Last Wednesday B left for Charleston for sailing while I stayed home in Gracie. I KNOW. CHARLESTON VERSUS CHICAGO. UNFAIR. After realizing last summer that I’m only good at lone wolfing for 2 nights max, I called in reinforcements: my Mom, aka Gigi. While we had some bumps in the itinerary (stroller snafu, all is well) we had an awesome girls weekend and I was really grateful for both the adult company and the ability to take the dog on a quick walk without having to worry about getting Gracie packed up and out the door with me…three times a day.
Our zoo trip was dashed by the aforementioned stroller issue (I did something dumb which led to me being unable to clip the seat into the frame, many thanks to Galt Baby for “fixing” it aka showing me the dumb thing I did and reversing it….if you own an UppaBaby vista, don’t carry the seat by the recline lever….) but we did make it to the playground near the zoo. Gracie growled at the mountain lion statues, pet the baby elephant statue and was overjoyed by simple park pleasures. Behold:
![Swings & Eggs Park1](http://m5.paperblog.com/i/86/860796/swings-eggs-L-ntU9Jx.jpeg)
![Swings & Eggs Park2](http://m5.paperblog.com/i/86/860796/swings-eggs-L-rFLCPT.jpeg)
![Swings & Eggs Park3](http://m5.paperblog.com/i/86/860796/swings-eggs-L-fKSMOA.jpeg)
Girlfriend enjoys the breeze in her hair, that is for sure. We had lunch at a nearby institution, R.J. Grunts. Very kid friendly and highly recommended to anyone wanting to grab a bite before or after the zoo (It also has a lovely bloody mary, fancy burgers and an amazing salad bar for the adults in the group).
![Swings & Eggs Park4](http://m5.paperblog.com/i/86/860796/swings-eggs-L-Vx0e2T.jpeg)
On Sunday before we took my Mom to the airport (sniff) we went out to the suburbs for an Easter egg hunt at our friend’s house. Gracie was really confused as to why we encouraged her to pick up more eggs than she had hands until she realized: (1) the eggs come apart; and (2) THERE ARE PRIZES INSIDE. One egg of yogurt melts later and she spent the next 30 minutes trying to find every egg she could, including eggs in her friend’s baskets. We had a chat about sharing.
![Swings & Eggs EggHunt1](http://m5.paperblog.com/i/86/860796/swings-eggs-L-G2tzVO.jpeg)
![Swings & Eggs EggHunt2](http://m5.paperblog.com/i/86/860796/swings-eggs-L-WCOcKm.jpeg)