Day Downtown

This day was our big outing into the city.  We did so many awesome things and took so many pictures, it will be my longest post.  You may want to grab a snack before you start scrolling! :)

We wanted to plan a day in downtown Chicago that would make everyone in our big group happy.  It had to show us a lot of the city, keep us cool, be easy enough to manage with lots of kids and not be too expensive.  We came up with a perfect plan and had a wonderful time!  We started with the 20 minute train ride into the city.
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Watching train-loving Cole was the best part of this portion of the day.  He was SO EXCITED and his eyes were just lit up with the wonder of train horns, tunnels and conductors taking our tickets.

Right outside Union Station, we caught a water taxi.  This boat ride took us through the city on the Chicago River.

Just riding a boat with the kids was fun, but I loved this view of the city from the river.  We passed all the familiar buildings and went under each famous street.  This was a treat for all of us!

The train and the boat were fun in and of themselves (which was why we planned to get into this city this way), but our big destination was Navy Pier, specifically, the Children's Museum.

We've been to a lot of different children's museums and this one was fantastic!  It was not so big that we felt we have to leave it unexplored, yet the exhibits were so creative and well-done.  One of the best rooms was the Fort Room, which was full of furniture with hooks on it and blankets and sheets with loops.  Our kids used a backless wardrobe to make their own Narnia out of chairs, cushions and sheets.  Something like that is kid heaven!  In the Firefighter Room, the kids could dress up, slide down the pole, practice escaping a smokey bedroom, drive a firetruck and put out fires with laser hoses.

Each of the kids was brave enough to climb the two story rope tunnel to the top of a ship mast.

It was super neat how the museum tried to be intentionally Chicago-themed in some areas.  In a room filled with every kind of building material you can think of, we took The Skyscraper Challenge.  We broke into teams and tried to get a sturdy skyscraper built before our timer ran out.  When we were done, we told our story and what we learned about building and teamwork to a computer, which then gave us a building permit to look up what we recoded online.  So cool!

The Water Room had the kids adorably dress in raincoats and then taught them about Lake Michigan's Locks, water pressure, flow and pumps.

The Dinosaur Room had a dinosaur skeleton to excavate!  I love this picture of the boys and I love that my girls are absent from it because they spent most of the time in this room, not sweeping dirt from buried bones, but getting the paleontologist dress-up clothes on!
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We adults couldn't resist jumping in and playing in some of these inviting rooms, but we also took some time to just sit and chat and enjoy the views of the city while the kids kept busy.

After the museum and before the boat and train ride home, we stopped to let the kids run around in Navy Pier's big fountain.  This day was another hot and humid one, so the water play was perfect.

It was a great day to treat our kids to some of their favorite things, indulge in some playtime together and be a little nostalgic about our favorite city.