Last Saturday: Chicago Day 1

We went to Chicago with some friends for the weekend!  Fifteen people with nine boys in 4th-10th grade.

We went to the Field Museum first.  I think I've been there before, but don't really remember.  I loved it!  I was nice to go with a large group.  Joshua went pretty quickly with most of the kids, I went at a medium speed but somewhat close to Joshua, and Isaac and Ben went a bit more slowly.  They skipped a few things that weren't quite as interesting to stay with the group.  It worked well.

We all showed up at the back entrance, so we went through the "shrink yourself and go underground" first.  The kids really, really liked the shrinking machine.

There was a giraffe for which you had to pump blood from it's heart to it's head.  It was pretty hard but all the kids were rather entranced by it.

I enjoyed the animals and birds.  In the bird exhibit I tried to find two birds that matched a game we recently got.  We've been calling them Cu-bird and Vanilla Wafer bird, but those are obviously wrong.  Joshua didn't take Grey Bear, so we at least got a picture with him and bears.

The boys.  They didn't have to smile, but they did have to look at me.

With Sue.  (Although I think Isaac at least enjoyed the rocks and gems more.)

After a stop at the hotel and a very short nap, we got ready to go to ZooLights.  It was super cold out - I think around 9F, not counting the wind chill.  There wasn't a lot of wind, but it probably made it a bit colder.

We dressed warmly, but the bus was also warm so we were advised to not to wear too much at the beginning and we'd find a place to finish up.  It actually worked pretty well, although it took a bit longer than expected to find a building.  Everyone was happily warm after that, although taking pictures was cold because I had to remove my gloves.

Joshua didn't get his picture with any lights, but said it was his favorite part.  There were great light tunnels and a little light show.  The light show had good lights and terrible songs....only one of the three was actually a Christmas song.  As we were leaving a forth started, but it was just a different version of one of the other three.  

There were also several building that were open so we could see a few animals.  It was a nice way to warm up too.  I felt proud of myself for keeping track of Meredith's glove: she dropped it once in a dark hallway and I saw it and she dropped it once while walking behind me and I saw it.

We got pizza delivered to the hotel afterwards.  It was supposed to show up at 7:15 but didn't show up until 7:45, somewhat reminiscent of experience two years ago.  This time we at least had comfortable seats.  I thought the pizza was delicious, but I think I was getting a bit hangry too.  The kids finished and went to the room by themselves; it is wonderful letting them do this.  They got ready for bed but didn't put themselves to bed like I had been hoping.  We didn't give them any instructions though, so I was pretty happy that they at least did that.