Chicago Children's Museum - Dino Dig!

 Jared and Alexa were so thrilled to have their cousins stay two nights with us on the 13th-15th of June. You'd think they might be ready for some quiet time (yeah, right!) around the house and not be up to company after just a week home from our Missouri trip, but no. They greeted their cousins at the door with screams of excitement. Steve's cousins and their three kids arrived safely from Missouri after making it in record time. I think it only took them maybe 8 hours to get here, and that was after 7 stops! They did eat lunch in the car, though. Something I definitely have to keep in mind when we drive to the Smoky Mountains in a month.

That first night we had a BBQ, and they settled in for the night. The next day Steve had to go to work, but the rest of us decided to drive down to Navy Pier and go to the Chicago Children's Museum. With my Explorer's pass, we were all able to get in for free. Yeah!

Whenever you go somewhere with more than a couple of kids, they're all going to want to do separate things, so we didn't spend most of the time as a group, but I think everyone had a great time. Jared once again climbed up the rope tunnel. He scared the crap outta me this time, though. He had almost climbed to the top, which is probably fifty feet high and lost his footing. He was hanging on, just dangling there, and then he looked over at me. I could see the fear in his eyes. And I felt so helpless. I know he wouldn't have been seriously hurt, but I felt his fear. I have a huge fear of heights. I was able to talk him through swinging his legs over, wrapping them around the rope and pulling himself up. Thank God he made it, and as he reached the top and ran across the rest of the ropes to me, he had a huge smile on his face. "I was so scared, Mommy," he said. "But I kept going, and I was brave"

You sure were, son.

Alexa, E, her baby brother and mom, went to the water play section, and I stayed back with Jared, who wanted to put bolts into the empty holes of the two by fours. Then he had to do it again to another board, and yet another.

Then Alexa, Jared and I split up, went to the bathroom, and checked out the Dino Dig exhibit. Since we had been here last month, they didn't stay as long, but it was good for a quick stop.

Then, we met up with the cousins at the Butterfly Exhibit.

Our last stop was in the section of the museum that houses a play bus, car wash, store and kitchen.

I felt we had hardly been there at all (we usually stay at museum like this for about four hours), but they wanted to eat quickly and drive home so their kids could take naps, so we headed for the exit. Of course, we had to pass through the gift shop on the way out. My kids were pretty sad when they had to part with these claw-like toys. They had fun for a little while at least going through the store, trying to pick things up.

We ate a very fast lunch at a fast food place at the Pier and stopped for a few minutes to watch the pirate show at the indoor stage. Later that evening, we went to another fast food place near our house that makes great gyros. It was a great, fun-filled day with family.