Chicago - Day 3

 For our third day in Chicago, we decided to do something a bit low key since we bought tickets to Wrigley Field to see the Padres play. That's right, the Padres, not the Cubs! Yes, the Cubs were playing too but we were excited to see the Padres!! Anyways, we decided to go check out the Adler Planetarium. Neither Dan or I have ever been to a planetarium so we really had no idea what to expect. I guess that means we shouldn't have been disappointed. Sadly we were. This place was BORING!!! Seriously. The whole thing was about watching movies on space and planets and stars and the galaxy. Really? Who thinks a five year old, four year old and 15 month old want to sit in a dark room and watch movies on stars and space? Yay, I don't want to either.  So we walked around the museum part for a short time - it was boring too. I wasn't surprised to find it was all "Big Bang Theory" minded but it was still annoying. A lot of faith placed into some cosmic dust. There was a small kids area, so we spent the majority of our time in there. It was still lame. The kids went through it pretty quickly and we decided to cut our ties with this snooze-fest after only about an hour and a half. What a waste of $$!

 This was the only cool thing in the entire place. It was some sort of vehicle that the kids could "drive" by turning wheels at the back. It moved along and scooped up blocks.

 Lucy wondering why we are wasting our time here.

Well, here's where my pictures start getting really out of order. Sorry. I really hate when it do that because it makes it so much harder to journal about what took place! But after we left the Planetarium, we walked through Grant Park towards Millennium Park. It was a really nice walk. Not sure exactly how far it was but maybe three miles or so. Once we got to Millennium Park, they had these huge fountains with water for the kids to splash in. You can't really tell by these pictures, but there are faces projected onto the fountains. Every so often, the face makes a spitting face and "spits" water out onto everyone! (We took another day and came back here with swimsuits for the kids - Jonah couldn't wait!!)

Also in Millennium Park is the "Bean". It's this huge metal bean shaped sculpture that is just awesome! You can see your reflection in it and its just fun to hang around! We took a few pictures but it was really crowded and kind of hot, so we didn't stay long. It also made the bean hot to touch.

After we got back to our hotel, we grabbed some dinner, grabbed the "L" and headed over to Wrigley Field! It was really fun! The train was PACKED with fans but everyone was nice and in a good mood. We even met a couple from San Diego wearing their Padres hats! Small world! The field was really neat to see. It's so much smaller than Petco Park, where we go to watch the Padres. But I don't think you could have had a bad seat in the entire place!

 On our way out we were looking for the big "Wrigley Field" sign that you see in all the movies. We couldn't find it and it was kind of sketchy and sleazy around the field at night. So we didn't want to wander around with three kids. So sadly, this picture was as good as it gets to prove we were there.

The boys did so good sleeping the entire time we were on vacation. We got a suite, so we had a bedroom and the boys slept out in the living room on the hide-a-bed. They were probably so tired every night they didn't care where they slept, but they did really well.

 So these pictures should have been in order earlier in the day. After we left the Planetarium, we walked through the museum park and this beautiful fountain was right by the Shedd Aquarium. It was hot, so the kids enjoyed dipping their feet in for a few minutes.

 We also made it to Buckingham Fountain. It was really impressive. My pictures don't do it justice, but it is HUGE! And a lot of it was covered in a beautiful patina from the copper. The fountain shot out so much water we were getting misted from it.

The old fashioned score board! It was super cool! After each play, you could watch someone open a little door and change the cards for Runs, Outs, Balls, Strikes, etc. It also listed the scores for all the other games going on that night. Really neat!

 Both the boys fell in love with this little Cubs guy. They were really excited to use their allowance money to buy one.

Brotherly love.

Chicago Part 3

 After we finished at the Childrens Museum, we grabbed some lunch on the pier and then went outside to do some Mini Golf. It was really nice outside, even a bit chilly! The mini golf was fun! The course wasn't that great, but it was fun to play together. Lucy enjoyed fetching all the balls and watching birds.

 She also loved to smell the flowers!

 After mini-golf, the kids got to choose one ride and they chose this thing! I was surprised Henry went for it, but he couldn't wait. It took them up and dropped them down a little, then up and down. It was cute to see them together!

 After the kids' ride, we did the carousel together. We could tell we weren't in California anymore - none of the carousel horses had seat belts! It was actually kind of scary holding Lucy on while it moved up and down! But she loved it and everyone did fine.

 We were all exhausted after Navy Pier, so we hopped on the trolley and headed back to our hotel. We decided to do something fun for dinner, so we walked over to Rainforest Cafe. It was fun for the kids, but the service and food were lame. Thankfully it was "Kids Night" so they gave away balloons, the kids meals were free and they had a clown come around and make everyone a balloon animal. Lucy slept through almost the entire experience and meal. Poor girl! She really missed her naps while we were on vacation. But she did really well!

 Shortly after I took this picture, it was lights out for Lucy!

Henry asked for a monkey. She made him this monkey climbing up a tree. Jonah got a tiger, although I didn't get a picture of it. The monkey lasted the entire trip and the boys wanted to pack him in our suitcase to bring home. Sadly, monkey stayed in Chicago!

