That's a Wrap!

Before we left Chicago I wanted to make sure that we got downtown one last time. I also had four places left that I wanted to see so on Wednesday August 6th, Kelsey and I planned a crazy adventure down town for the very last time. I have never felt more capable and more city like in my whole life. It was exhilarating.

Kelsey and I rode the Metra into the city and our first stop was the Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Bank. It was surprisingly really cool and really kid friendly.

Kelsey loved the money floor the best

Here is 1 million dollars!

And here is one million dollars again

This was my favorite part. They showed how they destroy money when its counterfeit or just old. After they showed you how to shred it they they let you take home a bag of the shreds. Basically I made $364 on Wednesday. No big deal.

This was a simulator of how the money is spent in the US and how some of it goes really quickly through the system and how some goes really slow. All the colors meant something but I didn't have time to really read up on it.

 

Different currencies

 

The real/counterfeit game. Kelsey should go into the banking business because she guessed every single one right! She's a genius.

The top is fake the bottom is real :)

After the money museum we hopped on the brown line and headed to the Harold Washington Library, but let me pause right there a take a moment to celebrate  the eL! I finally did and I finally saw where Lucy works in While you Were Sleeping!!

Here's where Jack purposes (not really but play along!)

  

And here's where Peter falls on the tracks! (Ps there is NO WAY that Lucy could have slipped them under the station away from the train. I totally checked)

 

Seriously though the eL is the way to go. Its so much faster and less crowded and just fun!
We rode the Brown Line to the Library and ran up to see the roof.

The library is where we had a parental induced melt down. Let me explain. For Wednesday to work, everything had to be on time and on schedule. I thrive on that sort of stuff and to me that kind of adds to the fun. BUT because that was the case we didn't have time for two year old shenanigans. Kelsey was super awesome by the way, not where I'm headed. When we were in the library I decided to let Kelsey walk with me if she held my hand allowing me to still feel in control but allowing her to feel freedom. Win/win. We were looking at the roof and then it was time to go and right then I saw the elevator doors open. If we really hurried we could make it to the doors in time and save ourselves a whole 45 seconds to get to the train that much sooner. Everything was perfect. I grabbed Kelsey's hand, pushed the stroller with my hip and took off assuming that Kelsey would run along side me. I'm basically running through the library when some man was giving me the most dirty looks I have ever seen! Naturally I glare back. How dare he judge this awesome mom! After I glared back, I heard a faint cry from below my hip, "MOOOOMMY!" I looked down and I Kelsey was on her stomach and knees literally being DRAGGED across the library floor! She was trying so hard to get on her feet but I was in too much of a hurry. What made the situation even cooler was the first thing I said to Kelsey included something like this, " Kelsey! There's no time!!!" HA! At this point I lost it.  I started laughing so hard that we did in fact miss the elevator and probably another one after. Luckily Kelsey really wasn't that hurt or bothered but my goodness! I so wish I could have seen me that day. Ultimate tourist right here!

After our fun at the library we hopped on the Orange Line and headed to the Thompson Center where we grabbed a much needed burger and root beer float. Yes, the root beer float was most needed.

You are allowed to ride the elevator to the top but ever since having kids, elevators just aren't my friend so we decided to skip that ride.

After lunch we grabbed the Red Line Subway and headed to North Chicago to finally get my Sprinkles ATM cupcake!

I LOVED the subway! It was so much fun!

After weeks of anticipation, the door finally opened to reveal our over priced yet delicious cupcake!

Red velvet and cream cheese frosting

And from Sprinkles we grabbed bus 66 to head on home. Kelsey was such a trooper the whole time.We saw everything I wanted to, completely completed my Chicago "To Do" list and successfully rode every form of transportation in the city. It was a great day and I feel completely cityized! 

And with that, that's a wrap! Live from Chicago for the last time, goodbye and goodnight!

Our Chicago Church

Here is where we have gone to church all summer. Very different structurally from any other church we have ever attended but once you get inside, a LDS church is a LDS

 The view from the side

  

Once you drive through the gates, there is the parking garage

 The front doors

 The steeple

 The "front"

 When you walk in the doors. The elevator and bike parking. There are always at least 2 bikes there

 The stairs up

 And then you can see where the church becomes a church. From there is gets very normal.

