Chicago 2023

 We had a very full day today! We started our morning at the Museum of Science and Industry. They had some very awesome interactive exhibits. One dropped virtual "sand" and you tried to use your body to catch all the grains of sand. Another was a light piano. The kids stepped on the different colors and it made different piano notes. Then they had some decorated rooms for "I spy".  We decided to head to the space section next because we knew our movie was going to be at 10:30. We chose "Passport to the Universe" narrated by Tom Hanks. It was in a big dome theater and sure made me feel very small in our huge universe. In the space area we learned about the different Apollo missions and the boys "shot" some rockets.  We then went and saw the US-505 which is a German submarine. It cost to go into the submarine, so we didn't go in, but we walked around it and the boys did a game to practice being the submarine driver. We then made our way to the

 Today was a day of happy accidents. We began our day at the Shedd Aquarium. On the aquarium's main floor were various sections showing fish and other animals that would live in certain area (ponds, lakes, Amazon River, etc). We took our time looking at the different animals. After a couple sections Thom saw a virtual reality ride and the boys wanted to ride so we got tickets and went swimming virtually with the sharks.  In the lower section of the aquarium was the beluga whales, sea lions, dolphins and otters. We watched two animal spotlights- one on penguins and one on the beluga whales. I think the beluga whales are beautiful. The boys liked watching them swim, make noises and jump. The Shedd has a neat underwater viewing area to see the animal swim around. We watched the belugas for awhile because they would swim right up to us. We saw some penguins and then found a little submarine that the boys liked to play with. The aquarium was nice but I really thought there would be more

 We got to sleep in quite a bit this morning before heading to The Field Museum. We woke up around 9:10  and started to get ready. Breakfast at the hotel ends at 9:30 so I went downstairs and got a tray of food for everyone. They had scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon, cereal, bagels and yogurt. There is only one chair in our room so the boys sat together while they ate.  We headed for the Field Museum about 10:30 by Uber. The traffic really wasn’t bad at all! We purchased the City Pass so we got discounted prices into the museums. At The Field Museum we got access to all the “pay to see” exhibits as well as one movie. We chose “Waking the TRex” as our movie.  We started downstairs at the Underground Adventure which “shrinks” you down 100x And you go through the tunnels of the soil and learn about different critters and what is happening under our feet. The boys liked the bugs and Rocky asked to go back to see more.  After we went to the Kids Science Lab. It was meant for kids up to the a

 Although today didn’t go quite as we had planned it, it was a wonderful adventure! The train was supposed to depart this morning around 8:00am. Unfortunately, with all the weather out west it was incredibly delayed. When I went to bed last night we learned that it was delayed until about 4:00pm. By the time we woke up this morning it was delayed until 4:45.  We used the extra day at home to our advantage and did some cleaning and relaxed. We enjoyed a late lunch at Playa before coming home to shower and get the last minute essentials packed.  We headed to the depot when we saw the train was in Creston. We followed the train’s progress all day on their website.  There were between 20-30 people who got on the train in Osceola. As we waited in the depot I noticed some things that could be updated so I might make that my summer project.  We boarded the train shortly after 6:00pm. We sat down in the coach area for a couple minutes before moving to the observation deck. The coach seats are