We spent the first couple of days of our holiday travels in Chicago – to do a little sightseeing, and visit with family before heading west towards “Big G” (Galena, IL) to visit John’s folks. We managed to pack in quite a bit in under 48 hours!
We started with an L train ride from Lincoln Park out to Skokie (past Wrigley field, among other things) – a big hit with our train-loving dudes. In Skokie, we got to hang out and visit with several of John’s aunts, uncles, cousins, and their kids (gotta love the Irish, cocktails and beer available at 11:30 a.m.!). Poor Henry was feverish with a cold, and conked out in one of aunt Jane’s bedrooms, but managed to rally enough to be strolled around downtown Chicago. We got to see the famous “bean,” and the beautiful lions at the Art Institute, both of which they’d read about in the I Love Chicago board book Grandma Nack sent us before the trip. We even caught a glimpse of the Zamboni on the ice before the skaters hit the rink!
And last but not least, after triangulating and re-triangulating our location and the time of day with the CTA Holiday Lights Train schedule, and then waiting and waiting at the station for the famous Holiday L train that was running about 30 minutes late, we saw, boarded, and rode the Holiday Lights Train! The guys were beside themselves – and the train was fantastic – decorated and lit inside and out, with Christmas music on the P.A., an elfish conductor handing out candy canes, and Santa himself in his sleigh, riding on a decorated flatbed car. It was worth the wait and all the effort John put in to figure out where we needed to be and when in order to catch it.
Before we headed west, we went to Lincoln Park Zoo and saw lions, red pandas, owls, sea lions, wolves, bears, and pumas. The lioness roared and roared for quite some time, which was a big thrill for Mr. Finny, our resident lion enthusiast. It was a totally great way to start our trip – and here’s the requisite gallery illustrating our adventures.
Finny had an unexpected visit to Dr. Feldman, our optometrist, last week. Recently, we’d noticed that his right eye had started to turn too far inward when he was focusing on near objects – like while he was drawing, or watching videos, or playing with Legos. He’d been to Feldman for a check-up in the spring, and everything checked out fine, so we thought it’d be a good idea to have him checked again to figure out what was going on with the eye. 
A few weeks back on my work blog, I 