Saturday we got up and Chris made up all breakfast, scrambled eggs, she makes the best, bacon and toast, before we all headed downtown Chicago. First of all, we went to the Shedd Aquarium, I had never been there before and Tom said he might have been there once. I got tickets from McGraw-Hill which was awesome, it saved us about $60 at least. These 2 pictures were taken just outside the Shedd, one is with the skyline of Chicago behind us and the other is of the lake.
It was a perfect day out, blue skies and a nice breeze, we couldn't have asked for a better day.We don't really understand this picture but it was out in front of the Shedd. LOL
With the tickets we also got to see a show, Fantasea, it was really cool. They had whales, dolphins, a hawk, and something else but I can't remember right now. Here are a few pictures of the show.
Tom and I before the show.
Brandon waiting for the show to begin, doesn't he look thrilled?
The sea lion walked up to the rope and pulled it and down came the shades behind the big pool. It was pretty neat.
A little girl was picked from the crowd to help out the trainers. Not sure if she was part of the act, but if not, she was really good. She was dancing around just having a good ole time. She got to ride across the pool in a boat that was floating through the air.
Here with the whales
The show also had 3 penguins that were walking around the pool, Micayla wanted to pet one, but we weren't close enough otherwise she probably would have.
Here are a few pictures of some pretty cool fish and an Anaconda.
A monkey in the tree.
Here's the Anacondo, it was so big that we couldn't find the head. Here is part of the trunk.
Crab legs anyone?
An Octopus - these things are kind of cool looking.
A star fish
Not sure what this was, I don't think it was a fish, but it grew and their were a lot of them.
This was one of the white whales, I forget what they are called, but these were in the Fantasea show.
Some jelly fish
Some turtles
This one, they said was like 75 years old or something, maybe not that old, but the thing did not move and they said this turtles does not move much, she's too old.
Micayla had the camera most of the time, she really enjoyed taking pictures off all the different animals, especially the penguins. They are her favorite!
This guys pooped right in front of us, it was so funny. All of a sudden he scooched backwards toward the water and white stuff came shooting out his rear end. It was pretty funny, Micayla almost got the shot. I think this was taken right before hand.
Not sure what these things are, but there were some kind of fish that came up from the ground.
Here's some random fish pictures.
This dude had a big head.
Nemo!
Once we through everything we asked the kids if they wanted to see anything else. Well Micayla wanted to see the penguins one more time, so down the steps we went.
After the Shedd, we decided to walk downtown, towards Michigan Ave. We talked about going up the Sear's tower, but once we got there, after about 3 miles, we decided not to go up, first of all there was an hour and a half wait, plus we needed to be out of our parking lot by 5:00 because of the Bears game that was happening that night, so we decided to grab something to eat and walk back and maybe catch a few shops along the way back. We ended up eating at a pizza restaurant called Giorgoni's, Tom and I had a famous, Chicago style pizza, stuffed with sausage, mushrooms and topped with green olives. The kids stuck with the norm, sausage and Canadian bacon on regular crust. After we got done eating it was about time to head back towards are car. We walked the lake front back, it was so beautiful and so much to do.
Us at the pizza restaurant - Giadorni's I think that's how you spell it..
Caution:
This was the view on our way back to the car. Lake Michigan is so beautiful.
The Shedd Aquarium in the distance.
Tom and I airing out our pits!
Soldier Field
Brandon sticking his hand up the statues nose.
A picture taken out of my sunroof on our way back to the hotel.
Once we got back to our car, we headed towards Schaumberg, that's were we spent the night. We got a decent hotel off of hotels.com, it had a nice pool with a jacuzzi and a sauna. Once we got into Schaumberg, we checked into our hotel then back out we went. We went to a few shopping centers, Home Goods, one of my favorite stores thanks to my sister-in-law, she took me to the one in CA and I fell in love with it, however, I didn't get much. I ended up with a new table runner and that's about it. They had some Halloween stuff but I decided to wait. We ended up at Dick's sporting good and then back home.
Here's a picture of the lego store outside in Schaumberg.
Micayla and Brandon with the camera.
At the hotel
About to head out to the Woodfield Mall.
We spent the afternoon at the Mall. It was a huge mall. We went to a few stores, Brandon got a new pair of shoes and Micayla got a couple Holister shirts. After shopping we decided to eat at The Cheesecake Factory, however we didn't get any pictures, but the food was delicious and we topped it off with a piece of cheesecake. Holy cow was it good!
On our way home,Tom taking a nap. He has to work tonight :(
Poor Brandon! LOL
Now back to reality tomorrow. It was a great weekend. Lots of food and fun.
