More to share from our trip to Illinois

I told you about the first 3 days of our trip out to Illinois, and I want to tell you what else we did. Thursday morning, we got to sleep in some, and we had planned to spend the day with my sister and her family. I was really looking forward to this time, because I feel like we weren't with them much. My brother-in-law went to work in the morning, and we were planning on picking him up around lunch time. My sister made sandwiches for the kids to eat in the vans on the way to Chicago, and we picked up some sandwiches at Subway. This day, we fueled up before getting into Chicago! We weren't going to pay $4.50/gallon again. When we got into Chicago, we drove under the city in the tunnels. That is such a cool thing to do! I wish I had some great pictures to show you of this adventure, but none of them turned out well enough. Chicago has several tunnels that travel under the city. When we got into a parking ramp, we walked around for awhile to find a bathroom. (Of coarse I really needed to go). Then, our second stop was to Millennium Park. We got to see Chicago's famous stainless steel (very large) Kidney Bean!

Chicago is well known for the arts and structures. This is one of many unusual, but very cool pieces of art. It was huge, and fun to look at!
This a picture of my sister's kids, our niece, and my kids. My sister's friend let us barrow her stroller while we were out there. It was great to barrow a double stroller!
This is our family picture in front of the "Bean!" It was a bit rainy out during this part of the day, a light drizzle.
I love the view of the city's buildings in the mirrored-image of the Bean. As you can see, it is super big! I really thought it was cool how the bean had the curved out shape in the inside.

This is a view of the Bean looking straight up when standing underneath. It was just cool to look at. My sister said it made her a little nauseous to look at it too long.
After the "Bean," we went for a walk through Millennium Park.
This is the band shell where they hold outdoor concerts! I would say it was bigger than a football field, and it was huge! There were many speakers over our heads! It was a neat looking place, and I bet it would be fun for a concert.

Nathaniel is really growing up! He will be 10 in a few months!
This is the big fountain in central Chicago. There is also a big spray that shoots up the middle once in awhile. I have a picture of it, but it didn't turn out so well. It reminds me of 'ol Faithful in Yellowstone.
This was one of our favorite parts of the day. This place had two large stone walls that displayed faces of people. The people would change, and the looks on their faces would change from a sober look, to smiling, to smiling with teeth showing.
The stone walls also had water spraying off of them, like a waterfall. The kids had fun with their shoes off walking around playing in the water.
The more they walked around and played, the more they got wet. This is Caleb, Nathaniel, Terry and Madelyn.
This is my sister with her daughter E. and baby D. Her little guy was happy to toddle around in just his diaper.
It was cool how the faces on the stones would change with their face expressions, but what was really weird (and cool) was that there was a hole where the mouth was, and every so often, water would shoot out the mouth. The kids thought this was fun!
Here is my sister with her little guy.
Nathaniel and E. loved getting wet, and walking through the water.
I really think that Nathaniel got the most wet!
Madelyn and Caleb got tired from the long day. They really had fun though!
Terry took this cute picture of Maddie.

Caleb had such a great time!

Ta-da!
Thursday was mine and Terry's 4th Wedding Anniversary! This is a tradition to take a photo of ourselves. Our four years have really flown by! We have done a lot in four years! I will have to share that sometime.
Happy couple!
The famous Chicago-Style hot dog! The "works" includes: ketchup, mustard, onions, jalapenos and a pickle. We didn't get the jalapenos. It was rather tasty. We had to try one.

After the Millennium Park, we went for a drive around the city. We saw a great view of Lake Michigan. I think it looks like an ocean. They had a really long, sandy beach with volleyball nets, and other outdoor activities set up. The buildings in Chicago are big! We saw the Hancock building, drove by the Navy Pier, and saw the Sears Tower. We saw the Water Tower, and then we went to a "yuppy" mall. That is what my sister called it. It was a nice mall located very near the Water Tower. My two nieces loved to go shopping in there. Shopping isn't really my gig anymore, but it was fun to let the little kids run around in a section that was a bit closed off. We ate supper in there in a food court called Food Life. It was a lot of fun in there. The lighting was a little dim, and there were so many great food selections. We each had a card that we brought to which ever location we got food from. The place would prepare our order, and put the charge on the card. Then, we just paid our bill upon leaving. The selections were great! I had a Chinese-type of meal. I filled up my bowl with veggies and the chef added meat and sauces. It was served with rice or noodles. It was very good, and reminded me of a Mongo's Grill. Terry had a HUGE burrito, and the kids ate chicken Alfredo. I wish I could share photos of this part of our trip, but I had forgotten our camera in the van. My sister took pictures, and I am hoping to get copies (someday). The drive home was fun. I love seeing the city lights and action. It was a great day! The time flew!

I will share the last two days in another post. This post is a long one already! The trip was so fun! I hope to go again someday!

