Anniversary....day 3

I had expected Chicago in July to be HOT and a bit miserable, but it was strangely cool and sunny and absolutely lovely. It's the kind of weather that might convince you to move to, say...Chicago.

Thursday we decided to go visit some of the cultural attractions of the city. We started with the Field Museum. It was an impressive building, especially since the name "Field Museum" made me think of the taxidermy mecca that is the Bean Museum (no offense...heh heh).


We knew the boys would have loved the T-Rex skeleton, thanks to "Night at the Museum". I was pretty excited to visit a museum without little people dislocating my fingers in an effort to get me to go faster, climbing things, and pushing every button possible. I always feel frustrated at museums because I feel like I'm missing so much and I want to stand and read every plaque and sign that explains all about the exhibit.

Well.....

It turns out, after about ten minutes I was bored and I can only take so much information about the indigenous peoples of the Americas. This is a HUGE museum and has tons and tons of stuff which would take hours and hours of committed, focused attention. And frankly, this wasn't how we wanted to spend our Anniversary. So, after a half an hour, we ended up walking as fast as possible though the exhibit, scanning just in case there was something totally amazing and pushing every button we found. So kids....I get it. We are going to rock the next museum we go to.

We had bought the CityPass, so we had tickets for the 5 main attractions in the city:

Field Museum
Planetarium
Aquairium
Museum of Science and Industry
Sears Tower

Being the frugal folks we are, we weren't about to pay for something and not experience it, so we walked over to the Adler Planetarium and picked up tickets for two of the star shows, then we walked all the way back over to the Shedd Aquarium and speed-walked through that. The beluga whales were cute:
And we enjoyed the 4-D Show. I wasn't aware that the 4th 'D' means that they will shake your seat and spray water in your face THREE times. Mark didn't get any as his knee was directly in front of the sprayer aimed at him. I figured that out right after the third time and put my foot in front of it. Awesome. We are rockin these glasses, don't you think? We laughed when we saw this picture and both agreed that we would be way more awesome if you couldn't actually see our eyes.

We sat down just as a "Dolphin Show" was starting. Unfortunately, the chica who was hosting the show was finger-nails-on-a-chalkboard annoying. It reminded me of being in preschool... "O-kay!" "FAN tastic!" And the first 20 minutes of the show was dedicated to showcasing the training progress of a dog and a hawk. Are you joking me? We are from ARKANSAS....we are extremely acquainted with dogs and hawks. We wanna see some freaking dolphins!

So we ditched the dolphin show and walked back to the Planetarium. We then proceeded to sleep through 2 different star shows. In our defense, Robert Redford was the narrator and he is nothing if not soothing.

Perhaps the most exciting part of this part of our day was parking underneath Soldier Field. Mark was born in Chicago, so he was raised with a healthy reverence for Chicago sports. He explained that instead of tearing down the old stadium, they built the new seating right on top...making it look like a spaceship had landed right on top of a Colosseum. Pretty cool. The things you learn from a boy.

Now we had spent all morning and early afternoon walking from place to place and the only food option was that little green hot dog stand you see in the picture above. Now, I don't know about you, but for us, every single meal is an opportunity to have something AWESOME. We were not about to waste a precious lunch on a green tourist hot dog shack. So we walked back to Soldier Field, reclaimed the car and googled "Best Chicago Style Pizza" and google, in it's all-knowing glory, recommended Giordano's Pizza, just a couple blocks from our hotel. So we dropped the car off at the hotel and walked over. It was just starting to rain as we got there. The wait was not too long, but because it's such a popular place, you order your pizza before you are seated so that you can start eating as soon as you get a table. I like it!

Oh...don't mind the huge wooden thing in the picture...that is where they set your pizza and where we set our camera. I'm too embarrassed to ask a waiter to take our picture. It makes me feel stupid.
This pizza was huge. We did our best to eat it, but only made it half way. The mozzarella on this sucker was so delicious. So creamy and salty and stringy. I was painfully full and simply could not stop myself from shoveling it into my face. Ooooh....I want some more.

After an awesome dinner at Giordano's, we just walked all over downtown Chicago. We went to several high end shops that were ridiculously expensive. One lady tried to sell us an umbrella that was "on sale" for $175. We had to laugh and I was was tempted to say "Oh, that is a good deal!" But we just headed back out the revolving door and right into Crate & Barrel where we purchased a butter dish, 6 stainless steel condiment cups and a mini fork. Hey, big spenders!

And just because we could, we went to a late night showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. We found a Walgreens on the way and bought candy bars in order to carry on the time honored tradition of treat smuggling. That did not stop us from buying grossly overpriced popcorn and soda. It was a good movie, but I haven't seen or read 4 or 5, so I was a bit behind. Mark was so tired, he couldn't stay awake. He hasn't trained for this like I have. I've been staying up late watching tv for years. I'm a pro.

Another fun filled day in the Windy City.