Chicago Road Trip

Due to Grammie's illness, we were unable to take our planned trip to California.  That's OK- dealing with the busy airports, poor weather, cancelled flights, and everything would have been really difficult.  Everyone knows that I'm a "good traveler" but no one is that good.  So instead of fighting the crowds, we turned our attention to our favorite "back yard" destination": the Windy City.

I had been kinda cranky on most mornings this week, even on Christmas day.  But I knew that we were headed to Chicago on the morning of the 26th and I was up, bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6:30 am.  I woke up, walked into my parent's room with my travel sweats in hand, and said, "lets go to Chicago!"  If you know how tough it can be for me to get dressed in the morning for school, you'll understand how flabbertgasted my dad was when I walked in all ready to go!  By the way, I can say "flabbergasted" and it is one of my favorite words. 

We piled into the car, dropped off the dogs with Grandmimi, and headed east.  Daddy and I played auto bingo for a little bit, then I watched "Up" on my new portable DVD player (what a great invention). We headed straight for the Science and Industry museum, one of daddy's favorites.  It was my first trip there, but I could tell from the start it was my kind of place.  There is a train and a gingerbread house in the main entry area, and the atrium was full of Christmas trees.  We saw an exhibit on Jim Henson and the muppets that included the actual Kermit the Frog doll and the Bert and Ernie dolls.  There was a cool fairytale dollhouse, a play area with shapes and flow dynamics, and an amazing exhibit on nature's storms.  We could have stayed for hours, but I was getting tired.  We will definitely go back!

We stayed at the Sheraton, in a room with an amzing view of the river.  On the second day there, daddy and I went to the Shedd Aqaurium and the Field Museum.  The Shedd had a cool water show with dolphins, penguins, and Beluga Whales.  The best part was the large tank with the sharks.  I asked daddy to sit down next to me so we could count and identify the sharks together.  Mommy finished her salon appointment and joined us at the Field.  We saw an excellent exhibit on Gold; I learned that gold is often made into an alloy (another favorite new word of mine) and that it can be made really, really thin.  After the exhibit I used money from my Hawaii relatives to buy a really pretty gold ball.  Daddy bought mommy a ruby necklace- lucky mommy!  That evening, we all got dressed up and went to a nice dinner at Emilio's, a Spanish Tapas restaurant.  Thank you Gran and Ada for the outfit!  Tapas are really fun because you are encouraged to grab and eat anything you want on the table.  For me, it was bread, butter, and grapes.  But there was also molten goat cheese, grilled chicken, and daddy's favorites: bacon wrapped dates.

On Tuesday, we spent the whole day shopping!  Nordsrtoms for daddy, Lego store for me, Anthropologie for mommy, Brooks Brothers for daddy, and the Disney Store for me.  OK, one correction: the Lego store was really for all of us- we all love Legos!  That evening we collapsed into bed with Giordino's pizza, full, warm, and exhausted from the trip.

Thank you, Chicago!

Exploring physics in the "idea lab" at the S and I museum

"Where is that shape going?"

Yeah, I know- I am a clown

 OK- this is wicked cool.  The S and I museum had a room with lights and a sliding level allowing you to change the colors filling the room.  You can see the effect on the appearance of the balls that are the colors of the rainbow.  Here's blue .. .

...red...

 ...green...

 ... and mostly white light.  WILD!

Look, Sophie, its Seattle!

The Shedd Aquarium's weird but cool Holiday water show

Thanks for the awesome dress and coat!

Dressed up for out special dinner!

The family at dinner

Here's a video of me dancing in the hotel room: