Back from vacation!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to let you know that we're home from our vacation and getting back into the swing of things. We had a good time but a week was plenty. Any longer and we may have come home a kid short or divorced. LOL PLEASE explain to me how a 7 year old can be bored at a zoo, an aquarium or a museum????? I lost track of how many times Kyle whined about being bored. It was pretty frustrating. And my daughter is in a spoiled princess phase where she thinks she should get anything and everything that she asks for and has a major meltdown when she doesn't. She missed a good portion of the science museum all because I wouldn't pay $6 for her to have a flower painted on her face! I can do that at home for her for free! lol We packed quite a bit into our week which is probably why everyone was tired and cranky. We left last Monday and visited the train museum in Union, IL. That was probably Kyle's favorite thing we did. But even then halfway through the train ride Kyle asked me when it would be over because he was bored. **sigh**

This is the train we rode.

Took this one while we were bouncing down the rails.

Getting tuckered out. (And Jenevieve was mad that Jason helped her onto the rock instead of letting her do it herself.)

After we left there we drove to Westmont where our hotel was. Then went out for supper at a great BBQ place. Kyle raved about the food so that was good!!! They give you a farm animal with a number on it to take to your table until the food comes. We were given a rooster.

Tuesday we headed out to the Lincoln Park Zoo. We had planned on doing 2 things that day but were exhausted after the zoo. We were so hot and melted feeling that all we wanted to do was go back to the hotel and cool off in the pool.

Can you see the snake? Hint: Look right down the center of the photo.

Just one of the many pics I took in the conservatory.

We purchased the citypass so we needed to start getting the museums into our schedule. Wednesday we crammed in three places in a day! We did the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium all that day. LOTS of walking and another hot trek from the aquarium to the planetarium. They really aren't all that far from each other but when it's hot and the kids are tired it sure can feel like miles. LOL Thankfully it had cooled off a lot when wecame out of the planetarium so the walk back to the parking garage wasn't so bad.

Thursday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. That's always my personal favorite. Kyle was well behaved that day was totally in his element. He was like a big sponge soaking it all up. This was where we were when Jenevieve had the big meltdown over the face painting so she was a challenge for the first part of the day. She slowly came outof her funk though. That night we went and played miniature golf which the kids really enjoyed. There was a super cute young couple ahead of us and they were awesome with the kids. Very patient with them and gave them pointers, etc. They made it a lot of fun for all of us. They were also nice enough to take this family pictures of us. :)

Friday I attended CHA (LOTS of super cool products coming this fall for paper scrappers!). We were going to do the Sear's tower and Navy Pier Friday night but I was beat after CHA and the kids had been having a fun day playing in the pool at the hotel with some other kids their age. So we decided to skip it and have one night that was simply relaxing and more like what vacation is supposed to be. Sat. morning we checked out of our hotel and headed to Naperville where we went to the DuPage Children's Museum. Both the kids AND Jason enjoyed the construction zone there. They were sawing, drilling and hammering to their heart's content.

They also really enjoyed the bubble zone where they could make a huge bubble up around their body.

On the upper level there's a wooden block station and Jason and the kids created a huge structure that then other kids started adding onto. It was really quite impressive. A couple sections of it tumbled once or twice but they just kept building on and it finally became so big that it was decided it better get knocked down before it falls on someone and someone gets hurts.

We headed for home after leaving there and got into town just in time to see that the demolition derby was that night! Don't want to miss that! Then I spent yesterday doing laundry and unpacking. Fun, fun. Jason must have gotten sick of my whining about wanting to get this house finished up because he woke up and started moving everything out of Kyle's room so that we could tear up the old carpet in there. YAY!!!! We hope to install the new flooring later this week or this next weekend. We're going to do a wood laminate in there. Can't wait!