Our Busy End to Summer

After having an awesome time at the Bee in Columbus, Ohio, we came home for a grand total of 8 days, we were on the road again. This time to Chicago for family vacation!



None of us had ever been to the Windy City, and needless to say, there was WAY more to do there than what we had time for!! Here is how our trip broke down:

Aug 4:
Travel Day. 8.5 hours from Nixa, MO to Chicago, IL. Actually, we stayed in Schaumburg, a suburb to the NorthWest of Chicago, because it was closer to LegoLand. We arrived in time to hit the mall next to our hotel to find something for dinner. Woodfield Mall turned out to be an awesome place! Great play area for the kids, and when we walked in, we walked right into a Rainforest Cafe! Great place for a fun dinner after being on the road all day.



Aug 5:
LegoLand Discovery Center!! Where as most people can get through this in 3 hours or so, we devoted a whole day to it for our crew. AJ is so obsessed with Legos we wanted to give him as much time as possible.




Aug 6:
Shedd Aquarium. Again, almost an all day thing, for us to see it all! The kids loved the Fantasea show where we got to see Pacific Dolphins, Penguins, and Beluga Whales. They also loved the different play areas for the kids; exploring in a submarine, dressing up like penguins, and touching real starfish!



Aug 7:
Field Museum, Adler Planetarium & the Skydeck. Sue the T-Rex was definitely the highlight of the Field Museum for all of us!! This is the 10th anniversary of Sue, and extra special for us because James' college roommate got to help work on Sue when he was working at the Field Museum after college. They were also doing a large Lego mural, which of course we all took part in. The Planetarium was very cool too - especially the kids area where they could drive lunar rovers, walk through "space" and wear a Mission flight jacket! After that we went downtown & ate dinner at Giordano's, then went up to the SkyDeck of the Willis Tower, more popularly known as Sears Tower. The photo of this is actually a large Lego version of the tower that was in the lobby. :)




Aug 8:
Museum of Science & Industry and Kohl Children's Museum. S&I was amazing - way more than what I expected. An interactive periodic table was one of my personal favorites. The boys loved the lightning show and the 40-foot tornado in the weather exhibit. It was also very cool to see the U-505 exhibit. The Kohl Children's Museum was so much fun. It was great for the boys to have a museum where they could touch and play with everything!

Aug 9:
LegoLand, part 2. We took the boys back to the Lego store at Woodfield Mall and LegoLand again until noon, then headed for home. All in all, it was a very memorable vacation, and I think everybody had a GREAT time!!




There are so many things we wanted to do but didn't have time for. We didn't do anything on Navy Pier, there is another Children's Museum we would like to go to sometime, and we did not see Millineum Park or Grant Park. Obviously, there were many, many more photos than this taken...to see all the photos, check out my facebook page. Now... all I have to do is start SCRAPPIN'!!!