We didn't fly anywhere for this 3-day weekend (I know - weird!) so instead we went and had a fun day downtown at the Art Institute and Grant Park! We invited our awesome friends the Saunders and had a great day!
Riding on the "L" (subway train) you can see they are all so super excited!
In front of the Art Institute - one of the Lion statues that guards the entrance. Unfortunately it was quite freezing, but the kids were tough :)
Inside the museum, the boys were on assignment to decide which artist was their favorite for the day. Traeden liked Delacroix, Jax was holding out for a Van Gogh, which we didn't see (it's a really gigantic museum...)
In the kids' area, they had art tables set up where the kids could make masterpieces of their own. They were waiting for their paper to be delivered to them, so they colored on the table cover for a bit. It was pretty much the only quiet moment of the day! I think the art really inspired them!
In another section of the kids' area they had art books, puzzles of famous prints, and foam blocks. Araleigh was so thrilled that her brothers helped her build this tower!
Next, on to Grant Park, where they were having a Snow Days Festival, complete with dog sleds, snow sculptures, and snowboarding. Well I don't know that it can really be called snowboarding, I mean clearly there are no mountains out here so they built their own with some rails for a few tricks during a 5 second ride. It made me miss Utah - a lot! But now the boys are anxious to learn how to snowboard, especially seeing this little kid who was probably only 5 or 6 doing fancy tricks! We are hoping to make it out there soon so they can get practicing!
The snow sculptures were really cool, this one was the first place winner!
"Where the Wild Things Are"
Einstein!
And what kind of posting would this be if I didn't put in a cute picture of my little girl?? She was such a trooper all day!!
From there we had to go get hot chocolate (mmmmmm.....!) and then I sent the Saunders on the train and the kids and I walked through the city to Dave's work to meet him for dinner. On the way the boys had fun finding all the random sculptures that are everywhere, and we were even lucky enough to walk by the CBS evening news - yes, my kids were those people who stand behind the news guy and wave through the windows :) They thought it was pretty cool that they were "on TV".
