Chicago Girl.

 Six weeks ago, Mary moved to Chicago to go to school.

and completely and happily embraced the windy city as her own new home...just as she said she would.

Lily, Rosie and I planned a girls only trip to see Mary and were very lucky that Mary did not mind acting as our Chicago tour guide for our busy and fun weekend. 

 Our first act of tourism was to spend the morning at the Shedd Aquarium were we were mesmerized by the adorableness of the smiling beluga whales.

Rosie enjoyed taking very up close and personal photos of the little fishies. 

This is her best photo of a fish butt.

 

 The highlight of the trip was meeting all of the terrific new friends that Mary has made.

Her friend Brian even had the patience and strength to join us for some fabulous Chicago style pizza at Pizano's, http://www.pizanoschicago.com/ and then a night time walk to Millennium Park. 

The Bean was lovely under the night lights.

We all enjoyed the drama of the giant fountains, but Rosie especially enjoyed running back and forth under the pink light...silly me for thinking she might be too tired to race around and around after a very full day.

 

Apparently this is what the end of a fun and successful girls weekend looks like...

Rosie in hoops, munching on a giant Hershey kiss from Lily's new most favorite store in the whole  world...The Hersey Store. 

Evidently, I do not have my daughters city life stamina and fell sound asleep during that girl party.

Not sure if it was Mary, or Lily who took the photo, but I very much hope that it wasn't anyone else...however, this proves that the last one standing gets to eat as much chocolate as they wish.

(I am extremely glad not to have woken up with a sharpie marker mustache, or worse.)

 

It was wonderful to share the weekend with three out of four of my girls... we all had a great time but by far the best part was seeing Mary so happily adjusted to student life in the big city. 

Love this girl and her big city sensibilities...