Chicago is HOT HOT HOT!!

We decided to kick off the summer with a trip to Chicago as a family.  When we chose June 10 as a date we were not expecting it to be in the mid-90's while we were there!  It was our first out of state road trip with the kids. 

Jer: Have you kids ever driven across state lines?

Leila: No, we can't drive!

We left Friday morning and went straight to Lincoln Park Zoo.  It took us a bit to park as Google Maps told us we had arrived at our destination, but the parking lot was nowhere to be seen.  

 The kids like to monkey around!!  The apes and gorillas were Henry's favorite.

 The zebras were Leila's favorite animal to see.

We had a quick lunch at the zoo and luckily found a table with a shade umbrella to sit under.

  Then we continued walking around the zoo and ran into Leila's teacher and her family and friends.

 Stella loved seeing the giraffe the most.  On the way to the zoo, I told the kids about a sing along that they have at the farm on the zoo.  Stella asked, "But do the animals sing too?"

 Leila was holding Henry up to get a better view of the hippos.

 We were waiting for other kids to get off the hippos to get a picture of Stella, but it was so busy with buses and buses of school groups that we just took one in the chaos. :)

 I wanted to get a picture of all 3 kids by the cheetah sign, but Leila wanted to be up on a different box, then didn't want to smile because she wanted to be in the picture by herself.

 By the time she smiled, Stella was done.

 And forget about getting Henry to smile.  He was done.

 After seeing the big cats we went back to a shady table with a pretzel and cotton candy.

 After our snack, we took a wrong turn on the way back to the car and everyone was hot, tired, and crabby.  You can see their rosy cheeks as we took a pit stop in the air conditioned food court.

 We made one last stop at this bridge before leaving because it had a great view of the skyline.

 Henry wanted to take a picture and Stella had a ready smile.

 I got a picture of Jer and the kids and then had Leila take one of us.

 Not much skyline, but admittedly she is shorter than us.

 After the zoo, we drove for about an hour to go 4 miles. :)  It was a good time to sit in the car in the air conditioning and the kids all took a nap.

 We went down Michigan Avenue and then meandered through some back streets while not listening to Google maps tell us to turn.

 We drove under the L.  After finally finding a place to park, we dragged the kids to Millennium park to see the bean.

 As you can see, the children started melting.

 Stella laid on the ground and Henry really wanted to be held.

 I distracted him with taking pictures, he was happy to be the photographer.

 After the bean, we managed to find Giordano's pizza and had a nice dinner.

 We drove back toward home a ways and stopped at our hotel in Portage, Indiana.  It was a suite that had two rooms, one with two twin beds, and one with a king bed.  We had planned to get a roll-away bed, but they didn't have one, and I will never forget the time I slept on the floor in a hotel growing up and woke to a bug on my pillow, so I didn't want to put one of the kids on the floor.  We improvised and put them into the king bed.

 In the morning after breakfast we went to the pool.  This hotel had a nice kid's pool, a hot tub, and a regular pool.  A few other guests came and went, but for the most part we had it to ourselves, it was great!

 After we checked out of the hotel, we had to stop at the Bass Pro Shop that was just across the parking lot.

They were even having a special Saturday event where the kids could fish for blue gill in their pool.

 It was still really HOT out again today, so we decided that the first fish caught would also be the last.

 Stella had the lucky line.

 I love this picture.  It is an excellent example of Jer's camera skills (he cut off my head) and how hard it is to get a good picture of Stella since she is always blinking or looking in the wrong direction.

 None of the kids wanted to be anywhere near the fish, however Henry complained that he didn't get to touch the fish after we had already thrown it back.

 Inside the massive store there were a ton of animals on display and Leila was quick to tell us about taxidermy.

When Stella saw this wall display, she said, "So someone shot that guy and they put him up there too?"

