Day 26--Chicago, Il.: Day at the museum

There is almost a touch of sadness realizing tonight that this is the last of our maps to put at the top of our traveling blog. It is our last night in Chicago; tomorrow we head out for Omaha, Nebraska. We are taking the I-80 route home, it's the fastest way which, I think, is ok by all of us at this point. It has been a great journey, and as you can see we have had some amazing times together, but alas, it's finally time to get back and be responsible. Who would have thought a month could go by so slow and so fast at the same time. We used to have a saying on my mission: the days are like weeks and the weeks are like days. I guess that's true about life in general anyway. Enough of my blubbering...we had one final day in Chicago, and basically this one was for the kids...

We pretty much spent our entire day at the Chicago Children's Museum, except for a couple of hours in the afternoon when we went back to the Taste of Chicago to get a few eats. The boys had a blast at the museum. A few months ago my parents were in town visiting from California and we took the boys to the children's museum in Salt Lake, and although I think I like the one in Salt Lake better, there were fewer kids at this one, so it's sixes.

There's our worker boys, Will and Jake. They will be helping out Daren very soon as they get back to building thier real life playhouse. It's a plan Daren and Ben picked out off the internet one late night in the middle of winter--sounded like a fun project at the time, and I think it is for them, but it's not moving as quickly as the boys would like, as in it wasn't completed the first day they worked on it. Ben has big plans for that playhouse, including making it a schoolhouse so he can teach his brothers and the neighborhood kids who are younger than him to read and write. We'll see how well that one goes over, but kudos to him for being excited about it.

One of the first things we found at the museum were these huge dominoes. If I haven't written enough how much the boys love the dominoes set that Daren and Ben bought from the boy selling them at the gas station in California, then just know that that set has been well loved on this trip, so you can imagine the excitement from Ben when we saw these. He went back to them many times during the day--it was his favorite part.

The overall hit of the day was the water room. I'm not sure how long Jake and Daren were in there this morning, but it was a good chunk of time, and they had a blast--even Jake with his wet shorts!

You had to pull on the ropes just right in order to get the bucket up without spilling before it reached the top. Daren and Jake are shown here, but Will really loved this one!

Ok, somehow Spiderwick crept into our day today when we found the clay. Ben had the idea of making a "seeing stone" out of clay, monicle and all (the part which goes over your nose). We made one for our little clay head, but, well, you can see how well that went over.

This was supposed to be a volcano head dude that Jake and I were working on, but it wasn't until I got back to our hotel to look at the pictures that I realized, it looks more like a Who from Whosville than a volcano head!

Will felt like he was on cloud nine when he discovered these ropes toward the back of the room...so imagine with me: two ropes with multiple knots tied in them, and a boy who LOVES Indiana Jones. What's your conclusion?!

Can you imagine Will singing the song every time he rode the ropes and banged into the wall?! He had a great time and would still be there doing it if we hadn't made him leave. Daren and I came up with the idea that we need a rope swing at home for him--he'd love it! That pretty much covers our morning into the afternoon, and then after the Taste of Chicago we went back to the museum for at least another couple of hours, and the boys were all whining and crying when we left!! I think they will sleep well tonight.

This was our quick break in between museum trips--more food and we found the famous Buckingham Fountain. It is very big and sprays a lot of water when the wind picks up!

And this was a cool statue at one of the entrances to the Taste of Chicago.

I couldn't not include Ben's favorite picture he took today of his favorite building, just close to Navy Pier. It was a very fun day, but all this playing sure wears Daren and I out!! So now I'm going to bed, good night!!

Weather: mostly sunny, low 80's, with a small threat of storm clouds rolling in