One Thing I Won't Do When We Move to the Burbs...

is take my kids downtown to the holiday lights parade. You know the one on the famed Michigan Avenue where they invite all the Disney characters to help turn on the holiday lights in the city. There's a ton of people, traffic sucks and it's usually freezing cold. So I figure I had better get it all in now before we move so we hopped the bus for year three of viewing the lights from the balcony attached to my office. The kids enjoyed riding "mommy's bus" and traveling the short three miles didn't take too long. We picked up some food on the short walk between the bus stop and my office once we disembarked and then brought it up to my office to eat before the parade began.

This year was a little different view for us since Burberry, the building actually in front of mine on Michigan Avenue, decided it was building a new store up to the 7th floor so part of my balcony was blocked in but the kids made the most of it and still had a corner to squeeze into to view the parade. Peyton was mesmerized by the parade going by and her and Austen kept jockeying for the best view in the small space. Best balloons were Rudolph and Kermit the frog promoting the new Muppets movie this year. Austen saw that one coming a mile away and kept telling Tom, "there's a frog!"

The way home was probably the least fun experience of the night. What usually is a 20-minute bus ride at most turned into a 50-minute one. After about 15 minutes, Peyton was giving us the sign language for "all done" and kept telling us too that she was through with this bus! So were we but we could hardly get off! Perhaps the funniest moment came as Austen, who was trying to entertain himself on the long ride home announced, "hey there's a lemonade!" What he really meant to say was "hey, there's a limousine!"