pollardfamily

In November, I went to Chicago with mama to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Dada had to stay in Katy because his students had a taekwondo tournament. Mama and I flew on Continental, and I was very upset to not be flying on my favorite airline, Southwest.

As soon as we got off the plane, Grandma and Grandpa took me to a very cool restaurant that had model trains all over the place -- up above my head, a big on up front, and even one that delivered my food. The food was super good too.

I had to ride the El Paso train, as a tribute to my dada, back home in Texas.
I had my maiden voyage at the Shedd Aquarium while I was in Chicago. Mama spent a whole lot of time there growing up -- taking different classes and even touring the Oceanarium before it was filled up with water and whales -- and then she did an internship at the Shedd during college. The weather was nice the day we went, so I got to run around without a coat.
We looked at the regular fish tanks for a while, but I was pretty jazzed up to see the beluga whales. Can you see the big white blob about to swim past us?
Every time she passed, she would dive up and into the water to splash, almost like she was greeting us into her home.
You can see the Oceanarium in the background. Once when mama was working there, a visitor asked her how the Shedd got the whales to come back inside after letting them out in the lake at night. Mama wasn't even sure where to start with that one. This is mama's favorite view of downtown Chicago.
I got to meet my newest second cousin once removed (or however we are related -it's mama's cousin's baby), Charlie. Mama was impressed that I both wanted to hold him, and sat still long enough to do it.
Here are two of my other cousins, Lauren and Noah. I was irritated that mama made me stop running to take a picture.
Another cousin, Ethan, is in this picture. He sure did have fun with us. We played 1000000 games of hide and seek.
Ethan helped us to find the best places to hide, even in the shower! I had a great time in Chicago, but we had to get home to see dada, so we flew on another rotten Continental airplane to get home.