Chicago

Last weekend Stephen and I got away for about 30 hours to explore Chicago a bit with only Squeaky for company.

The highlights of the trip included a pit stop at Uncle Bob's for lunch... 

a Sweet Georgia Peach shake

a view from the Skydeck of the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower and still the tallest building in the US)...

We let Squeaky go out onto the Skyjack first.

some Chicago deep-dish stuffed pizza...

a walk through a candy bar...

the historic Palmer House hotel...

Squeaky liked it.

Really cool, ornate fixtures.

A grand piano in the elevator lobby? Yes, please!

another elevator lobby

the Myopic Bookstore, a quirky used bookstore (where I found a cookbook for El Charro, our favorite Tucson restaurant...an awesome find!)...

and a boat tour of the shore of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River.

Trump Tower

The Chicago Tribune building

Leaving the city behind as we headed out through the lock onto Lake Michigan.

The pictures end there because I accidentally deleted them from the camera card before they were all copied over to the computer. Bummer. The best pictures were the ones of the architecture along the Chicago River. I guess we'll just have to go back to do the tour again one day.

There was also a stop at Trader Joe's tacked on at the end because, well, when you're near to TJ's, you just have to go and stock up! 

Out and About

We are currently on a week-long break from school and are enjoying a visit from Grandma...which explains how I finally have time for a blog post. Switching to a new computer means learning how Mac works. I like Mac, I do. But somethings are just very different...which means a blog post (with pictures) is a lot more work than it used to be.

In early September we enjoyed a trip to the local apple orchard. We didn't pick our own this year, but we did bring home some apples. Nothing like the 2.5 bushels we picked a few years back that kept me in the kitchen for days, but enough to munch on. 

I liked this and would've bought it, but our wall space in this house is so limited, that there's no where in the kitchen to put it.

Gold-mining

I was surprised she actually let the goats eat from her hand.

We've slowly been making our way around the area here and getting to know a little bit of Illinois. The boys and I drove two hours southeast of here to an Indelible Grace concert a month ago. It was at a small church out "in the sticks" and as we were on our way, I was wondering if there really was a church all the way out there. I'm glad to say that there was, and the band was actually there! The music was good, and we were glad we made the trek.
In anticipation of our study of ancient history this year, I discovered that there was a museum at University of Illinois with permanent exhibits from a number of ancient cultures. The Spurlock Museum was a good drive from here, but it was really neat to see some artifacts that we've talked about in our history readings. There were two of the Terra Cotta warriors on display, and although the boys vaguely remembered seeing them when the National Geographic museum in DC had them on display, it was neat to see them again.

And we saw some examples of cuneiform and even a cuneiform tablet with the seal of Nebuchadnezzar II on it!

 There was also a real mummy. Very weird to see, but pretty cool. 

Elsa's favorite exhibit was the to-scale teepee.
 

And the younger kids enjoyed dressing up in some of the clothing from different cultures as well as playing music on some of the different instruments.

Like many others, we were excited about the lunar eclipse/supermoon viewing a few weeks ago, especially since Cade and Elsa and I have been studying astronomy this year. At first it appeared as if it would be too cloudy to see it, but we decided to throw everybody in the car in their jimmies and drive around to see if there was a break in the clouds. Since our house is surrounded by woods, we couldn't get a good view of the sky from here. 

And it worked! We parked out next to some corn or soy fields (because that's pretty much all they grow around here) and just watched. I took a few pictures but without a tripod or a big zoom, they were just so-so. Still, it was a neat experience...one the kids won't forget soon. They had fun sitting on the car hood to keep warm in the chilly night air, and even if they don't remember why they were sitting on the hood of the car, it will be a fun memory.

Yesterday we took a tour of the Caterpillar Visitor Center with Grandma. It is a small museum of sorts, but really fun. The kids loved climbing on the different kinds of equipment, and they especially liked using the simulators. Elsa drove a bulldozer right into a ditch! 

The size of the equipment is just staggering. I had no idea they made trucks so huge! The 797 is a 400 ton truck used in mining (I think), and the thing has 14-foot tall wheels. It takes 13 rail cars to transport the truck in pieces. No wonder there are so many railroad tracks around here! It's so huge that there was a small movie theater in the "bed" of the truck where we watched a short film about CAT. It was just massive. You can see the size of it with the kids standing next to it. 

Luke is standing in front of the 400 ton truck.

Buckle up!

 

The kids are already looking forward to going back.