Childrens Museum fun

This was another fun room at the Childrens Museum. The boys got to be human wrecking balls! Jonah was super excited to do this. Henry was a bit skeptical, but they both stood in line and gave it a shot. It was really cute! I think they ended up doing it about three times!!

Chicago Part 2

 Wow! Our first full day in Chicago was jam-packed!!! We don't fool around when it comes to vacationing! We started the day off with a nice free breakfast at our hotel. And it actually was nice!! It had omelets, bacon, cereal, bagels, toast.... now I want some breakfast. But back to the vacation. After breakfast, we went out to look around and walk to the nearest Target. Hey, I loves me some Target, right?!? No, really, we just wanted to pick up some snackie type foods, sodas and waters to keep in our room. Vending machines are pricey! Our walk was really fun and the weather was perfect. In the mid 70s for almost the entire week we were there. Crazy cool for July! We walked down over the Chicago River and the kids were so amazed and excited! They were dredging the river and building a new river walk under the bridge that goes along the entire river. So they had a huge crane on a barge scooping out gravel and dumping it to make the foundation for the river walk. I think we walked by this every day we were there and every time we had to stop for about ten minutes for the kids to take it all in. It was fun and cute! We weren't the only ones, lots of people were stopped to watch!

 My sweet family!

Slight wardrobe malfunction on Lucy's part!

 After we took care of Target, we decided to head over to Navy Pier. It was going to be a little bit of a walk, but we discovered the city runs a free trolley shuttle from downtown to the pier and back every five minutes! Score! So we hopped on and it took us right to the Pier. Navy Pier is awesome. I didn't really get any pictures of the pier but it's very touristy. However, right in the middle of it, is the most amazing Childrens Museum I have ever been to! It was three floors full of awesome kid stuff. And since we were there on a week day, it wasn't crowded. My pictures don't do it justice and I failed to get pictures of all the room, but the kids seriously could have come back here every day and been completely happy! The first room we visited was the "Fire House." It was so neat! They had authentic Chicago Fire Dept. clothes and boots, masks, helmets, fire pole, the dispatch station. They even had a room filled with "smoke" to teach the kids how to crawl through a house and get out in case of a fire.

 After the fire room, we went to the Circus Room. It was super cute! They had a little hot dog cart with crocheted little hot dogs and buns. Henry loved pushing it around and "sharing" hot dogs with everyone. (sorry, no picture.) And they had all sorts of fun circus stuff.

 The tightrope

 Henry was the boy on the flying trapeze!

 Jonah's turn!

 Henry did pretty good!

Sadly, Lucy slept through the fire room and the circus room. But she woke up for the room full of building stuff. The boys LOVED this room. We stayed here for about 30-45 minutes. It was just a bunch of wood with holes drilled in them and nuts and bolts and allen wrenches. They could just build anything they wanted. It was so cute! Jonah took it very serious and even wore the safety glasses.

Another room we went to was done up like a forest with camping stuff and tents. It was probably my favorite. They had this water feature that looked like a little stream full of plastic fish and fish nets. Lucy LOVED this! She loved "catching" the fish and putting them back. The room also had a big tree house to climb up into and logs to climb through with reading nooks at the end of them.

 This was from the fire room. They had a big fire truck the kids could climb up into and the "hose" had a red light that could be aimed at a "burning" building next to it. You pushed the button to help put out the fire. Really fun!

 This was part of the building room. A real dozer tractor thing. It didn't move but the kids could climb in it and push all the buttons. Lucy was fascinated with climbing up and down the stairs to get into it.

 This was part of the log from the camping/forest room. Henry liked hiding out in it!

 Another room was done up like a little city. It had this bus they kids could get in and take turns driving or being a passenger. Henry waited a long time to get a turn driving! This room was really great! It had a car that the kids could change the tires, change the license plates and "wash" it with mits and buckets. It also had a gas pump that you could use on the car. It also had a grocery store and a restaurant where kids could cook food in a little pizza oven. Of course there were shopping carts, but not enough. So there were tears. But there was so much to do, it didn't take long to distract everyone. Jonah loved playing Postman and delivering mail to all the mail boxes throughout the town.

The next room was a dinosaur dig room. The room was covered in these little rubber bits (it smelled like old tires in the room!). The kids could get little shovels and brooms to sweep away the bits and uncover dinosaur bones! It was cute, but not their favorite. It was kind of hard to walk on and the rubber bits kept getting inside everyones shoes.

 Next we went to the garden/bug room. That's Henry and Jonah up there!  This room had giant flowers to make you feel like you were as small as a bug.  They also had some cameras set up to take your picture and transform you into a bug. Jonah was a willing participant!

 Henry - not so much. He was being cranky so while he cried and Dan lectured him, Jonah took his picture. He hates this picture but it's one of our favorites because it really captured Henry!

The water room was next. This was probably Jonah's favorite. They had little rain coats for everyone to put on before going in. The room was full of these contraptions that would spill, pump, dump and shoot water. There were boats to race down water ways and all sorts of ways to play with water. Henry and I could have done without this room. Dan kept track of Jonah and I took Henry and Lucy. They enjoyed this little spot where they could "paint" with water on tiles. It was pretty safe and no one got too wet. This room was definitely fun but it was right next to an open door and it was really cold outside, so the room was really cold. Probably more fun when it's hot.

My crew!