Done and Done

Here is our complete list this summer. Not every thing got crossed off but we did everything we wanted to.  What an adventure we have had. (The list is the initial list so it does not include everything that we actually did just everything that we wanted to do before we came and did if that makes sense. )

1. Sears Tower
2. Hancock Tower
3. Chicago Theater
4. Tribune Tower
5. Trump Tower
6. Union Station
7. Corn Cob Buildings
8. The Bean
9. Millennium Pavilion
10. Buckingham Fountain
11. Water Tower
12. Magnificent Mile
13. Museum Campus
14. Lincoln Park Zoo
15. Oz Park
16. Aqua Building
17. Crown Fountain
18. Chicago Dog
19. Deep dish pizza
20. Take a taxi
21. Ride a train
22. Ride a bus
23. Wicker Park
24. Coyote building
25. Culture Building ceiling
26. Lincoln Park conservatory
27. Navy Pier
28. Chicago Library
29. Wrigley Field
30. Botanic Gardens
31. Navy Pier fireworks
32. Ride the eL
33. Garfield Park Conservatory
34. Peggy Notebaert Museum
35. Macy's Ceiling
36. Rookery Ceiling
37. Taste of Chicago (rain cancelled the event)
38. Cubs Game
39. Play in Crown Fountain
40. Target Days
41. Blue Man Group (a girl can hope)
42. Lilly Pad Park
43. Chinatown
44. Osaka Gardens
45. Hyde Park
46. Nauvoo
47. Southbend
48. Sand dunes (too rainy when we went)
49. Springfield  (drove home a different way)
50. Concert @ Millennium Park
51. Chicago Temple
52. Eat from a food truck
53. Boat Tour (too long and expensive for a two year old)
54. Beach Day
55. Museum of Science and Industry
56. University of Chicago
57. Money Museum
58. Jane Addams gardens
59. Lake Shore Gardens
60. Gardens around Art Institute
61. Dewes Mansion
62. Leaning Tower (really far away)
63. Frederick Robbie House
64. River Walk
65. Ernest Hemingway House
66. Museum of Stained Glass
67. Jesse Owens Park(bad part of town)
68. Humbodlt Park (bad part of town)
69. 50 cent bakery
70. Children's Museum
71. United Center
72. Bears Stadium
73. White Sox Stadium
74. Spirit of Music Garden
75. Art Day @  Chicago Art Institute (decided we weren't really age appropriate)
76. Museum of Art (didn't want to wrestle a two year old in there unfortunately)
77. Thompson Ceiling
78. Second Pres Church ceiling
79. Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park (way further than I anticipated but sad we didn't make it)
80. Fourth Presbyterian Church
81. Route 66 marker (found out that I didn't care enough to walk to it)
82. Frank Lloyd Wright home
83. Skinner Park
84. Mary Humboldt Park
85. Washington Square Park
86. Walking tour of West town
87. Rockefeller Memorial Chapel Interior
88. The Obama's House 
89. Roots
90. Coal Fire
91. Alliance Bakery
92. Hot Chocolate (went to too many other great places to eat)
93. St Mary's Church Interior (didn't care enough to go apparently)
94. French Market (tried to find it twice and couldn't)
95. Watch the bridges rise on Bridge Day
96. Superdawgs (further than I thought)
97. Rainbow Cone (further than I thought)
98. Sprinkles ATM
99. Lous
100. Buckingham fountain light show
101. Milton Olive Park
102. Hot Dougs ( way further than we thought)
103. Frank Lloyd Wright tour
104. Oak Park Conservatory
105. Garfield Conservatory
106. Fatso's
107. Eat at Mariano's
108. Gelato at Mariano's
109. Hoosier Mama Pie
110. Fountain of Time
111. Wagner Farms (way too far of a drive)
112. Drexel fountain (only cool at night so never made it)
113. Washington Square Park
114. Navy Pier fireworks

The Butterfly House

 Well I can't believe I am going to type this but we are in our final week of Chicago. I took the time on Sunday to make a list of everything we wanted to do that we haven't yet done and honestly it was pretty small. By this point we have either already seen it or we actually didn't care enough in 10 weeks to make the effort to see it. 

One of the things that I wanted to do one more time before we left was visit the Lincoln Zoo. We have gone about 5 times and just love it. Its not that it was that fantastic of a zoo but for a free activity it was a fun way to spend being outside. 

