Yesterday morning, we woke up with no plans. Originally I thought I would be lazy and just try to stay home, but the weather was forecasting a beautiful day and I’ve had this girl cooped up for too long. We decided to go to the mall. Now, in Chicago, the mall is not just “down the street”. There are actually quite a few to choose from, but you have to be willing to drive to get there. No worries, I thought, we have a Garmin and nothing to do…and we’ll just stay until she gets tired and then drive home and she will (hopefully) sleep in the car.

We had a blast!! It was so nice to have a day where she was in great spirits and behaving (for the most part, except for when I had her trying on shoes at Stride Rite) and it was wonderful to be out of the house.

After some delightful retail therapy (for me and the girl), we stopped at Sweet Tomatoes, a salad buffet joint (a lot like my beloved Souper Salads from my college days) and had a nice lunch. The aisles were made for strollers and I even had a helpful employee carry my tray to the table for me. This pic is of Charlie enjoying her first ever fro-yo cone. You can see that she’s VERY focused on it…