Tourist Day 4: Museum Campus

Saturday was our last day of our 6 week vacation and we wanted to go out with a bang. We decided that we were going to drive to Museum Campus, pay the 22 dollars to park, and go to the other museums that we hadn't yet. First we went to the Field Museum and spent about 3 hours there.

 

Kelsey loved the "dinaser"

Kelsey lasted about 20 minutes and then the melt downs began. Luckily the Museum is prepared for kids like her and has a little kid play place. Ethan and I took turns looking at exhibits while she played with the instruments and colored pictures. It wasn't ideal, but it ended up happy for everyone.

 

My favorite exhibit that I did  was the bio-mechanics exhibit. It basically showed how things work and why. I love that kind of stuff.

This chair was awesome. You sat in it and used the different sized fans to simulate a bird flying. When you used the fan up and down, the chair started to spin. It was fascinating. I probably looked so funny because I was all by myself but was laughing like I was at a party. It was so much fun!

There was another exhibit that "shrunk" you down to the size of an ant so that you could see what its like underground. They made everything huge so that you could see life 

from their eyes. It was super cool.

The view from the dino exhibit.

Obviously Kelsey's favorite part was walking up and down the stairs again, and again, and again....
I'll I can say is good thing she's free to stuff!

After the Field Museum we had a picnic in the park and headed down the street to the Planetarium.

See, not kidding!!

The planetarium was really cool, but we are not sciency enough to really get into the exhibts. I'm glad we walked through it but we were only there like an hour or so. We had tickets to go to like 4 shows, but after 10 minutes of one Kelsey was done. Ethan finished the show while we played on the stairs outside the theater. Honestly, I was bored too, so it was a win win win for us.

The coolest part to me was the Apollo 13 exhibit. They had the actual ship there. It was pretty cool.

The children's section was AWESOME but it was in the dome of the building so it was like a million degrees. We didn't last very long.

After the planetarium we just walked around the lake. I mean we paid 22 bucks to park. We were going to make the most of it. (and yes, that's a normal parking fee. Yikes right?!)

It was a gorgeous day and so we could see Indiana and Michigan.

 

 

 

Please come see this in real life. It is breath taking.

We were in a walking mood and it was gorgeous outside so we decided to walk up to Buckingham fountain.

More of the city art work. There are sculptures everywhere

I don't know what the park is called, but we walked past the park where President Obama gave his speech when he was elected as president. It was a beautiful park and the lilacs were in full bloom so I was in heaven. They are my favorite flower so I pretty much just stood on the path taking in the smell. Kinda weird, but I'm still not over dad cutting down the lilac bushes when I was in high school.

And this is what I looked like most days

 JK! Come on! I have some dignity!!!

Okay the backpack was for realsies though

And that concludes our wonderful vacation. It was an amazing 6 weeks but sadly real life has to start right?! Is it real if we are in Chicago? I still can't tell yet.  I'm excited for Ethan to start work because I know he is excited and ready, but I don't want him to leave. You know when people joke that they are ready for their husbands to go back to work, I just don't get those jokes. Ethan could stay around all day long like forever if he wanted. I love having him around. Life is so much better when he is. These past 6 weeks have been the happiest I have been in a long time. That being said good luck at Gallup Ethan! Hope you love it!

Tourist Day 3 aka Bad Parents

What do you get when you drag a 2 year old around for days with no nap and  no consistent meal time in a new city?! You get a very angry two year old. I promise!
Friday May 30th we decided to take it down a notch and let Kelsey be little for a day. It was hard for me, but Ethan kept reminding me that we are not visiting, we live here. The morning was spent stocking up at the sketchist Walmart I have ever been to, naps, and actual real live lunch.

In the evening we grabbed the first bus we could and headed to the city for more fun.

We took a bus downtown and it was the worst bus experience we have had yet. Kelsey kept pulling the stop cord and kept wanting to walk around and was screaming!!! As soon as we knew we were downtown we jumped off, and I can't say this confidently, but I'm pretty sure the other passengers were cheering and applauding. I mean, I might be confusing that with our cheering for getting OFF the bus, but the point is that everyone was happy that we were off the bus. A slight miracle happened too. Right across from our stop was at park. Halleluiah! We spent a lot of time there.

Even the parks here blow my mind. I just can't get over always being surrounded by buildings. Its beautiful in its own way. Our neighborhood is not like that so its easy to still be impressed.

 

This is the Chicago water tower. It was one of the few buildings to survive the Chicago fire.

We took a stroll down the Magnificent Mile which is where a lot of shopping happens

This is supposed to show how busy it is on a Friday, but it doesn't really

Every summer, Michigan Avenue has a summer art display. This year the art was painted seats from Wrigley field. They lined the whole street and it was super cool.

 

As part of our tour, we got "free" samples to some of the local favorites. My favorite stop was the gelato place. The server was super nice and let me try all the flavors which included but is not exclusive to:

Lemon, Raspberry, Strawberry, Blueberry basil

and Straccicatella (chocolate chip) which was my favorite.

Ethan's favorite stop was at the Hersey store for our free Kiss. We also got a free t-shirt, the popcorn, candy, and pictures. Pretty fun perks

Maybe I'll stop being obsessed with this building someday

More pictures of the city

This building is built to swoop like this: )(

After walking the Mag Mile, we decided to get dinner at the Cheesecake factory. Besides the fact that the waiter forgot our bread, we had more than enough to eat and more. Gotta love it.

No joke... These signs are everywhere. I don't know whether to feel safe or scared!

The faces in these fountains change every so often. Its hot spot in the summer when its hot

On the way to the train station, there was a giant bike parade. We have no idea why, but there were like 200 bikes followed by cop cars. It seemed really legit, but it held up all sorts of traffic.

After our bus experience in the afternoon, we decided to ride the train home. We bought our tickets and had time to kill so we just let Kelsey run around in the lobby. The lobby is really huge! Like fits a train huge. We had to wait for 30 minute and it was the most relaxing time spent the whole day.

While we were at the train station, there were only like 4 other people waiting for trains. We had were able to let Kelsey run around without being too disruptive. She started climbing on the benches and while I wasn't looking she climbed up behind a couple, popped up behind their heads and went BOO! It was hilarious. The lady screamed so loud and then we all laughed really hard. I'm so glad they were nice about it.

You can't really see it, but this is a good picture to show how the city looks from our neighborhood. You can't see the city from our street because of all the trees, but its fun to get on the main streets and see the city.