Kels in the ant hole

 Kels on the hippo

 The first time that we visited the zoo Kelsey wasn't too interested in the animals. By our last visit she loved them. She started requesting which ones we visited and would try to mimic the things that they were doing or saying. My favorite is when she was the zebras shaking their tails and said " Shake your booty zeba?" I also love how she say polar bear, rhino, seal, and lion. Her little two year old voice and pronunciation is just adorable. She never really got over being scared of the tigers or monkeys though. The last time we visited, the tigers were growling (its was AWESOME) but the volume really scared her. The gorillas were also super active and were swinging and playing and chasing each other and running around (again, super awesome) but I guess seeing how big they really were/are compared to when they are lying around scared her. If you ask her about the zoo, these moments are bound to come up. 

After our picnic at the zoo, we finally made it over to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum where they have the butterfly house. It was a small museum but pretty cool. It was also free to us with our ASTC membership so an added bonus. We really didn't spend much time there because nap time was approaching and then coolest thing about it was the butterfly house!

 I told Kelsey that we were going to the museum so naturally she sat in the flowers and started picking them.

 The view from the roof

 Imagine a greenhouse full of beautiful flowers and about 200 butterflies! It was as beautiful and as peaceful as it sounds. Some of the butterflies were HUGE, like as big as my hand from wrist to finger tips, so it was a little freaky when they would fly towards your face. One landed on my arm and it tickled like crazy. Kelsey did NOT like the butterflies flying around and it seems silly but I kind of don't blame her. Like I said, I get nervous of anything flying towards my face too.

Even though Kels was scared, I loved the butterfly house. There were so many that you couldn't really avoid them landing on you. It was so much fun! 

This one was my favorite. The blue was super shimmery and the best part was that the blue was kind of hidden. When these butterflies sit with their wings closed they are totally brown and kind of ugly. When they fly though, you get to see the blue.

I got this one to climb on my finger and the 3 5 year olds around me thought I was the coolest person in the whole world.

The butterfly house was so amazing. I loved being in there. I thought the process of keeping them in the room was really interesting too. They had a giant mirror by the back door to check and see if any are on you and then you walk through this giant fan that blows into the room. Apparently the fan discourages the butterflies from flying towards the door. They want to be in a calm environment so the fan is considered uncalm. Who knew! I guess it makes sense but I just have never put a ton of time into butterfly life.

This week our vines started sprouting flowers and I discovered morning glories for the first time! Every morning when we leave the house we see these beautiful flowers on the vines but by the time we get back around 12/2 the flowers are gone. I thought the first day that the heat killed them off but then I realized that we had morning glories on our hands! I love them so much.

I'm going to miss Stanley's. I got this CASE of strawberries for 98cents. THE WHOLE THING!! I was so sad that I could only buy one and not freeze like a million of them. I'm not really embarrassed but it took us one day to eat 4 packs and 2 days to 7! I also made a pie that reminded me of Carolyn and it was delicious. 

Zooma 10k

August 2nd I ran the Zoom 10k along Lake Michigan. Originally I was going to do the half, but I just had a hard time finding the time to train and it was stressing me out. Halfs are hard enough. There was no way that I could do it with only a max of 7.3 miles as my long run. To make it a fun and stress free race I decided to switch to the 10k which was the best choice I have made all summer.



I didn't know it at the time, but the Zooma races are all women races. It was really fun to run with just women although I do have to say it was harder to convince myself that I was doing this just for fun. I don't mind being beat by men because genetically they are faster. I have a hard time being beat by women. Its a major pride thing. I know.

While I was running Kelsey and Ethan played at the beach. I don't know many of the details but the pictures tell me that it was cold and really fun!

 

 It was such a beautiful morning. Clear and sunny with a high of 65. It was slightly breezy too which made running really nice.

 

I have run a lot in my life, but outside of high school I actually haven't run too many races. They get pricey and so I have had to be choosey over the years. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was the first 10k I have ever raced which made me laugh. You would have thought I would have run one by now, but I guess not.

My goal in every race is to not get passed. I am allowed to pass people but no one is allowed to pass me back. Unfortunately I got out kicked by a 35 year old, but I had to be okay with that. I didn't really train for this race AND promised Ethan that I wouldn't kick it in the end. I held up my promise. I am excited though because I got 2nd in my age group and 9th overall. I ran a 52 which disappoints me but Ethan keeps reminding me that considering how little I trained I need to learn to be happy with just finishing the race. He is so right, but the runner inside can't help it!

I really really REALLY love racing. Ethan I both agreed that I need to run more races. We have decided to make a race budget. It won't be crazy and obviously will change depending on well lost of things but I am excited for more races in my future! There is nothing like running on a course with a bib with hundreds or other people. Best high in the world.