A day at the Shedd Aquarium

Jellyfish

The two kids in front of the BIG tank

Looking at Iguanas with Nana

This giant tortoise was resting all his weight on the peak of this rock. Notice the peak is on his neck! OW!

Ky really wanted to touch the snake

Row row row your boat...

Cool Sea horse

and more sea horse

These sea horses were holding tails!

Purty! Can't remember the name of --abalones or something like that

Looks like a giant pill bug!

Alaskan crab

Sea anemones

Star fish

Ky & Nana

Fish--in case you didn't know

Giant sea anemone

Very cool Lobster!

More Fish

Sting Ray

Buttons....Nothing makes a boy happier

Blue Frog

Yellow frog

Bongo room--yummy breakfast place (sorry old man that you are forever stuck in my picture on this website.)

Most museums do a free admission day. Rob and I have started doing some exploring with this and discovered that the Shedd aquarium has free days on many Mondays of each month. We planned ahead and scheduled a day to go. Rob took the day off work and Nana did as well so she could join us. I was so excited to see how Ky was going to react to all the different creatures. EDUCATION LIVE! How fun!

We left earlier morning and headed off to Chicago. The drive was pretty smooth--except for a semi that was tailgating--dangerously tailgating--a small car in front of him. I drove all around his truck, but he didn't have any of those "How's my Driving?" numbers, otherwise I would have reported him. Unnecessary danger. Seriously people!

Our first stop was the Bongo room for a late brunch. If you remember from our summer Chicago post, we tried to visit the Bongo room then but the wait was 1 hour. This worked out much better for us since it was a week day and we were there before the lunch hour rush. The food was DELICIOUS. Rob got pretzel pancakes drizzled in white chocolate---THEY WERE DELICIOUS! And I got french toast with an oatmeal and apple topping and caramel. SO GOOD! I HIGHLY recommend this place. I really want to go back. YUMMY!

After the Bongo room we were back in our car for the museum. We arrived shortly after 12. And then ended up waiting in line for admission. Even though it was free they were selling tickets to the other exhibits--like the touch tank and the dolphin show. AND they were selling it at a discounted price of $17.00. Looking at this--I don't know how people afford to go to the museum on non-free admission days. Parking costs $20, Regular admission is $25 and then the extra exhibits is probably $20 normally. WOW! I feel sorry for all the inner city chicagoans that can't take their little ones--who could REALLY benefit from something like this all due to OUTRAGEOUS prices. I know there is maintenance and all that--but still...I don't know.

Anyway, since we only had a little over 4 hours before the museum closed, we decided just to do the free admission stuff. The kids had a lot of fun observing all the wild life. Frogs, fish, tortoises, reptiles, and even monkeys! We had taken the stroller assuming Alaina would fall asleep--well that didn't happen. In fact she turned into crazy girl--ripping her pony tail out and screaming. (Note to self...Alaina no longer will fall asleep on outings over nap time) I knew it would happen soon--but I was hoping with this day trip she would still give into her need for sleep. Oh well. Now we know!

There were two highlights to this trip for Kylan. He LOVED the snake the lady came out with. He really wanted to touch--though she wouldn't let any of the kids. He was very tentative and kept inching closer and closer to her. Eventually he was sitting next to the lady and handing her things he found on the floor to "feed" to the snake.

The other and most long lasting highlight was a giant sea tortoise they had in a GIGANTIC walk around tank. The sea tortoise was named Nickel. He was rescued from the ocean when a boat hit him and actually cracked his shell. Nickel could no longer swim normally, his butt floats higher than his head, but he does well at the aquarium. Well Ky fell in love with Nickel and his story. Sadly, however, Nickel retreated to some secret hideout in the tank after feeding. Ky spent a LOT of time trying to find him. We left and Ky ended up naming his tortoise (a toy he has at home) Joo-Jah Nickel in honor of Nickel. By the way I asked Ky how to spell Joo-Jah and he said "AMOPZL." Anyway, Joo-Jah was also hit by a boat and had a cracked shell. Ky has carried around Joo-Jah ever since. He even went shopping with us once. Very cute!

Are trip home was one to remember. Alaina would not go to sleep. So for about the last hour of the drive she cried. There was nothing we could do to soothe her. We tried to keep our spirits high--but boy is that stressful. I wish we had put her in the backseat of the van, it would have been a little quieter then!

All in all, things went well and it was a good trip. Alaina, however, is at that transition age where she will fight her nap, but cannot go without it. We hope to go back in Feb/March to the Field Museum and show Kylan the Stinky dinosaurs (He is trying to say extinct.) Hopefully we figure out what to do with Alaina.