The Schuerman Family: Chicago!

The Tuesday before we went on our trip to Chicago, Colin turned 4 years old!

I left work early to bring cupcakes with blue frosting and goodie bags of Paw Patrol stuff to Colin and his class to celebrate his birthday. Colin didn't want to stick around and play outside, he wanted to go pick up his sister from school!

The kids played on the school playground for a little while...

and then we brought Cadence to her piano lesson. While we were waiting for her instructor, Cadence read a book from the lobby to Colin. It was really sweet.

The next day was the last day of first grade for Cadence. She only had to go to school for half of the day and we met her at lunchtime for a picnic. Here she is with Mrs. Dean. She misses her already.

After we left school, we headed home to finish up packing and we hit the road! Six hours later, we were in Chicago! Danny and I had such a nice time there last year, that we wanted to go back with the kids. There's so much for the whole family to do there.

We started out the first day with doughnuts from Do-Rite Donuts. Danny and Cadence picked them up for us while Colin and I finished getting ready for the day. They were so good! I don't know, though -- later in the week, we had some doughnuts from Glazed and Infused and they might give Do-Rite a run for their money!

The first stop of the day was the Shedd Aquarium. It's an awesome aquarium right on Lake Michigan. There was so much to do. We enjoyed a show with dolphins and checked out the beluga whales. We attempted a 4-D show of Sea Monsters and the kids freaked out. We had to leave that early! The tank with sharks was really neat and the otters were so fun to watch!

You'll notice a trend with bunny ears...

It started out as a chilly day, but turned out to be beautiful outside after we left the aquarium.

Here's the only pic we got of the whole family on our trip!

Next, we hit up the John Hancock tower. On the 94th floor, Danny and I did Tilt where you face downward at the Magnificent Mile over 1,000 ft. up in the air! The line was pretty long last year, so we didn't do it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Danny was scared, though!

Giant Jenga! It got too tall for Cadence to reach the top!

That night we had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. Cadence enjoyed that a little more than Colin did -- he wasn't a fan of the fake moving animals or the surprise thunderstorms!

The next day, after breakfast, we took a stroll over to Navy Pier.

The Crystal Gardens were fun with all of the fountains!

The ferris wheel and swings were a no; the merry-go-round was a go.

Next, we rented a quadcycle. This was my favorite part of the trip. I was cracking up as we were pedaling. People kept smiling and laughing at us. The kids got to chill out as we did all the work!

We rode over to Millenium Park and checked out The Bean.

And ended up down at the lake! This was the highlight of the trip for the kids. They've never been to a beach before. Even without any beach toys, they had a blast!

We went back to the pier (which had a Rolling Stones exhibit, so tongues everywhere) for some souvenir shopping.

It started to downpour while we were eating dinner, so we took a bus back to the hotel. Another event that was so simple to us, but the kids loved.

The kids had fun the next morning at breakfast.

We even got a ninja warrior practice in.

While we waited for our boat tour, we enjoyed some of the Memorial Day parade.

And took in some of the sites around town.

Colin LOVED the boat tour.

It was a gorgeous day

We went back to the beach!

The kids were wiped

Before we were on our way back to Columbus, we stopped by the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. The place was huge. It was a little overwhelming. Even though a lot of the exhibits were for older kids (we felt), we found some fun stuff to see. We started at the Lego exhibit.