It’s tough to top a family travel blog by two 8 year olds! I’m not even going to try! They did a wonderful job. We planned this trip with friends many months ahead of time. I was fearful the long anticipation would exceed the actual weekend. My fears were completely unfounded. We had an absolute blast! It can tricky traveling with friends when young children are involved — but this trip could not have gone any better. We didn’t over-schedule, and we were all (except for maybe our pirate princess 4 yr old) just laid back and happy “winging” it part of the time. Our food favorites list is below the thoughts from 2 of our mini Chicago explorers. Enjoy! See you along the way….-Betsy (the recovering politician)
“Chicago Adventures”: by Lucinda and, guest blogger/travel partner/swim partner, Haddy (3rd grade pals)
Ladies About Town
In Chicago, you should go to the Museum of Science and Industry and the Navy Pier. At the museum, you can work with robots and weather experiments. You can also do a Lego challenge to see how quickly you can build something in 3 minutes and 30 seconds! Do not leave the museum without doing the mirror maze! Also, be sure to check out the Junior Achievement section.
At the Navy Pier, the little kids can ride the carousel and the big kids can ride the swings. On the swings, you might feel like you are going to throw up or bump into someone but you won’t. Our favorite activity was the Architectural Boat Tour. It was so fun!
If you like American Girl Dolls, there is an American Girl Doll store…..it is SO BIG! The Lego store is next door too. The best place to eat is RPM Italian. It has really good food for kids. The rigatoni is delicious. The dark chocolate gelato with graham cracker and marshmallow is so SO yummy and good to share with your friend.
Thank you for reading our blog about Chicago. We hope you go. – “Lu” and “Hadds”
P.S. If you have a little sister or brother, bring a stroller.
Always travel with a trusted buddy.
Eating our way around Chicago……
- RPM Italian: As the kids mentioned, it’s so yummy! Too busy eating to get any photos! They don’t have an actual kids menu but were very accommodating with putting items together that worked for our 4 minis. http://rpmrestaurants.com/rpmitalian/chicago/
- The Hampton Social: Amazing brunch! A 4 year old took over my phone so here are the photos we ended up with! No smoke and mirrors here…..life with kids! Evidently the fries are great (only 1 left??) and we all had a blast! http://www.thehamptonsocial.com
- Gino’s East: Traditional Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Deep dish takes a bit longer to cook but it was definitely worth the wait! Don’t go if you are in a hurry. http://www.ginoseast.com
- Rosebud Steakhouse: The only critique here is the lighting was extremely low at dinner, which was good for our travel-tired eyes but not good to take a photo of this yummy salmon piccata! Low quality photo….high quality dinner! http://www.rosebudrestaurants.com/restaurant/rosebud-steakhouse
- NoMI: Good breakfast with an beautiful view! The girls loved the hot chocolate! https://www.hyatt.com/corporate/restaurants/nomi/en/home.html
* One of Chicago’s nicknames is “Second City.” The reason behind this has conflicting stories. Two of the most common: 1) For decades, Chicago had the second largest metropolitan area in the United States. 2) The city was rebuilt between the Great Chicago Fire (1871) and the World’s Columbian Exposition (aka the World’s Fair) in 1893.
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