Chicago Adventures

On Thursday, the kids and I drove up to Chicago to spend some time with our friends the Dolvigs. Bryce was flying into Chicago the next morning very early to finally join our family vacation.  After we picked him up from the airport, we decided to explore downtown Chicago. Rather than drive 2 cars into the city, we opted to try riding the 'L'.

Excited kids waiting for the train

Our first stop was Millenium Park. We saw ducks in a fountain and found an interesting Pig display....

Then we headed to the Bean!

We had fun taking pictures like this (where you use the reflections to take the pictures).

Group shot of all of us in the Bean reflection!

Picture of Ryan, Bryce, and I since he rarely gets to be in pictures...

Snack time at the Bean (you can see the actual structure there in the background... looks like a kidney bean hence the name).

After snack, we were going to go walk along the lake but it was further away than we thought and kind of complicated to get to. Instead, we stumbled upon this little playground in the middle of a bunch of high rise buildings and decided to let the kids play for awhile!

They enjoyed splashing through the small water puddle behind them (getting kind of soaked in the process).

After that, we walked all the way from there to the John Hancock Building. We had read about a small cafe you could have lunch at and thought we could have lunch there, see the views, and avoid the big cost of the observatory. Unfortunately, the cafe turned out to be a really nice restaurant that we just didn't think would be good for the kids (plus it was pricey). Instead, we decided to use the restrooms and go somewhere else.  But when we went in the restrooms, we had the most gorgeous view of the city... for free!

Picture of the kids in the John Hancock restroom on the 96th floor! Good view huh?

After that, we did go have lunch and then headed back on the 'L'.

Our crazy kids

Fianlly on Saturday, we were ready to head to Michigan. We loved getting to see the Dolvigs and getting to celebrate Andrew's 23rd birthday :)

Nikki and Ryan talking to each other

Camden wanted to hold Ryan and Evan wanted to be in the picture....

Our attempt at a picture with all the kids before we left town. Should have done it the day before but this was the best we got. The kids really had a fun time playing together.

Thanks Dolvigs for a wonderful visit!