Surprise Trip

As the teachers get stuff done on their October 8th Teacher's Work Day, we decided to take advantage of the no school day with a trip to Chicago. We surprised the boys in the morning with a note and film for their Polaroid cameras.

The boys have yet to be on a train, so we thought this would be a good opportunity. We woke up early and rushed down to the train station. In typical fashion, we just made it.

The boys have been interested in and looking at the tallest buildings in the world lately, so the first stop on the agenda was the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Towers for us older folks). Some quick facts:  The Willis Tower is currently the 21st tallest building in the world; it was built in 1973/74 and was the tallest building in the world for almost 25 years; it has 108 floors; a height of 1,450 feet; and every year a bunch of idiots run up the stairs for some charity thing or pride or something stupid like that.

Speaking of stupid running, the Chicago marathon was the day before, so a lot of people were still around the City and the line to go up to the sky deck was a good 3 hour wait.

We changed plans, caught a Lyft and were off to the Shedd Aquarium. So not only did the boys get their first train ride, they also got their first Lyft ride.

The Shedd was awesome. The boys had a blast and stopped at every tank and would read about every fish. It took so much time to go through the Shedd we didn't have time to head back to Willis Tower. We did have enough time to walk over the Bean sculpture. The boys actually enjoyed that much more than I thought they would.

Worst part of the trip, the stupid souvenir store. I don't mind letting the boys get something, but everything in there is just overpriced junk. Then they couldn't agree on something to share, so it just turned into a disaster and a huge waste of time. Finally we convinced them just to get t-shirts. At least those are useful. I think we will have a chat with the kids about souvenir stores and set up some rules.

We had a lot planned, but basically ended up just going to the Shedd. We all agreed that it works out as it lines us up for another Chicago adventure.

Cole slept a little on the train home, but I think he had a little trouble finding a comfortable sleeping position (see below). 

The boys and I drew some (or maybe all) of the animals we saw at the Shedd on little post-it notes and folded them up for some lucky train riders to find.