Chicago Trip

Jelly Belly Tour

We took the kids to the Jelly Belly factory.  As soon as Jayla walked in she said, "This is like a dream."  It was so funny.  The girls enjoyed the fact that they got to taste test any jelly bean that caught their eye. Then we took a tour of the warehouse and got to learn how jelly beans are made.

Downtown Chicago

The Zoo

This is a glimpse of downtown Chicago next to the zoo.  I don't think we would ever get sick of going to the zoo.  It was really pretty having the lake and the city behind us.

The Pier

We went downtown and saw a bunch of famous shops and walked along the pier.  We also took a boat tour and learned about the history of all the sky scrapers.  It was pretty cool.

The Bean

We couldn't go to Chicago without visiting the Bean.  You can see the whole city within the reflection.  I don't think the kids were that impressed with this one.

The best part after the bean was playing in the fountain. It wasn't the best idea because the kids got soaking wet and we still had a long trip home, but everyone was too worn out from all the fun to complain about anything.

Six flags

This ride was Jessa's favorite.  We went on it 3 times.  They were trying to squirt me and Matt.  Those are some serious faces.  It was so fun watching those 3.

These little girls were so brave.  This was the first and last roller coaster for Jessa.  She hugged Michael the entire time.  She said it was fun but didn't want to go on another one.  Jayla was so brave and went on a lot of roller coasters.  She was pretty disappointed when she was too small for some of the crazier ones.  That made some great memories for me and Michael. 

The carousel was also a big hit.(How do you like the little kid photo bombing our picture in the back?)  Kellan LOVED this one.  He would say, "whoa!" the whole time and he would start to giggle when they started the ride.  We had to go on this one several times.

This was also a ride that Jessa could handle.  She really like this one.  Maybe someday we will get this girl on a roller coaster again.

Jayla rode this one with her uncle, aunt and cousin.  She loved this one and wanted to go on it a bunch of times.

On the way home we rode the subway.  The kids thought that this was pretty cool.  On the way home it was really crouded so we all had to stand.  This picture is my favorite one from our trip.  You can see Michael loves his boy and Kellan is trying to be just like daddy.

      

We had to keep a tight grip on this crew while on the platform because they were all so excited to see the train approaching.

This was one of Michael's favorite things that we did.  The boys went to a pro league baseball game. They had the best seats on the 5th row.

Children's Museum

The Grocery Store

The girls said that this one was their favorite aside from six flags.  They played int he grocery store for hours.  They had so much fun.  Even little Kellan would watch his sisters and then he grabbed his own cart and started putting food in it.  Then he would take it to Jessa and put it on the counter so that she could ring him up.  It was pretty cute!  Michael and I had a lot of fun playing pretend with them.  It was really fun seeing things through their eyes.

Doctor's Office

This was really cute.  Jessa was a really good doctor.  She was so funny at the museum. She took my baby and said that she is sick.  She has the "threw" a.k.a. flu....and that I needed to take her home and give her some Tylenol.  Then Micheal came in with his baby.  She made him wait in the waiting room and took some x-rays.  She came out with her hands on her hips.  She said, "I have bad news.  Your baby has a broken leg.  Come back in a couple of days."

We thought that it was funny that Kellan knew just how to check his ears.  Too bad I got this picture with his eyes only half way open.

Kellan really liked this one.  He was pretty excited about the car section.  He definately spent most of his time here.

There was a fun little phone booth where you could look into and see who you were talking too.  Kellan was having a very intellectual conversation with another kid on the other side.

There was also a deli section, a clean room for scientists, and lots of different experiments.  One of my other favorites was playing pet shop.  I would call Jayla and Jessa on the phone so I could drop off my pets.  Jessa would always answer, "Dentist appointment.  What time do you want to bring your pet over?"  It was really cute!  I think that the children's museum was one of my favorites too.

Doing their face painting...

More Museums

We went to several other museums.  This exhibit had the original stones from inside the tomb of an Egyptian king with some crazy name.  But this was pretty cool.

There were a bunch of dinosaurs bones and we learned about different ancient cultures.  It was mostly just fun being together.

The girls trying to be silly once again.  They were so good on the trip!  They made things easy.

This one was pretty cool.  We got to into a homemade tornado.  One guy thought that tornados were made out of dust.  I had to laugh...and maybe roll my eyes just a little.  This mini tornado they made the same way a real tornado is made.  With differentiation air pressure and moisture.  They told us it was how a cloud would feel. 

We got to go see a real sub.  That was pretty cool and Michael could tell us all about the weapon systems. That was pretty fun for him.

This was the barracks were the crew had to sleep for months.