Museum of Science and Industry

On June 1st, the kids and I went downtown by ourselves to visit the Museum of Science and Industry.  It's always been one of my favorite downtown Chicago museums, even since I was a little girl. It was the first time I took the kids by myself, and I was a little nervous how it was going to go. They've been much better about not dashing off away from me, so I thought it would be a good test whether or not we'd have a good time together, or if I'd feel too stressed.

I'm happy to say we had a wonderful time together. It's fine going with other families or other people in your own family to museums, but we felt so free to take our time seeing the things we really wanted to see and spending as much time as we wanted to at each exhibit.

One of my favorite exhibits was Science Storms. The had so many awesome hands-on simulations, including a storm chaser that kept us there for at least a half hour. It was like sitting in the passenger seat of a truck that chases tornadoes. Then it shows you getting out the truck, going around the back, and helping set up the equipment that would measure things like wind speed and air pressure.

The kids' favorite room was the Idea Factory, which is really a children's museum inside the museum.

Alexa was fascinated with this set of angled mirrors you can open and close. She'd run back and forth and put different things in front of the mirrors, and then open and close the mirror to see how often the objects doubled or tripled.

Jared stuck with what he loves to do best: throwing things. He spent almost the whole half hour (before they booted us out to make room for the next group) just picking up balls from the water and throwing them over the ledge at the top.

We worked also together at trying to balance the scale.

Then we headed to the miniature train exhibit. It's a huge exhibit; trains run through models of downtown Chicago, through tunnels and the countryside.

Next to the trains, you can sit in an old trolley car. The kids started holding hands, and Alexa told Jared they were on their first date. (Alexa's fascinated with the concept of "dates" now). I was lucky to take this picture of them hugging each other. So much better than fighting!

 After the trains we went to see the baby chicks. We've been visiting this exhibit ever since the kids were a year and a half. It made me tear up remembering how when we first brought the kids, we had to lift them up to see inside the glass since they were too short to look inside on their own.

I don't have a picture of it, but I can't end without recommending that you visit the Coal Mine exhibit if you ever go to the Museum of Science and Industry. We had to wait 45 minutes in line, but it was worth it. You go down with a group of about 15 other people in an elevator, and they turn off the lights to simulate what the miners must have felt like. You also ride in coal carts and stand in rooms similar to what the miners experience. It's an extremely sobering experience.

Cantigny Park on Memorial Day

What a better way to celebrate Memorial Day than to go to Cantigny - a 500 acre park that houses two museums: the Robert R. McCormick Museum and Cantigny First Division Museum.

Before going to the museum, we climbed a few of the 11 tanks dating from World War 1 through Desert Storm.

Then we took a quick tour of the First Division Museum - a museum that presents the history of the 1st Infantry Division from its pre-Revolutionary day to details about its role in wars since then through Desert Storm.

For a free museum (you only have to pay $5 per car to enter the park), it's absolutely phenomenal. You walk through scenes that make you feel like you are on Omaha beach or walking through the jungles of Vietnam.

After our tour, we drove back home and Steve cooked some BBQ ribs. We've had non-stop rain around here, and the back yards are starting to flood. Our neighbor's yard was so bad that day that it was like a mini lake. The kids didn't mind, though. They put on their swimsuits and splashed through the water while we looked on, took pictures, and reveled in their laughter.

When Daddy's Gone

We hate it when Steve has to travel out of town on business. I'm really, really thankful he hasn't been gone that much so far this year; the kids and I really feel his absence. I usually try to plan a lot of extra fun things to do on those days so the time goes by quickly.

That also usually involves inviting other people to spend the days with us. So, when Steve left for three days the end of May, we decided to go to the Little Red School House and nature center with my mom. The first time I was supposed to go to the School House was in third grade. My teacher at the time decided I was writing my cursive G's incorrectly (in fact I was writing them correctly) and said I would have to stay back while the rest of the class went on the field trip. And this was at a Christian school, too.  A great way to show God's love, huh?

Well, at least the first visit to the school house was with my children who will never know what it's like to be punished for something as insane as that. They'll also never know what a "field trip" is. Travelling to fun places is just a part of our lives.

The nature center is pretty new; I think it just opened last year. We saw lots of small animals like birds, snakes, frogs, and insects. They also have a little play area for young kids.

Jared really enjoyed building a beaver dam with sticks. Next to the nature center the school house sits in the same place where the original building too, which was a one room school house in the mid 1800's. Inside there's a model of what the school house looked like at that time. A group of school kids were there that day;  I was so sad to see them walking around with worksheets to fill out. Instead of taking there time exploring the room and gravitating towards the sections they found interesting, they tore frantically around the room trying to fill in the "correct" answers to the questions on the sheet. Sad, sad, sad.

