Mason Family: Chicago

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!