After our flight on Friday we met Uncle Matt at the airport and headed to downtown Chicago. We spent most of the afternoon in Millennium Park where Nate and his cousin Joshua had a blast playing in a fountain (that I later learned was intended to be a meditation pool, but the designer must not have any children as it's built in a way as if to say, "come on, kids, jump on in!!!") We also spent time playing with the Cloud Gate sculpture, which looks like a giant reflective bean and lunched on the lawn by the outdoor Symphony rehearsal. Thad, Matt, Nate, and Joshua headed home for naptime while Joanna and I (with baby Peter in tow) went on a walking architecture tour of the city skyscrapers. We met up with the rest of the Chicago-based Carlson enclave - Carolyn, Josh, and Samantha - for dinner.
Saturday morning we visited the Museum of Science and Industry, where we got to play with trains, planes, and farm machines. They also had a big model of the Earth, which was once again a big hit for Nate. In fact, all the kids seemed to enjoy the "Earf." Nate was pretty exhausted at the end of our visit and fell off the driver's seat of the combine harvester (not off the combine itself, just the seat - no worries!) and then proceeded to roll around on the floor of the farm exhibit for a moment. After naptime, the day was capped off with a playground visit and dinner.
Sunday was our last day in Chicago, and we spent much of the morning outside at a local playground. This one also had a fountain, but unlike the downtown meditation pool, this fountain was torturing Nate. It was a big pole sticking vertically from the ground with water shooting out the top and falling in a circle around it. On the pole, at Nate's eye level, was a steering wheel. Nate attempted to get to the wheel but was stopped dead in his tracks by a sheet of water. His very cleaver reaction wasa to stand directly under the water and screaming until Thad came to the rescue. We found the see-saw to be a much more enjoyable and dry activity, and all the kids had a great time going up and down (and up and down and up and down and...)
We had an early flight back on Monday, so we got up pretty early and headed out to the airport. I was really nervous about how Nate would hold up on the return trip - the first flight went alright, thanks to Elmo, but this time Nate knew immediately what was going on. To top it off, he was a nutcase most of the morning. He was running all over the airport, shaking his head around, laughing, falling down... basically, quite happy, but not sitting still. But he was a trooper on the plane and only had a few bouts of screaming. I have to admit, though, that as helpful as Elmo was on our first flight, Ducky was even more helpful this time. We also found ourselves taking ridiculous photos and checking them out on the camera. It ended up being a much more pleasant flight than the first! From the airport we took the Silver Line - a sort of bus/train hybrid. Nate was really excited about the bus at first, but it got stuck in traffic and took about three times as long as usual, and Nate started to loose it after about a half-hour before falling asleep. All in all, it ended up being a great weekend, the travel went better than we expected, and Nate made it home happy and tired.
1 comment:
He's getting so big! Glad you had fun :)
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