Last weekend of the Summer

We decided to squeeze in a little vacation the last weekend before school started.  Thanks to my best friend Alicia and her husband Jim, we were able to spend a couple nights at their place in Chicago and see some sites.

We arrived Friday night and had some great Lou Malnatti's pizza!  We got an early start on Sat morning and arrived at the Shedd Aquarium when they opened the doors at 8:00a.  It was a very busy weekend in the city as the Air and Water Show was taking place.   By the time we left, the line to get in was extremely long!

Loved the sea turtle!!

We were in the front row for the dolphin show and this little guy walked right in front of us.

Up next was the Field Museum.  We tried to pick and choose what we wanted to see and the dinosaurs were at the top of our list.

Here is Sue the T-Rex!

A little sunny...but a great view of the city!

Our final stop of the day was the Willis (Sears) Tower.  We had bought a City Pass online a few days before and were able to take the "Fast Pass" and move to the front of the line.  I can't tell you how much time this saved us!!  We were at the top of the tower as the Blue Angels were flying for the air show.  Unfortunately, we were standing at the wrong window to experience the fly by right by the tower, but it was still neat to see them.

Max and Blake standing on the Observation Deck.  Dan wouldn't come near it!

We met up with Jim and Alicia for dinner at an English pub with over 90 different types of Scotch.  Dan had a couple that he hadn't tried before and we had a great dinner.  We stopped by an ice cream shop on our walk home and Blake had Merlot Chocolate Chip.  I tried it and it did taste a bit like wine.  He didn't realize what it was until after he ate about half of it.  We were giving him a hard time about drinking wine and that he better behave on the walk back to Alicia's.  We told him he needed to walk in a straight line and make sure the cops didn't stop him and smell his breath.  He was really worried about it and ran upstairs to brush his teeth as soon as we got home!

We left Jim and Alicia's early on Sat, after a great breakfast!  We headed to Porter Beach at Indiana Dunes.  A couple of friends recommended this beach and it was perfect!  The boys played out in the waves on their body boards for hours and loved it!

Daddy helped Blake make an Indian Chief

We left the beach around 2:00 and headed to our hotel near Gurnee.  It felt good to get there at a decent time and relax a bit.  I took the boys to the pool for a little while and Dan had a little nap.  We were all hungry, but had no idea where to go for dinner.  We found this place called, The Shanty, which was excellent!  It was a casual steak/seafood place that has been featured on The Food Network.  We were told there would be about a 15 min wait, but it ended up being an hour.  That meant that we didn't get a table until about 8p.  We were so hungry!  The food was delicious.  Blake got a big salmon and devoured the whole thing in about 5 mins.  Unfortunately, that salmon came up all over the bed at about 2a!!  It was disgusting!  We got everything cleaned up and were able to get everyone back to sleep.  We didn't want to miss out on our last day of vacation.

Blake felt fine in the morning and was able to eat a little breakfast before we headed to Great America.  Luckily, we decided to go on a Monday and the lines were not too bad.  Max was just an inch too short to go on some of the bigger roller coasters.  We had a great time!  We all got soaked a couple times on the water rides and the boys loved it!

My cousin and his son, Quinn, were able to meet us for a bit and we went to the Hurricane Harbor water park inside Great America.  We didn't get to spend near enough time with them but it was nice to see their faces for a bit.

It was a great weekend and wish we could have several more.  It is hard to believe the summer is over and both of the boys are in school full-time.  Blake tells me everyday that it is really bad that he doesn't get to see me very much!  I agree!