I remember doing it as kid with buckets of dye and white shirts that were scrunched together with rubber bands. When I went to the craft store they had tie dye kits for about $10. Cool! We all sat around the TV as we watched "how to" make the different designs. Each kid chose his design and Anne and I got to work. This became a mother-daughter project since the boys chose not to help - which was fine because we had a lot of fun.
So we are already on day 8 of our trip and we still haven't worn our shirts. We decided this would be the day!
Out of all the shirts, I liked Max's the most!
We decided to go downtown and visit Millennium Park.
What a fun place. As soon as we got there, the first thing we see are The Crown Fountains. I certainly didn't read about this place before coming so I wasn't expecting to see this.
I've never seen anything like this before! The kids just went crazy and wanted to play in the water. How could we not let them, right? If I did read about Millennium Park before we got there, I would have brought bathing suits and towels. Our first stop for the day and our children get soaked! It was another beautiful day with mild temps and blue skies! Just loving it!
Lots of squeals of delight!
Thank goodness Max stayed put in his stroller! He stayed nice and dry.
It would have been perfect to have Max in the middle of this photo, but that wasn't going to happen. We already get comments from random people when crossing paths with this big family of 8, now we were more of a spectacle with being a big family of 8 in tie dye shirts! I certainly don't mind showing off our beautiful family - I'm blessed - but the tie dye may have embarrassed me a bit! I got over it eventually, but people are free with their comments as usual!
We eventually left the Crown Fountains and started exploring.
There were art sculptures all over the park. In this one, it looks like someone dumped water all over the sculpture and Bernadette.
This is Anne being one with the art (by Jun Kaneko).
We walked through the Lurie Gardens. I just love the skyline of Chicago. It is such a beautiful city.
Once we got through the Lurie Gardens we heard some music and knew something was going on. We approached the Jay Pritzker Pavillion and on it's Great Lawn they were having a huge Zumba class! The music was lively and there were tons of people participating in this Zumba class. We stood watching. There were all sorts of people exercising from old men to bag ladies - all shaking their thang! It was almost contagious to go out there and join them - didn't happen. This is definitely something I don't see everyday.
Then we headed over to a red tent which had something going on inside.
I don't really remember exactly what it was, but I think it was something Target was sponsoring and they had a bunch of activities for kids. So our kids stopped by to play a bit.
Then we headed off to my favorite part of the park...
The Cloud Gate, aka The Bean. I remember reading or seeing this before and again, didn't realize I was going to be seeing it that day. I think it was a neat idea of putting this in the middle of the park. It's not just a piece of art, but a fun toy for people of all ages! You can just see why it's fun to hang around. It's a big mirror shaped like a bean that distorts it's reflections in a fun way.
There we are together in our tie dye!
At this point my kids are damp not wet. Drying off still...
You can get under this bean and get some cool reflections.
After walking around Millennium Park we decided to walk through the city, down Michigan Ave., and get some lunch.
What a fun city. I keep having to compare it to New York when I talk about it. It's just more open, cleaner, friendlier people, classier, prettier - however, New York is classic, artful, interesting and is really a city that is always awake! I'd choose Chicago to live in, however.
You know you watch a lot of movies when you start recalling a bunch of different scenes from movies when you look at the Chicago River. Gotta get a picture of it!
We walked around Chicago for a while. Had to find a potty for Eddie to use. And then find a corner to nurse Max.
We walked through an art fair which was nice. We headed back to our car and realized we lost one of Bernadette's bright green crocs halfway there. The kids and I parked ourselves near a building on Michigan Ave. and timed Daddy to see how long it would take for him to return to us. I think we clocked him at a little over 12 minutes.
Once we got to the car, we went on a drive to visit where my father-in-law grew up. There were two homes that he lived in which were very close to each other. We took pictures of us there and then we headed back to our hotel to call it a day!
We rested up at our hotel for another day downtown. We were going to head to Lincoln Park Zoo and also spend time at the beach along Lake Michigan!
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