On our last full day in Chicago, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. Locals had told us we needed an entire day to spend here and they were completely right. I think we saved the best for last. This place was awesome. If we lived in Chicago, we would get a yearly pass here hands down. It was really amazing and it was HUGE. I think the first room we wandered into was the space room. They had the actual Apollo 8 space craft. It was so neat to see it up close and see how small it was for the astronauts. They had all sorts of actual space craft stuff that was used in missions. The kids also got to take their pictures in these astronaut suits.
I'm sure I won't remember everything we saw, so I'll just narrate the photos. They had a gigantic train room. There were actual steam engines in the room that kids could walk through and explore.
They also had this super cute model train display. It was huge as well, and along the track, they had place different buttons. When you pressed the buttons, the trains or the scenery would do different things. One scene had a stick of dynamite explode and rocks were loaded into a train to be hauled away. In another scene, construction workers would build/repair part of the railroad track. It was really cute!
Lucy keeping warm after her nap. She did SO incredibly good for the entire trip. I don't think we were in the room for her to take a nap one single day. So she just learned to sleep on the go in her stroller and did beautifully. Such a good girl! And the bonus was, all the kids were so tired at the end of the day that they slept through the night!!
Another room had this climbing wall the boys enjoyed. The museum was three stories tall and had so many different rooms and exhibits to try and explore. It was amazing. One of the exhibits we paid extra for, was the coal car exhibit. I don't have any pictures because cameras weren't allowed. But we got to go down into a "coal mine" and ride a coal car while we learned about coal mining and how it has changed over the years. It was really interesting and sad to learn how coal miners used to work and live. Seems like a sad life and a sad job.
Sleepy girl.
Another room had all sorts of experiments the kids could try dealing with wind. This particular one showed how to make a tornado. By moving the glass and allowing more or less wind in the tunnel, a tornado was created. They had a lot of fun with this!
They also had a chick hatchery! Henry was really, really excited about this! You can see the brand new hatched chick right behind him. It was kind of sad to see them hatch out into a lonely metal cage. Seems like they needed their mom!
On the other side of the hatchery were the fluffy "older" chicks. They were really cute running around and chasing each other.
Good ol' static electricity ball.
Lucy had a diaper malfunction. Serves me right for trying to use the cute "organic" diapers that weren't meant to actually hold anything. And of course, I didn't pack any spare clothes. And the museum only sold a really lame onesie for like $25. So she cruised around in her shirt, diaper, shoes & socks. Nice. Anyways, she really liked the farm exhibit. It had a life sized cow, a fake cow you could "milk", fake pigs with piglets and lots of gigantic farm equipment you could climb on.
The boys waited in line for a long time to climb up into this huge tractor thing.
Look how big the wheel was! We saw a ton more stuff in the museum, I just don't have the pictures to remind me of everything. It was a really fun day and the kids were so tired by the end. It was really a great way to end our vacation. The next day, we grabbed more donuts from a different donut place and just relaxed in our hotel room until it was time to go. It was really nice to have a little down time. We just watched some HGTV (nerds!), the kids played and then we took the "L" back to the airport for the four hour flight home. What a great vacation!! It will be hard to top!
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