Sunday in Chicago

Sunday, September 9^th

On this morning, Jennifer took all of the children (except Mary) to the Duncan Donuts (that is soooo close to her apartment) to pick up donuts and coffee for us to eat for breakfast. Do you know how much trouble I would be in if there was a Duncan Donuts this close to my house?!?!  What a major treat!  Then we loaded up (in 2 separate cars because there are THAT many of us) to go to the Museum of Science and Industry.  The drive was not difficult (which is always my concern about being in a big city) and we managed to park easily too. 

The first exciting thing we saw (while walking through the parking garage) was the Pioneer Zephyr train!!! I think Richard was most excited.  We looked at that while Jennifer scored the Chicago-resident discount for our admission tickets.  There were a zillion people at the museum and that is always a little unsettling when you’re trying to keep up with 4 children, but the kids were very excited! 

The highlights were: seeing a submarine INSIDE a building, a tornado, a massive train layout with the Chicago skyline and the Seattle Space Needle, a fairy castle, old town main street, an airplane, watching baby chicks hatch and climbing a rock wall.  We also ate lunch at the museum and Jennifer had to deal with work a bit.  Paul and Ruth touched every possible surface, ran their hands on every hand rail and Ruth even put her mouth on a handrail?!?!?!  We ended our visit with a trip to the gift shop for pressed pennies and souvenirs (coffee mug and magnets).

Upon our return to Jennifer’s apartment, we decided to walk to Chinatown for dinner.  It was about a mile walk (which was nothing compared to the walk the day before!) and a tiny part of it was a little sketchy…but fine.  The restaurant was very fun! Jennifer and Luke bravely ordered Peking Duck…much to the horror of Paul.  I wasn’t too sure about it either, but once the waiter carved it up, I was willing to try it and it was yummy!  We enjoyed using the Lazy Susan to pass things around the table.  Upon our walk back, Mary fell asleep in the stroller and we left her in it when we walked in the door of Jennifer’s apartment. 

Jennifer and I “ubered” to the hotel where Bree was staying for her conference and we met her for drinks in the lobby.  That was fun and unexpected for us to all get together far from home!  We also used Uber to get back…all very easy.  I was impressed…it was my first experience with Uber.  While we were having our sangria with Bree, Richard texted me that he wanted me to take a picture of this train bridge that is near Jennifer’s apartment…from the median in the middle of the street.  I told him I’d try to get Jennifer to agree to that.  As we stood in the median taking a selfie of us with the bridge in the background, Richard (who was watching from the balcony) called to gently tell us that he didn’t really want a picture of US with the bridge…just the bridge.  Jennifer and I laughed and laughed and laughed…we thought it was hilarious that we had interpreted the request to include us in the picture.

He preferred this:

To this:

Once back to our Chicago home, we finished up the poker game and went to bed.  Richard had done one more load of laundry, so we had maximum clean clothes.

Next up – our departure from Chicago and the drive to Louisville…