"I love your sparkle, your spirit, you cute sense of style...I want to be an American Girl..."
So, guess where I spent Saturday morning? If you guessed the American Girl store on Michigan Avenue, you would be right! And how clever of the marketers at American Girl to create such a catchy little tune that stays in your mind--and more importantly the minds of young girls who want dolls, dolls, and more dolls--for days on head. It's actually worse than that Suzanne Vega song that goes, "doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo." But my niece, Breann, who came to visit us for the weekend with my sis Melissa, absolutely loved it! And now she and her doll Crystal Ashley have formed a close bond that should last at least through the plane ride back to SLC. Oh, to be six again...
We had a fabulous weekend visiting with the girls and the weather was, yet again, glorious! The only low point was our lunch at Joy Yees, shortly after their arrival on Friday, when I somehow managed to squirt Sarancha sauce in my eye. I thought my eye was bleeding out, but then Melissa reminded me that Sarancha sauce is also red. So, after that little incident, we carried on with some shopping at the Nordstrom Annual Fall Sale and Sephora before meeting "Unca Joe" for some Mexican Food. Hmmm...eating...shopping...are these people in my family or what? My sister's primary request for the weekend was "to eat a lot of good food."
Saturday was deemed a success from the start when Melissa walked into the newsstand by our house and bought a copy of Harry Potter at 9 a.m. (by the way, it it just me, or is it absolutely freaky to observe how many people are lugging that book around? Street corners, cafes, bus stops...everyone is reading that book). We all jumped on the El and headed for downtown--so fun since Breann had never been on a train and ours was filled with die-hard Cubs fans headed for the game. After alighting the train in Chicago we headed straight for American Girl to choose the "look alike doll" for Bree. It was great fun for her, but yikes! Dolls are kind of freaky and I certainly wouldn't want a doll in my likeness staring at me all night. But that's just me. The 10 million little girls crammed into the American Girl store all looked perfectly content (mania!) as they lugged their dolls around.
The best part of the day for the adults was the 75-minute architectural tour on the Sea Dog speed boat, which left from Navy Pier and cruised along the Chicago River before heading for the open lake where we picked up some velocity and bobbed along to Bon Jovi songs. Our tour guide, Chris, was hysterical--we think he must do stand-up comedy--and we definitely got our money's worth in entertainment value alone.
The rest of the weekend went something like this--dinner, movie, church, lunch, beach, dinner. But so much more fun than I have explained. Sadly, we said goodbye to Melissa and Breann this morning at the airport since they had to go back to Daddy and Baby Sarah, but we'll always remember Breann's words..."Uncle Joe, I like your sparkle and your spirit!"
So, guess where I spent Saturday morning? If you guessed the American Girl store on Michigan Avenue, you would be right! And how clever of the marketers at American Girl to create such a catchy little tune that stays in your mind--and more importantly the minds of young girls who want dolls, dolls, and more dolls--for days on head. It's actually worse than that Suzanne Vega song that goes, "doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo." But my niece, Breann, who came to visit us for the weekend with my sis Melissa, absolutely loved it! And now she and her doll Crystal Ashley have formed a close bond that should last at least through the plane ride back to SLC. Oh, to be six again...
We had a fabulous weekend visiting with the girls and the weather was, yet again, glorious! The only low point was our lunch at Joy Yees, shortly after their arrival on Friday, when I somehow managed to squirt Sarancha sauce in my eye. I thought my eye was bleeding out, but then Melissa reminded me that Sarancha sauce is also red. So, after that little incident, we carried on with some shopping at the Nordstrom Annual Fall Sale and Sephora before meeting "Unca Joe" for some Mexican Food. Hmmm...eating...shopping...are these people in my family or what? My sister's primary request for the weekend was "to eat a lot of good food."
Saturday was deemed a success from the start when Melissa walked into the newsstand by our house and bought a copy of Harry Potter at 9 a.m. (by the way, it it just me, or is it absolutely freaky to observe how many people are lugging that book around? Street corners, cafes, bus stops...everyone is reading that book). We all jumped on the El and headed for downtown--so fun since Breann had never been on a train and ours was filled with die-hard Cubs fans headed for the game. After alighting the train in Chicago we headed straight for American Girl to choose the "look alike doll" for Bree. It was great fun for her, but yikes! Dolls are kind of freaky and I certainly wouldn't want a doll in my likeness staring at me all night. But that's just me. The 10 million little girls crammed into the American Girl store all looked perfectly content (mania!) as they lugged their dolls around.
The best part of the day for the adults was the 75-minute architectural tour on the Sea Dog speed boat, which left from Navy Pier and cruised along the Chicago River before heading for the open lake where we picked up some velocity and bobbed along to Bon Jovi songs. Our tour guide, Chris, was hysterical--we think he must do stand-up comedy--and we definitely got our money's worth in entertainment value alone.
The rest of the weekend went something like this--dinner, movie, church, lunch, beach, dinner. But so much more fun than I have explained. Sadly, we said goodbye to Melissa and Breann this morning at the airport since they had to go back to Daddy and Baby Sarah, but we'll always remember Breann's words..."Uncle Joe, I like your sparkle and your spirit!"
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