We had planned to sleep in a little on Sunday morning and were sure to sternly instruct the kids not to wake others up if they woke up first (a point of etiquette it seems that we area continually working on). Thus, when Anna woke up bright and early Sunday morning, she decided to quietly enjoy the view from our window.
Of course, this involved opening the curtains…
…and waking the rest of us up:). It ended up being a good thing because we had all slept well, and it was nice to get a fairly early start. After checking for breakfast places on Urban Spoon, we decided to walk to Wildberry Pancakes and Café which was only about a half a mile away.
There was about a half hour wait, which was no problem. It was beautiful outside, and we sat enjoying the light breeze and taking silly pictures.
In fact, we even got to eat outside, which was perfect. Anna and Luke both got some kind of sugar concoction for breakfast (s’more pancakes, anyone?), and Anna was particularly pumped:
In the meantime, I had a spinach, mushroom, and bacon omelet that was soooo good.
The goat cheese. Oh, the goat cheese. I loved it so much.
Sorry for the pic of half eaten food, but you had to see the goat cheese.
Mmmmmmm….
After breakfast, we walked across the street to the newly completed Maggie Daly park. Chicago was just showing off, weather-wise, and the day was absolutely gorgeous.
That silver thing in the foreground is a fancy, swirly bridge.
Maggie Daly park also had a rock climbing wall…
…and a mini-golf course which were, alas, not open.
However, the playground was.
And it was phenomenal.
It was huge and funky and unique, and our kids had a blast exploring its many play areas.
One area was called “The Enchanted Forest,” which was fun to wander through.
After roaming through the forest, we went to the lighthouse area. Luke and Anna are up in the lighthouse in the above picture, if you can’t tell.
Around that time, Greg left us to go check out of our hotel. The plan was that we would meet back up at this big fountain that Greg had seen yesterday while walking back through Grant Park to get our car. He showed me what he thought was the fountain on the map, and the kids and I set off to find it. He thought it was a fountain that you could play in, so the kids changed into swimsuits before we walked down there. However, the fountain we went to wasn’t actually the one Greg had seen. This one was called Buckingham Fountain, and you could not play in it.
Still, it was very pretty and cool to see.
Since the kids had a hankering to get wet, I texted Greg and told him we were heading over to the spitting fountains, and he could meet us there.
On the way, we passed the art museum again, where we got a picture of this statue made of…interesting material.
I felt a little guilty about not visiting the art museum, especially since kids were free, but my guilt eased that morning when I saw how packed the museum was. There was a long line out the door, and I really didn’t think Luke and Anna would enjoy it all that much. They certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed that line!
In contrast, the spitting fountains were far less crowded than they had been the day before.
My pictures don’t show this, but there are two pillars with those faces on them. They face each other, and spit at the same time.
The kids enjoyed just hanging out and getting wet for awhile while we waited for Greg to rejoin us.
Greg met back up with us bearing bus passes. He thought we’d head to the Lincoln Park Zoo, but by then, it was just after noon, and my number one priority for the day was to see the Museum of Science and Industry, which closed at 5:00. It was a long bus ride to the zoo, and even longer bus ride from the zoo to the museum, so we decided to skip the zoo and take the bus to the museum instead.
Bus selfie!
I was so excited to get to the Museum of Science and Industry:
It was another one that we got in free with our Adventure Science membership.
Unlike the Field Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry far exceeded our expectations.
In the transportation section, there were full sized vehicles of all kinds, and an amazing train layout:
At the Field Museum, we didn’t pay extra for any exhibits, which ended up maybe being a mistake because the coolest exhibits were the ones that cost extra. Determined not to make the same mistake twice, I sprung for the robot exhibit at this museum. It was pretty cool, but honestly, there ended up being so many wonderful things to do at this museum that I didn’t need to pay for anything extra.
Still, I took a million pictures of the robot exhibit, and I will now exercise remarkable self-control by just showing you one, that of Anna playing tic tac toe with a robot:
There were tons of different robots around the room, and they were all very interactive, some of them in a “generation-away-from-world-takeover” kind of way—but entertaining nevertheless.
After we got done with the robots, we went to a section about business and entrepreneurship.
This rock climbing wall was supposed to illustrate successful principles of business, but I’m pretty sure my kids only saw it as a rock climbing wall.
We did spring $5 for a top just to see it assembled by machines, factory-style. Honestly, it was worth it. The top ended up being pretty cool (it even had Luke and Anna’s name on it, along with the name of the museum and the date). And watching it get put together was a lot of fun.
From there we headed to the weather section:
There, Anna had fun with landslide patterns:
We also interacted with exhibits telling about earthquakes and tsumanis, but again, I am heroically trying to limit the amount of pictures in this already gargantuan post.
I do have to show the Foucault’s pendulum, just because my kids are absolutely obsessed with Foucault’s pendulums.
Seriously, they both could have sat there all day just watching the pendulum swing rhythmically back and forth.
From there we went through a full sized plane…
…and saw a plane from another era.
Perhaps our favorite thing, in the midst of all these fun exhibits, was the world’s largest pinball machine. It was seriously a marvel.
It probably took about five minutes from start to finish, and it was amazing to see all the little things set off by that rolling ball.
From there we went to a circus exhibit. My one photo from there came from a projector with falling grains of sand, and your shadow could “catch them”:
I didn’t really understand how it worked, but the kids had fun with it.
After passing through the circus exhibit, and “seek and find” exhibit, and an exhibit on German U-boats, we spent a good amount of time in this interactive play area:
In the picture above left, Luke is using mirrors to make a laser stretch all the way from one end of the case to the other.
Meanwhile, Anna was enamored by the water.
The last thing we saw at the museum was this amazing fairy house. The level of detail in all the rooms was astonishing.
Finally, we hit up the gift shop, and then headed out. We stayed 3 1/2 hours at the museum and still didn’t see everything! It was so interactive and fun.
We had planned to take the bus back to the Magnificent Mile and find a place to eat dinner, but we realized that we were putting ourselves on schedule to get back to Indianapolis way late. So instead, we decided to eat on the way home. The last thing we did before getting our car was to stop by Dylan’s Candy Bar, a store recommended by our friend, Heidi. Since she was also the one who recommended Maggie Daly park, we decided to take her suggestion.
It was a very bright store!
It was also quite expensive, but we finally decided on each getting a candy bar. They had tons of flavors to choose from.
After the candy store, it was time to head back to Indiana. We had so much fun in Chicago, and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to explore a new place!
