White Christmas

This season God gave our family a bit of a surprise that I think most of you know about.  Part of this gave us reason to be in Chicago for a weekend.  And, of course, any time we have reason to be in Chicago we jump at the opportunity to spend time with family!

On Friday night we all gathered at Chris and Karen's house for some Giordano's Pizza.  There was much laughter and play among the cousins.  The kids even busted out a VM Family Talent show, starring Ella on the piano and Calvin on the recorder!

 On Saturday morning, the girls woke up at Grandpa and Grandma's house with that familiar and magical wonder of seeing the world outside the window covered in a new layer of soft snow.  While we hoped to avoid extreme weather and keep our travel plans the way we booked them, the girls were desperate to see some snow.  The white dusting we experienced on Saturday was just perfect!

Obviously, we had to run around the front yard catching some snowflakes on our tongues and throwing snowballs!

Also on Saturday, Mom and Dad took us to the always-incredible Museum of Science and Industry.  We were especially excited to to see a new Dr. Seuss exhibit and their Christmas Around the World celebration.

 The Dr. Seuss exhibit was SO COOL!  We saw original paintings and illustrations from some of his famous stories (like How The Grinch Stole Christmas, pictured below) and learned quite a bit about him personally and his famous work.  Did you know his real name is Theodor Seuss Geisel and that "Seuss" does not rhyme with "goose" but instead "voice"?  Or that Green Eggs and Ham was born out a $50 bet between Dr. Seuss and his publisher that he couldn't write a coherent and entertaining story using 50 words or less?  Or that The Grinch is actually a bit of an auto-biography describing Dr. Seuss' personal annoyance with the commercialization of Christmas?  While we adults soaked up all these interesting facts, the kids loved building crazy Seussical instruments and seeing an Oobleck demonstration.

For 2 years now, Ella has had school lessons about Christmas Around the World, so we knew she'd love this grand exhibit at the museum.  It features 60 trees all decorated in their county's traditional garb with descriptions by each of what that country's Christmas traditions entail. On The World Stage there is one cultural act after the next and we got to watch Irish dancers. 

 We were excited to find the Netherlands tree, covered in klompen, Sinterklaas and Delft ornaments. 

Every half hour in the great hall that housed the World Trees, it would snow!  Soooo awesome!  Now we can say we truly had a "White Christmas"!

We spent several more hours roaming around all the famous Museum of Science and Industry exhibits-- the model trains, the fairy castle, the chick hatchery, the always-moving development of an in utero baby exhibit.  Dad said this museum is Illinois' #1 tourist attraction.  We remembered why after yesterday's visit!