Chicago, Day 2

If you stay with Aunt Karen, this is what you have for breakfast?!  In case you can't tell, that is a scoop of ice cream.  It was served after pancakes, so I guess it's really breakfast dessert.  Somehow Karen started this tradition when Esther was younger, and it has continued...

Friday morning, the rest of us ate breakfast at the hotel and then we checked out and brought our stuff back to Karen's.  Then it was time to take the bus downtown to Navy Pier and the Chicago Children's Museum!  The kids really like this museum and there is so much to explore.  We spent almost 3 hours there and still didn't do everything.

This bus driver looks a little scary!

This one looks safer.

In one of the rooms they have these cool shadow screens.  With one of them you stand behind it and it shows your silhouette and it looks like butterflies are flying all around you.  These silhouette pictures turned out pretty cool!

Mommy and her girls

Sweet sisters!

The 3 kiddos

With this screen you can "catch" the falling things.
I don't get how it works, but it's really cool!

Another room was for creating.  On one side they had piles of material and glue and scissors.  The girls made collages out of the material, and then the workers were going to sew them together and add them to a huge mosaic/collage that would be displayed in the museum.

The other side was where Peter and Casey spent some time.  They made a wooden car.  The idea was that it would stay there to be on display, but Peter really wanted to take it home.

We finished in the water room.  The kids always enjoy this area.

Miriam scooped and dumped water.

Peter built some dams.

Esther painted a tile wall with water.

After lunch at McDonald's on Navy Pier, we took the trolley
back to Michigan Ave. for the next part of our day!

The girls have the Our Generation dolls from Target (basically a knock-off of the American Girl dolls).  They wanted to take some of their spending money and get something from the American Girl Store.  Peter was very excited to explore the Lego Store.  Somebody was very smart, and planted those 2 stores right next to each other in Water Tower Place.  We wondered how many mom/daughter sets were in one store while the dad/son group was in the other!

Aunt Karen surprised the kids by giving them some spending money from her and Juan, so they were very excited to spend their money.  The girls each got 3 accessories for their dolls (Esther bought glasses, a shirt and shoes, and Miriam bought glasses, shoes and a purse).  Peter found a very cool Lego creator set which can be made into 3 different large vehicles.

This giant Woody character from Toy Story
is all made of Legos--amazing!

The girls thought the Lego Friend Olivia made
of Legos was very neat too.

Here they are at home with their purchases:

Casey and Peter spent a couple hours putting
this together Saturday morning!

It was a great mini-vacation and we're thankful for good weather, safe travels, and fun with our wonderful hostess, Karen!  Now we have a couple weeks of vacation left and then we start back to school!