Chicago - Day 3

We got up early and made it to the train station for the 8:37 a.m. train to Chicago.

This picture kind of cracks me up.  Just as I took the picture little Kira fell over backwards and sat on the diaper bag.  She was not happy, but not hurt...she had a nice soft landing.

Waiting for the train.

Isak stayed close to grandpa.

Here we are on the train.  Nice and cozy.

I held both babies for a bit until they got used to the new environment.

We walked about 20-25 minutes to Millennium Station.  We passed some cool things along the way.  Here's the Civic Opera House along the river.

The giant Picasso sculpture.  We took a few minutes to slide down the sculpture.

So fun.

My Mom and I slid down it together.  :)

Then we went on the 11 a.m. train to the Museum of Science and Industry.  We arrived at 11:15 a.m.  We were all hungry and ate lunch right away.  See I can be funny sometimes...

My mom took this pic of Isak and Grandpa.  💙

And my girls.

Then we explored the three story building.  There were some huge exhibits.  Our first exhibit had two full size tractors in it.  The kids got pics on the wheel.

Another cool display was a train set that went around the city of Chicago and over and through mountains to Seattle.

An airplane hung from the ceiling.  There was a circus exhibit, an Eye Spy, an old city market place that played a funny old black and white movie.  There was an idea factory for the kids to play in that showed how to use gears, light, water, air and more.  Very interactive.  There was a how to make a toy exhibit, ships and race cars.  There was a beautiful display of a castle.  A huge earth rotated in the air during a presentation on global warming.  I loved seeing the weather exhibit with a tornado of  steam twisting around two stories high...the below pic is of the tornado.

Avalanches and light bending and wave exhibits.  At one point it was mom and me with all of the kids (grandpa and Nels got sucked into the ships/race car exhibit).  There was a little photo booth nearby so we got in and got four adorable pictures together.  

It was a huge place and kept us entertained until it closed at 4 p.m.  We only had a few meltdowns.  Okay, so one big meltdown by our dear Kira.  Whew, I didn't know if she would come out of it!  But thankfully she did and we had fun after we recovered from it.  :)  

We took a few pictures outside.

We tried to get us all in...

Our family...

Then we rode the train back to Millennium Station.  We showed my parents the Bean...they thought it was cool.  

It's always fun to play with the bean.

We got a ride on the bus to Gino's East.  But it was a long wait.  So we walked back to the train station.  We were worried about missing the train.  So we didn't stop to eat.  I carried Kira and then put her down at each intersection and she walked.  At one point, Nels carried Noah.  I pushed Isak and Kira in the stroller.  Sofie did not want grandpa to carry her so I put her on the cupholder/handles of the stroller and pushed all three kids.  It worked pretty well and at least no one was crying!!  Once we got settled in the station we had an hour until our 8:40 p.m train left.  We charged phones and changed diapers.  Mom and Dad went on a hunt for some food.  They came back with chips, dip and salsa.  Tasted so yummy!

We got on the train.  Noah and Kira fell asleep.  Isak played grandpa's phone with him.  Sofie stayed awake being Sofie.  We finally got home and everyone went right to bed!

Good bye Chicago.  Thanks for the great adventure!!