Chicago!

Sunday morning we made the 3 hour drive to Chicago. The Powell's drove up Saturday morning and had already spent a day there when Ammon, Carrie and I got there Sunday morning. While in Chicago, we used the CTA (Chicago Transit Authorities)to get around; mostly the trains, but we did ride a bus a few times. We parked our car in a train station parking lot and took a train and a bus to Navy Pier. We walked to the end of Navy Pier - what a beautiful view! We sat on some benches for a while and just looked at everything! Then we walked through the Stained Glass Museum. We watched the Powell kids on a few rides, and then we took a bus to Willis Tower. Willis Tower is the former Sears Tower. We walked through a museum and watched a short video before going up the elevator to the 103 floor. It was fun looking down on the city! They had these clear boxes that hung outside of the tower, so that you could look all around - including down - and see the city! It was scary to walk out on it at first, but as long as I didn't look down, it was okay! Next, Kendall and Melissa took off to go to a concert they had bought tickets for while Carrie, Ammon and I took the Powell kids to the Magnificent Mile. Avri insisted that we HAD to walk through the American Girl store! Both Avri and Sadie want one of these dolls! We found one that looked like Sadie (Molly) and they got a catalog so they could look through it more at home. Then we went to the Lego store where they had lego building tables and Lego video games. We let the kids play with the lego toys for a while before we headed to catch up with Kendall and Melissa. Ammon and I were given a recommendation of a restaurant that serves true Chicago style pizza. All 3 times we've been to Chicago, we've gone to this restaurant. There are many locations in Chicago, so we chose to meet Kendall and Melissa at one that was just a couple of blocks from the concert they were at. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and crashed. That seems to be a common phrase when I'm talking about our vacations! I guess that means we're always packing a lot of fun things in! Lol!




Our whole trip was planned around Monday. Most of the museums in Chicago have "free days" where if you live in Illinois you can get into the main part of the museum for free. This particular Monday happened to be the free day for 2 museums - The Shedd Aquarium and The Museum of Science and Industry. In the morning we drove to the train station parking lot and then took the train to the Shedd Aquarium. Then we headed to the Museum of S&I and found a little restaurant to eat lunch at before exploring the museum. We didn't get too many pictures at the museums because we were having too much fun! But the pictures we do have are of us in front of a white screen the projected butterflies. If you stand really still, then the butterflies will come land on you! It was pretty cool!