neighborhood to B's grandparent's house. We also got to enjoy the only nice day the Chicago weather had to offer.