Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

More fun at the museum. Seriously, you can't see everything in one day - and we are the people that walked to all of the DC monuments and the Kennedy Center in one day.

Watching chicks hatch 

Baby chicks 

Our family is a party in and of itself! 

What does this do?

Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

Museums are fun because you never really know what is going to be considered museum worthy - how do they choose to pick certain things over others?

I told you they were clowns.

Submarine 

Mirror Maze - the lights changed color which made it even more difficult 

That's one way to measure how tall you are! 

I thought this was awesome.

(Notice I didn't post any of my numbers!)

Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

We visit this museum ever time we go and yet we had never made it down into the mine. There is just so much to explore and do that when you only visit every few years, it's worth the repeat trips.

Inside the mine! 

Every trip we end up with a photo of this tractor tire. It started before kids and has continued to show just how old we are each trip, hah! 

Learning to milk cows 

Operating a crane 

Operating a crane

Chicago with Friends

Traveling is always better when you meet up with friends.

The four men in this photo have been friends for years - all before they were married and had kids. Now they live in different cities/states/countries so it was fun to get the entire group together. 

The women in this photo have been friends since they were in their early teens. Now both have twins of their own! 

That looks like fun, though possibly painful, haha. 

Playground in downtown Chicago. This amazing playground had so many parts there is no way to get them all in photographs. Here you can see one part in the front and another off in the center back, but there were 3-4 other play areas with different themes as well. 

This photo was taken from the top of the far off play area in the other photo. The kids and I are actually in the picture (part of the crowd at the bottom waiting for people to slide down).

Around Chicago

We made time for another vacation! This time to Chicago. Vacations are getting more difficult to schedule with school schedules, music schedules, and sports.

Still loving public transportation

The kids don't remember it, but their first trip ever was to Chicago when they were just a few months old. 

Cool fountain 

The Bean 

She let me try braiding her hair! 

On the river 

Interesting sculpture

Chicago O'Hare Playground

We always try to let the kids run off some of their energy before any flight. Different airports have different options and O'Hare has a really cool looking playground. This was a great way for the family to wrap up the trip and come home to me!

Update on me: While the family was on vacation I sat at home with friends and did pretty much nothing. Then I went back to the doctor and things had gotten worse. While I wasn't in pain, my kidney function was decreasing. I was scheduled for surgery the next day. I need to say a special thank you for the help of one awesome friend who took me to and from the hospital and another friend who came to stay with me after the surgery when I was on medications. My family came home to find me on the couch recovering from surgery and in more pain than when they left me. A week or so later I was up and around and a few weeks later I had lithotripsy on the other kidney. That recovery was fast and I haven't been back to the hospital since!

Around Chicago

Here are some photos from around Chicago that didn't seem to fit in any of the other posts.

Wordless Wednesday

Science museum in Chicago

Remember yesterday when I explained that we had a lot of photos from the Science museum in Chicago. These are some of the interesting photos I found that didn't really fit into any category. I'm not even sure what is going on in many of them. If anyone has been here and can let me know, please leave a comment. Thanks!

milking a cow

stopping for a nap???

My kids call this "the big scary man"

Transportation and how things move

Anyone who has ever read my blog knows how much we love Science museums, so any chance to visit a new one is always exciting. They came home with so many photos from the museum in Chicago that I had to break them into multiple posts. Here are the ones I sorted as being related to transportation or how things move.

trolley car

gears

crane

racing dump trucks

pulleys

solar car

boat

Tractor Tire

There is a large tractor inside one of the museums in Chicago. The kids loved playing on the wheel.

The kids weren't the only ones. :)

No, I wasn't there. This photo was from 7 years earlier when I was there. It's amazing how much changes in just 7 years!