Saturday Details

Saturday was an exhausting day! We actually all slept in til 10 am (which was good, since we didn't go to bed til 2 am), and we awoke to pouring rain. We found out that this restaurant called "The Emerald Loop" right around the corner from our hotel had an "all you can eat" breakfast buffet for $9.99.. so we walked over. The food was actually really good. Eggs, bacon/sausage, hash browns, fruit, yogurt, pancakes... etc. The girls ate really well!

Unfortunately, despite my warnings, only 2 of the 6 girls bought umbrellas.. so we had to go to 7-11 to pick up 4 more.. but then we were off and shopping!

First we hit the Macy's on State Street. It was 9 stories of JUST Macy's. We were all in awe. I think we actually only visited 4 floors but the experience was still a lot of fun for everyone! We wandered around a little more (Zara, etc) and it was already time to hit the spa! We headed over to the Bloomingdales building on Michigan Ave, where parking was a complete nightmare.

Downstairs, is the biggest "spa" that I've ever seen.. Mario Trocucci... with over 200 stylists/artists/techs! We all got "glammed up" with hair and makeup and found we had some time to spare before dinner, so we set out to explore Michigan Ave.

Turns out that the girls had no interest in Bloomingdales (horrors!).. but spent over an hour at Victoria's Secret. I don't get it?... but anyway, an hour and a couple of hundred dollars later, we started making our way back, with stops at Filene's basement, among other stores.

We got back to the Hard Rock hotel around 5 pm, and had one hour to transform ourselves into "city theater-goers".. the girls all dressed up and looked fabulous! We took a taxi to the Hard Rock Cafe (taxis are much cheaper here than parking at $20 an hour), where we had a quirky waitress that made the evening very entertaining. Again, all the girls ate well and were well-behaved.

Of course, every meal in every restaurant has been "Mackensie's birthday".. and she has not tired of the free desserts! However at the Hard Rock, they do things a little differently, they bought her up on the stage where the rock bands play and made everyone in the restaurant wish her a Happy 16th Birthday. I think she loved the attention!

Then we took a taxi to the Cadillac Palace where we had tickets to see Beauty and the Beast. We arrived 40 minutes before show time, and Nicole decided she "had to have" a pair of pink shoes she'd seen the day before at Zara.. so we all sprinted 3 blocks to Zara so she could pick them up. I told her that her mom might not be happy about such an extravagant purchase and she told me.. "My mom collects shoes, she doesn't wear them, she will be happy".. Cheryl, you and I could be great friends ;)

We saw the show and the girls loved it. I don't think they moved from their seats at all during the entire show.. not even one text message! It was a truly terrific production.. the stages were amazing, and the way they adapted the story was really great.. I even found myself moved to tears more than once.

Then, in all of our 3 and 4 inch heels, we hoofed it back the 6 city blocks to our hotel. The weather was really great (of course it quit raining exactly ONE HOUR after I bought the umbrellas), and it was a fun walk.

Everyone was pretty giddy with excitement.. we stayed up talking for a while and then felt pretty hungry, so we ordered ice cream sundaes and banana splits from room service, which the girls promptly pronounced "the best ice cream ever" (gotta love the superlatives!). I finally got them to settle down around 2 am.

It was a really great day, but exhausting for my 41 year old body.. the girls, however, were raring to go for another day!