St. Louis Science Center

Last night it rained (thunderstorms too!) and more was expected today so we looked for something to do inside.  So we went to the St. Louis Science Center.  The kids got a kick out of the alien guy outside made of recycled material so I made them stand by it and look to the sky like he is.  This is outside the planetarium.  

Inside there were a ton of exhibits and the planetarium was connected to the Science Center via a cool bridge over the freeway.  Watch out speeders, the kids can see how fast you are going and stand right over you as you speed by.  We saw a planetarium show on constellations.  There were many exhibits the kids loved:  feeling an earthquake (wait, can't we do that at home?), building an arch, moving Mars rovers, and the list goes on!  This is the amount ($5,045,000) that it would take to send all five of us to the moon!

 Waiting on our mats for the planetarium show.

 A moving t-rex exhibit!

A game called mind ball.  The more relaxed you were the more the ball went in your favor.  Anna won against Olivier.  I won against Mason.  I just thought about the planetarium show and wanting to fall asleep under the stars!

Were were there almost all day, and ended with seeing an IMAX movie on pandas that we all loved!  

Busy day around St. Louis!

We started the day by visiting the rooftop deck, and the kids keep asking when we will visit the City Museum.  Not today, today we are off to the Mississippi River and the St. Louis Arch!

Cloudy day, which means it is a great day for lots of walking!

 They have a new visitors center with a cool reflection pool.

 The kids stepped in the Mississippi river!  The current was rather fast!

 We took a riverboat tour which had a lot of interesting information about the history of the city.

Before the boat took off Anna, Mason and I are comparing steps so far, knowing we have many more to go!

 It started to clear a bit!

In our tube on the way up the arch (minus Matt who squeezed in!).

 And the view of the city from the top!

 And the river on the other side.

 Surprising how much you could see of the stadium!

 One of the tour guides was working on getting people to take photos showing how you could stand at the angle offset by the angle of the arch.

 On our way back the sun fully came out...and it got hot!

 We walked past the library.

 Cool sculpture right outside.

 And a beautiful old church.  Yup, me just taking random picture again.  :-)

Off to St. Louis!

Today we left Chicago for our final destination, St. Louis!  We arrived at four and went to check out the view.  We have a tiny glimpse of the arch a mile away.  

 And if you look to the left instead of the right you can see the City Museum.  We will go check that out one day.  Looks interesting...!

Since we had been in the car for a bit and the kids were a bit wiggly, we took a walk after dinner to the park just outside our building.  the kids had fun but got super dizzy on the piece of equipment Olivier is on in this photo.  Thankfully no one got sick! 

Lincoln Park Zoo!

I am not sure how they do it but the free Lincoln Park Zoo was amazing!  Granted we had to pay to park but most you have to pay to park and get in!  We had a great time!  

 We stumbled upon a small group talk about a snake (maybe 15 guests in total).  Very cool!

 The kids were so excited to see a lemur after Matt's cousin Emma talked about her summer internship working with lemurs.

 Riding the pygmy hippos!

 We all thought the Tawny Frogmouth looked like a grumpy owl, which of course made us all laugh!

Beautiful day!  We had talked about heading downtown but the kids really didn't want to so we didn't.  And we are totally fine with that!

Chicago Field Museum

Today we went to the Field Museum.  It was a bit of an adventure getting there but we did thankfully finally make it all in.  Before we could go to any real exhibits we had to eat lunch and ironically the spot we chose had the display of elephant seals right behind us.  It was like being home again!  We  went to check out the insect section after lunch and the kids were excited to try to be one too!  We all got shrunk before we entered so they could.  :-)

After seeing the insects we went to see the section on Egypt (my favorite!).  Then it was off to Africa and Olivier asked me to take this photo, although I can't remember why.  But it is cute so here you go!

After Africa we went to see the gem display (Anna's request) and it was very cool.  Then it was off to the dinosaurs, which we all enjoyed. 

 From the museum we had a great view of the foggy, rainy city. 

 The dinosaurs look big but you get a better sense of how big when a kid can sit in the footprint...!

 How many Olivier feet would it take....?

 Olivier said that Uncle Bill could catch the fish we saw if they were still alive today. 

 And we saw some of the horse ancestors. 

 And Sue the T-Rex.  They are in the middle of building her a new pavilion.

 Another fish for Uncle Bill to catch!

Since the museum was crazy busy we all got a bit flustered and wanted out so we left around four.  Since it is Friday pizza night we went out for some Chicago deep dish pizza.  It was very tasty and boy were we full!