I am back from vacation

It was great to be away from home, and traveling out to Illinois for the week. I will say, it is good to be home, though. It is funny how when you are on vacation, home sounds so great at the end of a vacation. For the trip in the car, I was actually surprised at how well the kids did. We saw some fun sites, and missed the morning traffic jams on our first day of travel. My niece came with us, and it was fun to have her traveling with us, too.
It was great to see my sister and her family. She was so gracious to let us stay at their house for the week. Her daughters let Terry and I sleep in their bed, Maddie was in the pack-n-play in our room, Nathaniel slept down in the basement, and Caleb was going to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the boy's room. The first night, Caleb woke up crying at about 2 in the morning. My brother-in-law went in the room and brought him to us. (I wasn't awake for any of this) Caleb woke up sad and frightened. He didn't know where he was, or where we were. So, we ended up putting the mattress on the floor in our room. We were all snug in the room for the week, but it all went well.
We left at 6:00 A.M Monday morning. We made 2 stops for food. Breakfast was at Perkins (YUM) and Lunch was at a Truck Stop. We only made one other stop, and that was to get gas in a city just about 15 minutes from our house. We got to my sister's house at about 5:00. It seemed like the drive went quickly, and the kids were amazingly happy. We really didn't have any major issues or crying spells. I will say I am happy that we have a portable DVD player. We did watch a couple movies on the way out there, and a couple on the way home. Monday night we just hung out at their house and chit chatted. The kids had a fun time connecting and playing together. Suppertime! Caleb, and his two cousins. The one in the hat (Z.) is 6 years old, and his younger brother (E.) will be 3 in September. Caleb and E. are only 3 1/2 months difference in age.
Here is some of the clan! My sister's daughter, E. is the one in the white shirt, and she is 5.
E. and Maddie. E. was excited to have Maddie come. She loved playing with her. E. is a very girly girl, and so is Maddie, so they got along great.
When the kids were out playing in the back yard, a bird decided to nail Nathaniel with his deadly weapon.

I am sure that the bird knew Nathaniel was a hunter (or he does with his Dad) so, the bird fought back. ~LOL He did have his camouflage hat on. I thought it was pretty funny. Nathaniel wasn't impressed, to say the least.
Tuesday, we slept in a little bit~ like 7:00 A.M. ~ and just hung out in the morning. We decided to go out to eat for lunch. We went to Applebee's. Then, we drove to Aurora to the train yards to watch trains. Caleb and I took a cat nap. Then, we went to a park to play for awhile.






It was fun to just spend some time together as a family. Next we went to look for a swim suit for Terry. Can you believe that Walmart in Illinois does NOT carry swim suits in August? That is crazy! I think they should sell them year round! People travel in the winter, go to the gym/hotel, or other things. That was silly. In the evening, we just visited with my sister and her family. I didn't feel well that evening, so I am glad things were low key.
Wednesday, we drove to Chicago and went to the Shedd's World Aquarium. I love this place! I went there when I was in High School, and I loved it then! We saw so many great looking fish, and other aquatic animals.


What a big fish!! (and what a big baby bump!!)

We saw the dolphin show, but I will say I think it wasn't as great as I remember it to be.

Brotherly Love~



All the Dolphins got up on the edge and posed for us.

We ate lunch at the Shedd's restaurant: Soundings. We had a great view of the city of Chicago from up there. The prices of the meals were spendy there, but we didn't have cash on hand to buy from the vendor's outside of Shedd's.
The Dolphins were really fun to watch! We were amazed at how fast they swim! I read on the Shedd's website that the Oceanarium will be in construction for 9 months starting in September and be closed. So, I am really thankful that we went when we did!
This crab was crazy looking. He even had the Ocean animal life growing on him, as well as it was growing on the rocks in the tank. I am not sure what it was. It was fun to watch him, though.
These are some Sea Horses. What amazing creatures!

We also watched a Dive Show, where a diver went in with a pool of fish and talked about what they did, liked, how they responded to things in the ocean, etc. It was a great experience, and fun to learn more. The kids all liked our day there, but they were tired when we were done. When we left, we were walking on the sidewalks. We noticed two squirrels chasing each other, and it was so comical. Then, the one squirrel took off, and one was left behind. So, we decided to feed something to the squirrel. He got pretty close to Nathaniel, and I think he would have got a little closer, but Caleb made some sounds and got out of the stroller.


A seagull joined in on the snack time, and I think they wanted to have a fight over the cereal. It was a fun time, and we enjoyed the interaction.

Next, we stopped at the Children's Garden, located near the Shedd's Aquarium. The kids had a great time playing in here. It was a "yuppie park" as Terry called it. I thought it was interesting and fun.

Madelyn loved the rocks.

The floor under the jungle gym was squishy, like a soft foam. There were some planets, spherical shapes, that the kids played with or on, too. Maddie really liked playing with the rocks. After the park time, we decided to head back. We did a little sight seeing, then got back on the road for my sister's house. We noticed we needed gas, so we pulled into a gas station. $4.47 a gallon in Chicago!!! Isn't that terrible? We only got 4 gallons to get us back. That was a ridiculous amount to pay for gas! My sister said Chicago is the most expensive for gas anywhere in the state. I believe it! We had a late supper Tuesday night...it was about 8:00. The kids were very tired from a long day.
I will write more about our trip over the next few days, and share photos that we took. I didn't want to write it all in one, because there is so much to share with you. So, stay tuned to what happened next. :)
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