A sentimental journey to Windy City

It’s funny how life turns out.

When we were Chicagoans, we took our three young sons, Mark, Michael and Danny, to California to vacation.

Now our young Huntington Beach-born grandchildren think Chicago is the perfect vacation. For parents and grandparents, it’s wonderful to be able to give one’s hometown to the younger generation. And when the city is fabulous Chicago, it is a gift worth having.

And getting there is easy and convenient with the frequent flights from John Wayne Airport. With children, the nonstop flights to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport are nearly as easy as a trip to many California attractions.

It is the culture and cuisine of this lakefront city we wanted to display for our family, including grandchildren Michelle DeCarlo, 7, and Andrew DeCarlo, 5, who live in Huntington Beach and attend Huntington Christian School. Our days were filled with digging up dinosaur bones, doll tea parties, eating Chicago-style pizza, special dinners at the Drake Hotel, soaring skyscrapers, river boat rides and classic museum buildings set in lakefront gardens and parks that make Chicago the most beautiful of cities. An added bonus was being hugged and kissed by more cousins than they knew existed. And seeing the Chicago Cubs win in beautiful Wrigley Field.

Andrew was lucky enough to nab a baseball -- thrilling his father, Michael DeCarlo, who had hoped for a ball every time he and his brothers were taken to games as kids with their grandfathers and father. Being a Cubs fan is an emotional thing, a legacy passed down from father to son. A Wrigley Field baseball is a treasured memento. It may end up in Michael’s office alongside other Cubs memorabilia. Chicago offers not only the Cubs, but plenty of culture, beauty and exciting shopping on its Magnificent Mile -- Michigan Avenue.

“I loved walking down Michigan Avenue, seeing all the beautiful shops, the awesome skyscrapers, the river, bridges and the excitement of a big city,” said mother Lorena DeCarlo. “We don’t have that here.”

Kathy Ursini of Newport Beach, traveling with her husband, John, and his parents, former Chicagoans Karen and Fran Ursini, was amazed at all there was to do to entertain the young children.

“Even though we’re Californians, living near the ocean, we all loved the Shedd Aquarium and Oceanarium,” she said. “It was wonderful. Then we took Ally to the American Girl Place, while the boys (twins Nicholas and Angelo, 5) went to Navy Pier for the amusement rides.”

The family saw both the Chicago Cubs and Chicago Bears play -- a double-header not easily duplicated in other cities.

We packed our time with pizza and pleasures: Dinner at the Drake Hotel’s venerable Cape Cod Room (opened in 1933) will remain memorable for its pure Chicago allure and yummy seafood (tea in the Palm Court is another Chicago favorite). Seeing the great Field Museum (ogling Sue, the 67-million-year-old T-rex skeleton), Adler Planetarium (the hemisphere’s oldest planetarium), Wendella River and lake boat rides and the Art Institute of Chicago (Thorne Miniature Rooms) created a whirlwind of fun for all three DeCarlo generations.

Of course, 7-year old Michelle was enchanted by the world-renowned Thorne Miniature Rooms. “They so cute,” she pronounced. Adults find them even more fascinating for the decorative arts history displayed in the 68 rooms. During the 1930s, Chicagoan Mrs. James Ward Thorne hired the best artisans available to create the exquisitely detailed rooms for her own pleasure. Ultimately, she donated the nearly 100 created to three museums, including Chicago’s Art Institute. Also not to be missed is the French Impressionist collection, which is among the world’s best. We tell the kids to remember to pick a favorite painting, so they can then take it home in postcard form.

After saying hello to Sue, the T-rex skeleton, on display in the Grand Hall of the Field Museum, Michelle and Andrew moved to the dinosaur dig nearby. Young museum docents instructed the kids on how fossils are found and protected in “field jackets.” Then the kids got to dig out fossil bones and compare what they found to a chart to learn the name of the bone. They didn’t want to leave this activity -- it was fascinating for them. However, we pressed on. The nature walk inside the museum is perfect for giving children a close-up view of a huge array of preserved real animals. We walked nearly the entire exhibit, getting lost amid the tigers and bears.

A dash to nearby Adler Planetarium was, alas, brief. For the science-minded, this lovely art deco facility is a treasure-house of instruction and illumination. But children do have their limits, and grandparents had best heed them.

The next day we took a sentimental river cruise on the Wendella boats through the river locks into Lake Michigan. Because the city’s drinking water comes from the lake, the river’s flow was reversed more than 100 years ago, making the locks necessary to control the river.

As dating teenagers, my husband Dan and I often took the Wendella boat rides. It was a treat to have our family repeat this experience decades later. And what a view -- spectacular skyline of skyscrapers (invented in Chicago) infused with postcard sharpness by the day’s brilliant light. We showed the children what had been the city’s tallest building when we were teens: the Prudential Building -- a building now dwarfed by skyscrapers, including the imposing Sears Tower and John Hancock building, which both feature excellent observation towers for impressive views of the entire region.

On another day we three girls, Michelle, Lorena and I visited American Girl Place while the boys had the hotel’s rooftop pool to themselves. Andrew declared this sky-high pool a favorite. While Michelle put a high value on the doll emporium.

“I brought my doll, Annabelle, from home,” Michelle said. “Then my Nani surprised me with an American Girl doll that looks like me. She even has green eyes like mine. So both dolls had little high chairs at our tea party. And little cups and cakes. It was so much fun.”

We saw the musical, “Circle of Friends,” about girls and their interpersonal relationships. For me, a mother of three sons, it was a thrill to do these girly things with Michelle and Lorena. However, I’m fairly certain there are no plays about boys’ feelings. From experience, I’d say they lack the life drama girls seem to generate. After a generally “burlap” lifetime of endless Little League baseball, for me the “satin” of American Girl Place was the land of foreign femininity. Excitingly exotic.

Grandmother Karen Ursini relished the show. Having a daughter and several granddaughters, it was not such a stretch for her.

“I liked the values and morals shown in the play,” said Karen, who attended with her granddaughter, Ally, and Ally’s mom, Kathy. “It was wonderful to see the girls in the show aspire to be kind and helpful. The characters were based on the American Girl dolls, each with her own story.”

Stories -- it is what we all like to hear and create. And that’s what we hoped we were doing in Chicago with our Huntington Beach family. Making stories ... making memories ... for the children and for ourselves. Family vacations provide the opportunity for everyone to make happy memories.

For me, that brilliantly blue-sky day on Lake Michigan will live in my heart always, as I think the tea party will stay with little Michelle until someday perhaps she takes her little Huntington Beach girl back home to Chicago.

* ANGELA ROCCO DECARLO is a journalist and entertainment and travel writer.