Moving west, the second stop on our spring break series is the windy city. Chicago is such a fun city and one that I have fond memories of.

When I was a child, my dad was invited to present at a trade show in Chicago and I was able to go with him. I honestly don’t remember a lot from that quick trip, but what stands out from the fragments of meetings and slide shows was a small lunch with my dad sitting on the shore of Lake Michigan. It was just the two of us and it was a great day.

Another time, I remember getting woken up as a child and told to quickly get dressed and that we were going on a trip. My parents had decided to take us to Chicago for a quick family trip. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry and that trip is one of my favorite childhood memories.

I suppose that was the inspiration for this spring break trip. We wanted to go somewhere that was close but still really fun and new and Chicago fit the bill.

We went in 2010 with our four children and we were expecting our fifth.

Day 1:

We are a thrill-seeking family and we love to go to amusement parks so when we started talking about a trip to Chicago, we immediately knew we wanted to go to Six Flags Great America!

The day we chose to go to Six Flags was a wonderful, sunny Midwestern day and it was fantastic. The great thing about Six Flags was that it had such a variety of things for our family to do. It had roller coasters and thrill rides for my husband and our boys and it had a fantastic kids area for me (since I was pregnant; no roller coasters for me) and our almost two-year old. There was an unexpected character parade in the middle of the day that was a lot of fun and the kids really loved.

You can tell from the pictures, that we had the kids in tie-dye shirts. Before we left, we let the boys make design and dye their own shirts and having the bright shirts made it a lot easier for us to keep track of the kids in the park.

At the end of the day, we let the kids pick something from the gift shop and the last picture is the boys showing off their treasures.

This picture is showing our daughter giving a kiss to her baby tiger. She still loves this stuffed animal to this day and has shared it with her two younger sisters.

Day 2:

When we woke up the next day, heavy rain clouds had descended and it was a gloomy, rainy day.

Thankfully, we had planned to go the the Museum of Science and Industry so it was a great day to be inside.

I was really excited to take our kids to this museum because I had great memories from my own family vacation.

To make this day even better, it happened to be a Free Family day at the museum so we didn’t have to pay for admission. My husband didn’t know it was a free day (or he forgot after I told him) so he was pleasantly surprised. The downside to it being free (and rainy) was it was very crowded, but we still had a fun day.

There were so many amazing things to see and do in this museum. The boys loved the science experiments they had set up for the kids to try and they had some fun “shows” we were able to see too.

 Our son, Jacob, (in the green shirt) was chosen to participate in this fun science experiment. They put a science concoction into the jar and put a simple party noisemaker stuck in a cork in the opening. The mixture created a gas that escaped through the noisemaker causing it to “honk.” He loved it and to this day, he is always excited to do science experiments.

We found many more fun activities for all of the kids to do and to try that worked not only their muscles, but also their minds.

Before leaving, we had the chance to go and see the U-505 German submarine that was captured by the Allied forces during World War II and is one of six U-boats that were captured.  It was really neat to see and the boys were amazed when we were able to see how small it was inside. Our oldest asked, “How did they all fit in here?”

To end the day, we went to a Chicago institution and had dinner at Uno’s Pizzeria for real deep dish Chicago pizza.  It took nearly an hour for them to cook our pizza so you order before you even sit down.

I highly recommend ordering appetizers because our kids were getting antsy waiting for the pizza, but be careful because once the pizza finally came, we were already full of apps that we had a lot of leftovers.  Good thing pizza is always good…even when it’s cold!

Day 3:

We just enjoyed our last day in Chicago and took our time driving around and seeing the city. We went to the Chicago temple and spent a little time on the temple grounds.

Now, it was finally time to head home. One the way out of town, we decided to stop off for a Chicago hot dog at Superdawg and they were delicious!

Thanks Chicago! Until we meet again!