Chicago...Squeezing A Lot Of Fun Into One Day!

Our next full day in Chicago began with a short walk down our street to the Lake Michigan shoreline. I guess we wore Carson out the previous day...see how he is walking and holding his back like an old man?!?

Here is Caylie posing by the water...

It was funny to see the sand and water, and then to see huge skyscrapers in the background! That is NOT how we are used to experiencing the beach!

Me and my sweet girl...

Next, we decided to walk to Millennium Park. On the way, we passed this huge statue. I don't know what the significance of it was, but it was big and cool, so we stopped for a picture!

Below, Caylie and Christian posed for me on the Millennium Park sign. Millennium Park is a big attraction in Chicago. There are often free evening concerts held here. If we had been in town longer, we would have tried to attend one.

The park is also home to this famous piece of art. The Bean. It is a smooth, shiny sculpture that beautifully reflects the surrounding skyline. We really enjoyed getting to see it.

A typical tourist shot...waving to our own reflections in the bean!

The park also has a great fountain area that children enjoy playing in. We didn't have a swimsuit for Carson, but we stripped him down, and let him have at it!

He ran and played...loving every minute of it!

After playing for a while, we coaxed him out, dried him off, and re-dressed him.

Next stop...

Lego World!

Carson is a BIG Lego fan. He thought that this little Lego boy was pretty cool!

And he was so fascinated with the big, colorful wall of Lego pieces!

Caylie did some graphic work on a few of our Chicago pictures (you can probably pick out which ones), and I love what she did with them!

Here, she played around with a picture of Christian helping Carson fill a cup with Legos! The deal was that you pay a certain amount for the cup, and then fill it as full as you can...these boys got the cup VERY full!

With his special purchase in hand, Carson went to sit in Caylie's lap and visit with a BIG Lego Man!

We decided to have lunch at the Italian Village. It was an interesting little place. We enjoyed our meal, and then set off for the next spot on our agenda...

Chinatown!

Caylie had wanted to visit Chinatown to shop for a good deal on a purse. She found both a purse and a wallet that she really liked, and was happy with the price. Her purse was her favorite purchase of the trip! I think that it is so cute that I have been regretting not buying one for myself! Maybe next time!

Still plugging along, the next attraction in the lineup was the Field Museum.

We had not even gotten through the admission line before Carson checked out! Caylie and I were exhausted too, so we pushed Carson into the cafe, and sat down to relax a for a few minutes. Corey and Christian took that time to check out the museum, and then traded off with Caylie and me. Carson's nap didn't last long, but it did make things at the museum a little bit easier while it lasted!

There was an incredible, temporary exhibit about pirates on display while we were there. We knew that we were on borrowed time with Carson, so we had to keep moving, but if I hadn't had a time restriction, I could probably have spent 2-3 hours in that exhibit alone!

The museum was huge and fascinating! We were not able to do it the way that it should have been done, but you could easily spend hours and hours there!

In one part of the museum, the focus was "the soil". It sounded boring, and I wasn't very interested in checking it out, but it surprised me. The displays made you feel as though you had been reduced to the size of a bug by making everything around you appear so large. From that point, it taught you about your new surroundings.

Here are the kids posing beside a huge penny!

Christian is hanging out with the bugs...see all of the roots growing into the ground around him?

After we left the museum, we were all wiped out! We went back and took a late nap, and then took a short walk down the street for dinner.

Corey and Christian offered to take Carson and let Caylie and me do some after dinner shopping in exchange for a trip to ESPN Zone when we returned! We took 'em up on it!

We first headed to a store that Caylie had been dying to visit...Urban Outfitters.

She bought some sunglasses that she really liked, so here she is showing them off!

Next, we were off to a huge Forever 21! It was 2 sprawling floors of stylish, reasonably priced clothes. Caylie was eating up every second of it!

While we were there, we received a special delivery...Carson! He was great though. We kept him with us as the guys headed out to ESPN Zone.

When we finally left and started our walk home, we were so tired that we wanted to crawl! I don't know when we have been so tired! We should have just taken a taxi, but didn't for some reason!

The guys had beaten us back, and came down to help us carry the stroller (and Carson) up the winding stairs.

We all crashed into our beds, but it was not going to be a peaceful night...more about that in the next post...

Writing the Waves,
Christi