With so many kids tearing around the room, the Jared and Alexa understandably didn't want to go inside the school house; instead we walked down by the lake and the kids had much more fun digging in the puddles and building their own dams.

We ate lunch at my mom's house; then she watched the kids while I went grocery shopping, and then we all met at our house for dinner and a movie.

The next day we met my mom and my sister's son at one of our favorite children's museums, the DuPage Children's Museum, for some more fun. We hung out at the gift store for a few minutes, trying out hats....

....and then went upstairs for some fun with shapes...

... and more shapes....

...and looking at slides under the microscope. 

After we dropped off Owen at his house, we drove back to my mom's for pizza and watched Daddy Day Care. Then it was off for home to see Steve. Yea!!!!

Balboa Park and Mission Bay Beach San Diego

Balboa Park has been described as the Smithsonian of the west. With its 15 museums plus a zoo, restaurants, gardens and hiking we knew we had to narrow our choices. With the kids it was pretty easy. We headed straight for the playground for a picnic lunch.

The rest of our day was practically free, too, thanks to our explorer's level Chicago Museum Children's Pass. We were able to get into the San Diego Natural History Museum for free. It's a nice, little museum. We saw everything in a few hours (well, you know the way most kids "see" everything!).

Then we walked next door to the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center.  It was getting close to dinner, so we didn't see many exhibits, but we did see the Omnimax Galapagos Island film. It was soooo good! We never did come back to the park, but if you can, plan to spend several days seeing all the goodies here.

Great Las Vegas Museums for Kids

We went to two museums while in Las Vegas. Both were really wonderful, especially for kids around the ages of 3-10.  During one of Steve's meetings we rented a car and I drove the kids to the Leid Discovery Children's Museum. We went for free since we have the Explorer's membership with the Chicago Children's Museum. If you haven't looked into a membership at your local children's museum, please do. Also, check out the Explorer's level or the level that gains you admission into children's and other museums across the USA and other countries, too. We saved over $150 using the pass during our trip.

We're used to going to a lot of different children's museums since we live in the Chicago area, but we were sufficiently pleased with this one. Although it's not very big, the museum had a lot of unique exhibits like the one above about how the piping system in your bathroom works.

There was shooting basketballs...

....and an awesome exhibit where you had to balance a round, metal object on a metallic spinning wheel. This enthralled the kids for at least 20 minutes. 

The kids also enjoyed playing car mechanics...

...and airplane pilots.  We only had a little over an hour to spend here and wish we could have stayed longer.

On our way back from San Diego, we drove back to Las Vegas to catch our flight back home. We stayed at a hotel the night before flying back and had time in the morning before our 3:00 flight. So, we stopped in for an hour at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum. The kids were SO disappointed when we had to leave. The museum was fabulous. It was small, but it had excellent hands-on exhibits.

Anyone who loves dinosaurs would be captivated by the great dinosaur exhibits they have at this museum. The funnest part about the exhibit?  Pressing buttons and making each dinosaur move and make sounds. Very, very cool!

There is a special section for younger kids that drew our kids like a magnet. They enjoyed the pretend submarine....

.....but they enjoyed digging for fossils even more. This museum is worth at least three or four hours of your time. If you're in the area, check it out!

Hawthorne Museum @ Morton College

My grandmother, now deceased grandfather and uncle all have their pictures hanging in the new Hawthorne Museum at Morton College. How cool is that!  I love museums, but to come into this one, even though it's small (just two rooms) and see my grandparents and uncle's pictures up on the wall was really cool . And it was something really special for my kids to see, too.

The museum is dedicated to the now defunct Western Electric Hawthorne Works facility located in Cicero, Illinois.  It became the manufacturing arm of the Bell Telephone Company.  The facility was really a little city of itself and boasted a hospital, fire brigade, laundry, greenhouse, a brass band, running track, tennis courts, gymnasium, an annual beauty pageant and a staff of trained nurses who made house calls. In 1975 there were 45,000 workers at the plant.

My grandmother has told many stories about working in the plant, making telephone parts. She'd tell how hot the workers would get, how many would faint because there was no air conditiong. My grandma would always say how great her boss was because if the workers complained of being faint he would send them to lay down at a cot for a while and take salt pills.

Jared just loved playing switchboard operator. He stayed at this switchboard for at least twenty minutes without getting up.

Alexa called me over to show me one of the first electric dishwashers. I think it was built in 1918. We were pretty impressed. Of course, that might be because we don't even own a dishwasher now!

The museum even has a sculpture my grandfather made using rails off a railroad track. He won first prize in entering it in an art contest at the plant.

Jared liked checking out the old-fashioned telephone booth. Both kids hid in the booth for awhile and had fun popping their heads up through the glass.