Chicago, Illinois
Monday, July 30, 2012
As it was our last day in Chicago, it was important for us to clean up our act, enjoy the time off from traveling and get ready to hit the road again. Therefore, we started the day in a slow fashion yet again and then headed out around 10am for a spot of walking the mall. During this time Eli and Tim got their second haircuts of the summer, we all explored a Lego Store and then had a really fun lunch in a place called the Rainforest Cafe. I think this is a chain restaurant, but it is really designed to be fun for kids and we saw lots of families and lots of grandparents taking the kids out for a meal. The whole restaurant is decked out in a rainforest theme with animals hanging from the ceiling, rain dripping from the roof in many spots, aquariums and fish everywhere you looked and even claps of thunder and bolts of lightning ringing out above your head from time to time. The food was ok, albeit a bit overpriced (clearly you are paying for the theme and ambience) but we had a fun time there having lunch. Then we headed out to Trader Joe's to do one last fill-up of groceries as there is only a three night run until we get to Rochester, New York and a family wedding on Friday. We then returned to the hotel to put away the groceries and then headed out again to fill the afternoon with screen-time fun. Jess was dropped back at the mall for a wander and Tim and the kids went to the movies to see Ice Age 4 - Continental Drift and then wandered next door to the very large arcade to play video games for an hour. All people enjoyed their outings and we stumbled back to the hotel either blurry-eyed or sore-footed. We had dinner and crashed into bed after a day of playing in Schaumburg, Illinois.
