Our three day weekend was very full. It started Friday evening when we took off from our home and headed to Jeff's home town to visit his parents. It is approximately a 3 to 3 1/2 hour car ride and we arrived about 8:30 that night. We let the kids visit with their grandparents before putting them to bed.
On Saturday, Jeff went with his dad to work on a Habitat for Humanity house. My mother-in-law and I took the kids and went into Davenport for lunch. We ate lunch at Red Robin and then went to see "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian." Benjamin did not enjoy the movie very well and became restless. At one point, he started crawling down the stairs in an attempt to entertain himself. I retrieved him and between my mother-in-law and myself, we were able to keep in the same row as us. The rest of us enjoyed the movie. I really liked the actress who played Amelia Erhart (Amy Adams). In my opinion, she added a lot of "spunk" to the movie. I didn't like the movie as much as the original. I thought that the plot of the sequel was a little lame.
After the movie, we stopped off at the boyhood home of Buffalo Bill Cody. He lived in this house until he was three years old. The main reason for our stopping at his homestead was due to the fact that two baby bison were born within the past couple of weeks and we had hoped to see them. Much to our dismay, the baby bison would not come out to their little hut. We did walk through the home, which has been turned into a museum. The short tour lasted only about 5 minutes. Benjamin was very interested with the different items found in the house. So much, that he ignored the rope that roped off sections of the house and walked into the restricted sections to explore. After retrieving him, we quickly finished the rest of the tour and left.
On Sunday, Jeff and I took the kids into Chicago to go to the Shed Aquarium. Our adventure was interesting. We didn't leave the house until about 9:20. We arrived in the Chicago city limits about 12:30, but due to traffic (both the White Sox's and the Black Hawk's had games going on that day) we didn't arrive at the aquarium until almost 1:30. Once we arrived, we started looking for parking. The only parking lot we found took cash only! We didn't have enough cash on hand, so Jeff dropped me off at the front doors of the planetarium, where I went in and found an ATM machine. Once I had cash in hand, we went back to the same parking lot only to find that the lot was full. We looked for a place to turn around and upon doing so, discovered that they had re-opened the parking lot. Once we parked we headed to the aquarium. We then had to stand in line to get in. A magician happened to be entertaining the people in line and David and Isabel got to participate in his tricks. They really enjoyed this and helped pass the time. It was almost 3:00 before we got into the aquarium. It was well worth the wait. The kids had a blast. Benjmain could not get over the fact that there were so many different fish in one place. He kept racing from one tank to another calling for me to come and "check this out." The kids especially enjoyed the Beglua whales and the spider crabs.
One word of advice, if you decide to visit the Shed Aquarium, purchase tickets in advance to avoid waiting in line to purchase them.
We were able to see almost all of the aquarium and left Chicago about 6:00. We arrived back at Jeff's parents late on Sunday. After allowing the kids to share their adventures from the day with grandpa and grandma, we got them to bed as fast as possible.
Today was more laid back. We stayed at my in-law's house until after lunch and then piled into the minivan to come back home.
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