-After I arrived with the kids we went looking for a park nearby our hotel for the kids to play at. We found one a short distance away and practically empty. I spent many days at the park with the kids right after breakfast taking advantage of the cool mornings.
-Swimming. Aric is a fish. We brought his shark floatie contraption and he feels so independant "swimming" around the pool on his own. We haven't found anything that works quite as well for Kellyn, which means I held her the majority of the time. If I wasn't holding her then I was hanging out near the steps to fish her out of the water anytime she overestimated the depth of the water and her balance. Speaking of fish, the hotel had a large stash of water noodles at the pool. When Aric was not swimming he was frequently sitting on the edge of the pool, splashing his feet in the water and "fishing for gooey fish" with a noodle.
-When we were bored with the pool I took the kids to a nearby aquatic park. We were able to get a cheap daily admission rate and the kids took advantage of a splash park outdoors and an indoor kiddie pool that was a foot deep. Aric loved the splash park. He was the brave kid who ran straight through all of the water jets and fountains. Kellyn loved the kiddie pool. She sat in the water, which came to mouth level on her, and played with the water and her ears. I'm sure she's a candidate for developing swimmer's ear.
-"Wannahockawoogie" was what Aric named Ryan's rental car, a white Ford Escape. I'm not sure why he named the vehicle that, but we do know it originates from "Mount Wannahockaloogie" from Finding Nemo. Aric was pretty consistent in referring to the vehicle as "Wannahockawoogie".
-A not so memorable moment of our trip was our car (not the rental, but our actual vehicle) wouldn't start one day. After trying to jump it, buying a new battery, arranging to have it towed to the mechanic and subsequently having it fixed by the mechanic we now have a new starter. A pricey new starter- Chicago is sure proud of their vehicle parts.
-We visited the most white trash, redneck Wal-Mart we have ever had the opportunity to visit. It was the kind of Wal-Mart that is frequented by the "stars" of People of Wal-Mart. Of course, we ended up fitting right in when Aric decided he had to go potty "right now" in the toy aisle. I whisked him off to the bathroom nearby, but unfortunately the damage was already done. He protested when I had to put on his wet shorts and I tried my best to explain why it was not appropriate to walk through the store with no shorts on. I felt bad because he was clearly upset and embarrassed. We made it through the store with me carrying him and his wet underwear in my purse, out to Wannahockawoogie to grab his spare shorts and pull-up out of the diaper bag. As soon as he was quickly changed, life was good and back to normal.
-We did take in some of the sites while we were in Chicago. We went to the Field Museum (I have always wanted to go there) and the Shedd Aquarium. Ryan and I would've loved to have been able to linger in the Field Museum, but we realized that we needed to hit the highlights and the fun kid stuff. The Field Museum was pretty empty when we visited and the kids were able to roam a bit more freely than normal. We had one memorable moment in the reptile exhibit of Kellyn hopping around on the floor and "ribbiting" like a frog after we pointed out the frogs in the exhibit.
After visiting the Field Museum we had a picnic lunch outside and let the kids burn off some energy. We had some visitors during lunch in the form of seagulls looking for food. It was Kellyn's first experience with hungry birds and she ate her lunch while sitting in the safety of my lap.
The Shedd Aquarium was neat, but more crowded and not as pleasurable to walk through as the Museum was. Kellyn spent the majority of the time sleeping in her stroller and only woke up near the end.
-We finished off our Chicago trip with a trip to the Brookfield Zoo on Aric's birthday. Ryan and I thought it was one of the nicer zoos that we have seen. We took the kids to the dolphin show, the carousel and to sting ray bay to pet sting rays. Sadly, neither one actually wanted to pet a sting ray when we had them there.
We took Aric out to eat for his favorite meal of macaroni and cheese and french fries. Then the waitstaff brought him a birthday ice cream and serenaded him. He is still young enough to enjoy that much attention and smiled the whole time.
Afterwards we went back to the hotel room for some presents and cake.
I am so thankful we decided to tag along and spend the time with Ryan in Chicago. It was definitely a fun trip and we would love to go back someday and see more of Chicago.
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