Legoland California & Sea Life Aquarium

Legoland was the ultimate highlight of our trip. It's something the kids are still talking about almost two months later. Jared LOVES his Lego's. He spends hours and hours building with them. At first we weren't going to go because it was going to cost $240, but Steve saw a commercial where you'd get a child's admission free to Legoland with the purchase of an adult's entree at Denny's.  So, it cost us $120 for the family and we were able to come back a few days later to Sea Life Aquarium, too.

Jared was in love with the Pharaoh's Quest Scorpion Pyramid Lego set from his Lego catalog (which he looks at every night in bed with his clip on night light attached to his bed, too cute!). So the tomb raiders ride was the first must do ride once we entered the park.

Some other rides were loved were:

the slides....

and Lego horses, but the ultimate fun was....

....looking at all the Lego Star Wars sets exhibited throughout Legoland Mini land. It was awe inspiring to think about the work and creativity that went into designing these sets. I wish we could have stayed longer.

A few days later we went back to Sea Life Aquarium which is right next door to Legoland. There were some interesting exhibits here, but it's pretty small; you could go through the aquarium in half a day.

There were even legos here in the aquarium.

If you live near a big city with an aquarium, you won't be that impressed. We live near Chicago with the Shedd Aquarium which is about five to ten times bigger, but it's not a bad place to check out, especially if you get the combined Legoland ticket.

Ripley's Aquarium

I highly recommend going to Ripley's Aquarium if you're going to visit Gatlinberg, Tennessee. This was probably one of the best days we had with the kids.

They have a 340 foot-long guide path as you wind your way through a shark lagoon tunnel. Besides sharks you'll also encounter giant stingrays, snappers, saw fish, grunts and a green sea turtle.

They had a ton of hands-on things to do in the Discovery Center including touching horseshoe crabs and getting in the middle of a fish tank.

Another cool feature is the Penguin Playhouse. Kids can crawl through a tunnel under the penguin exhibit, and then pop up inside the tank to watch the penguins being fed. I have horrible pictures of the experience, and the place was terrible crowded so we didn't stay long, so be sure to visit off-season if you can.

Shedd Aquarium

We've been hitting the museums pretty hard this past month. Most museums downtown are free during the month of January, so we really like to take advantage of this. Last time we visited the Shedd Aquarium it was so crowded. I suppose that's the risk you take by coming on a free day. It's great to go during the week when it's free because then it's not as crowded, but Steve can usually only come on the weekend, and we already do so many fun things without him anyway.

We bought passes that let us into the Wild Reef exhibit, mostly for the sharks, and then to the new Oceanarium show. Both kids love hands-on things, so they gravitated towards the over-sized microscopes and touching the fake coral.

In the Wild Reef exhibit, there's a section in one of the rooms where stingrays swim right under your feet. The kids loved pressing their faces to the glass floor to look at the rays. Watching them reminded me of the first time they'd walked across that same floor when they were 17 months.

Right outside this exhibit, we looked at some fish tanks. Here's a cute picture of the kids touching a bass sculpture, or trout, I can't remember.

They always like looking at the large tank in the center of the aquarium. Sometimes there will be divers in the tank feeding the fish, but no one was in there this time.

We were told to get to the show 45 minutes early. I sat there for 15 minutes while Steve took the kids to the Polar Play area. Then, he joined me with the kids, and we had to sit for another 30 minutes. That was really a bad idea. By the time the show started, Jared had fallen asleep, and Alexa was a whiny mess.  The whole show centered around theatrics. Whatever happened to just watching the dolphins just jump through hoops?  It's like they had to turn the entire production into a Las Vegas style show. We were unimpressed, including Alexa. She wound up flipping through different clips on the video camera the whole time.

We were going to leave after that, but the kids wanted to show me the Polar Play area, and we wound up staying there for quite a while. I have one picture of the kids up on a rock, but that's it. There were so many kids there, it started to make me uncomfortable after a while. I love for them to be around other kids to play, but when dozens of kids pack into a small area, it's not good for anyone.  All in all, we were glad we came, but I hope next time we choose a day when it's not so crowded. I guess that's what memberships are for, huh?

Shedd Aquarium

On June 14th it was free day at the Shedd Aquarium, so we went after church. I'm pretty sure this is the 4thtime the kids have been here, and I was excited about going because Jared is so into sharks right now. Even though they just turned three a short time ago, I love that the kids already have strong interests and that I can help them explore those interests in depth. We take out a lot of shark books and DVDs. So, this visit, although they would only see small hammerhead sharks, was a real treat.

It's not that we had a horrible time there, it's just that is was SO crowded. Right before we left, it was getting so you couldn't even get right up to the glass to look at the animals. I can't stand crowds, and even have a bit of claustrophobia at times, so we didn't stay as long as I would have liked, still the kids did seem to have fun. They were really into touching the displays they could get close enough to reach.



Alexa is getting better and better with her reading every day. As a little side note, we were at a visiting Steve for lunch the other day at his work, when Alexa started to read the menu that was printed in large print on the wall. At the Shedd, she was trying to pick out words she knew and would read several groups of words together at once.

Jared loved playing with these little wire toys that looked like frogs.

Although the pictures I took weren't that great, I hope you can see how much the kids loved the large tank that you see right when you enter the Aquarium. Their favorites were the hammerhead sharks and sting and manta rays. There is usually a diver in the tank feeding the fish, as well as answering questions from the kids.

February - April 28th 2009

Feb – April 28th 2008

Sherwood Music Conservatory at Columbia College – musical petting zoo where they could try out the xylophone, trumpet, violin, flute, clarinet, watching a mini-concert of a piano, cello and drums

Adler Planetarium – models of solar system, 3-D movie Fly me to the moon, driving a remote Mars rover

Art – lots of painting, drawing with crayons in bathtub, painting with food colored shaving cream, drawing hundreds of drawings on the easel in the hallway, lots of play dough creations

Indoor Playground in LaGrange

Shedd Aquarium – highlight was the sharks in the Wild Reef exhibit

Music – Alexa loves, loves, loves playing CDs, tons of playing drums on pots to the sounds of

Oldies Music (some songs on CD are Johnny be Good, Blue Moon, Get a Job, Pretty Woman), playing guitar on their own and with Steve

Art Institute – looking at the Bill Peet illustrations exhibit, looking at some Impressionist
paintings, watching a short children’s concert

LaGrange Outdoor Park

Granddad’s birthday – building a Cootie bug, the exercise bike

Family Crown Play Lab at the Field Museum and Egypt exhibit – crawling through play logs, picking pretend corn, brushing off fossils, playing musical instruments found round the world, playing with Wedgits

Having flour fights

Running through mud puddles

DuPage Children’s Museum – Light pegs and using light to draw on walls, stringing beads, climbing in pretend castles, water and bubble table, above ground tunnel, shapes on dry erase board, Colorforms

Khol’s Children’s Museum – Play Domink’s store, water table, farm exhibit

Jack and Steve’s Birthday party

Reading: Highlight was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and lots of Bill Peet books

Dino exhibit at the Brookfield Zoo

Easter – egg hunt in Amys’ backyard, getting pretend cell phones

Jared using Steve’s tools to “fix” his bike

Climbing the tall bushes in the back yard

Reptile Fest – petting snakes, bearded dragons, iguanas, and a 15 foot alligator