Jer wrote up a summary for the kids:

6/10/16 - Our first real “road” trip

Mom and Dad had planned for a few weeks to take you kids to Chicago, IL.  Now that you were 3, 5, and 7, we figured that you could handle the almost 3 hour car ride to see the sites of the big city.  It would be the first time that you had left the state of Michigan.  Except for flying to Disney, but that was a plane, not driving.  J

We thought that June 10 would be a great day to go to Chicago because it was a Friday, a weekday, and also because we figured it wouldn’t be too hot yet.  But boy were we wrong!

Dad went for his run, and then we all had a quick breakfast and we were on the road shortly after 8am.  We stopped for gas and realized we forgot Henry’s hat so we quickly went back home.  Thankfully we hadn’t really even left our neighborhood yet.

Mom did an excellent job of packing food for Henry, snacks for all of us, and clothes for everyone.  She worked so hard on it that she almost forgot to pack for herself!

We made one pit stop near the MI – IN border to use the bathroom and we continued on to Chicago.  You kids had each packed a backpack with toys for the ride.  I think most of the time though, you were content to just look out the window and see the scenery.  Especially you, Henry!  You made me proud, because that is what your Dad loves to do!

It was fun see lake Michigan, US Cellular Field, and all of the tall buildings as we were approaching the city.  After battling some road construction, we made it to our first destination, Lincoln Park Zoo.  We loaded up the stroller with our stuff and headed in.  We saw lots of cool animals and had a fun time!  The crazy thing is that the temperature was in the 90s!  It was hot!  And, a LOT of schools were having field trips at the zoo that day, so it was very busy also!  But we had fun.  Believe it or not, we ran into Mrs. Bohle and her family there.  That was quite a surprise!

About mid-afternoon, we decided to leave the zoo to go to Millennium Park and see the Bean.  You kids all fell asleep in the car and missed a lot of interesting driving.  Mom and Dad had NEVER seen the downtown traffic like this before.  It was crazy.  And there was construction everywhere that made it worse.  We ended up taking some interesting roads that we had never been on before.  We couldn’t get to the parking ramp and it took us over 1 hour to drive about 2 miles.  Finally, Mom spotted a ramp that we could use.  Thankfully, there was a fancy hotel across the street from the ramp and we could use the bathroom there (we also took advantage of it before getting back in the car).

By now, everyone was even more hot and tired, but we wanted to see what we came for!  We walked and walked and found the bean.  Again, more people!  It was so busy and we were so hot that we snapped a few quick pictures and then continued walking to Giordano’s for some pizza.  It was nice to relax in the a/c and eat some good pizza.
Next, we made our way back to the parking ramp and started to head out of the city.  Mom had found us a Country Inn & Suites in Portage, IN that was about 45 minutes outside of Chicago.  It sure was fun to see the tall buildings and other sites, sounds, and smells of the city.  We made it to the hotel and got settled in.  You 3 kids shared a king size bed, while mom and dad each had their own single beds.  At first you kids would NOT go to sleep.  Maybe your mini naps in the car made you not tired, or you were just so excited to go to the pool the next day!  After mom threatened to not go to the pool, you all finally quieted down and stayed in your room.

The next morning you kids were up early!  You were all talking, laughing, and making lots of noise.  Mom and Dad were worried that you were waking up other people in the hotel, especially because we were in a different time zone and it was early on a Saturday morning.

We finally went downstairs for a nice breakfast and then got our suits on.  We played in the pools for a couple of hours.  They had a fun kids pool with a slide, a hot tub, and a regular pool.  You all loved it!  Dad got a little too rough with Henry at one point and he swallowed some water, causing him to spit up a few strawberries into the pool!!  After swimming, we snuck some more food from the continental breakfast to have for our “lunch”.

As an unexpected surprise, our hotel was right by a Bass Pro Shops store.  It was HUGE.  There were lots of animals, fish, guns, and even an indoor waterfall.  You kids did some fishing in a pool outside of the store and that was a fun adventure too!

After visiting the store for a bit, we headed home.  It was not a very long road trip, but it sure was a fun one!  I hope you kids enjoyed it and I can’t wait to have many more together with our family!