Today is our 11th Anniversary, so we loaded up the family for a day of fun.
We hopped on the train
and went to Chicago
to see the awesome Shedd Aquarium.As we were waiting in line to get in Lincoln said, "why are we here? I don't want to just look at fish all day, that sounds so boring." He quickly changed his tune once he saw how great it was. He started teaching Harrison about everything. He would make sure to point interesting things out to him and guided him around. It was very sweet. This is a role that Jackson often takes, but it was fun to see Lincoln doing that too.
We found Nemo and his dad.
and pretended to be penguins.
We saw some amazing jellyfish (I LOVE how these pics turned out!)
and dolphins, and beluga whales and sea otters and lots of other things that wouldn't photograph well without a flash.
For some reason the guy who was exchanging our Groupon felt generous and gave us free tickets to a 4D shortened version (15 min) of the Polar Express. It was very cool. It looked like it was really snowing and we were sprayed with cold water when the ice came our way. We smelled the hot chocolate, etc. He also gave us tickets to the live animal show. We got there early and got a front row seat. Harrison slept through the whole thing.
A penguin walked right in front of us.
We finished off the day with a visit to a German Weihnachtsmarkt downtown. It was CRAZY crowded, but I was impressed with how well they mimicked the real thing. I was excited to see that they had Gluewein - not because I've ever tried it, but because I LOVE the smell of it. The smell there wasn't quite the same, but it was fun to bring back some memories. It was not fun to be squished beyond belief and not even able to walk. The kids were not impressed. We told them that we did a lot of things for them, but this was for me and they could deal with it! They liked it better once we got some food in their tummies.
Thanks for a super fun day and for 11 amazing years Jeff!
