Chicago Trip and I will be an auntie

Last week we took our semi-annual trip to see my sister in Berwyn, IL. We left Thursday morning at 9am and headed south. We were making pretty good time until we hit the outlet mall. We had stopped for breakfast but no other stops were made except quick bathroom breaks. The boys were set up with their dvd players, toys, books and of course snacks! So we stopped for a 'quick' trip to shop, but ended up getting sucked in and almost 4 hours later we were back on the freeway just in time for rush hour traffic!! We did find a few good deals but knew we'd probably do shopping there too.

We got to my sisters house in one piece before the sun went down and we were able to see proof of her pregnancy. Oh yes my sister is pregnant-almost 17 weeks. She is due the beginning of December. She does have a little belly and cannot hide it any longer. The boys are pretty excited to have another cousin and keep calling the baby a her. They aren't so sure of the whole thing however. Z kept asking if the baby was still in there or had it come out since we'd been there.

We hit a great weekend for FREE admission to certain attractions...

Shedd's Aquarium was first--to be honest I wasn't that impressed with it. The free part was the basic Caribbean reef and you had to pay more for the other areas. Don't get me wrong the reef was very cool but was sooo packed with a thousand groups of children. We brought the stroller in with us so one of us had to step back with it for most of the viewing.

Then off to the Museum of Science & Industry. That was so much better. We went there as kids so I really wanted the boys to experience it also. We spent 4 hours there and basically just skimmed over everything. The Aquarium took us just over an hour. We would have stayed at the museum longer but we were all getting pretty tired. I think we will definitely spend an afternoon there as well.

We of course did our usual shopping, and had all of the usual meals (burritos, pizza and Chinese). Chris made us breakfast each morning.

Don't ask me how I slept while there...just about as bad as the tent. One night I slept on the boys ready-bed (small inflatable air mattress) and had my legs from the knee down draping off the end of it. N ended up in bed that night with Jon and Z. Z never makes it an entire night alone in his bed!

Z woke up sick Saturday night so we left fairly early on Sunday. I didn't want a 7 hour car ride to any more miserable than it had to be. So straight home with no shopping (good thing we got sucked in on the way down) He did really well and is still being bothered with asthma/allergies and most likely a cold.

My sister did really well with all of our craziness, and we thank them both for their great hospitality. We wish we could make the trip more often.