Brian had a few days off the week before Christmas! (Poor Brian was sick on his vacation, so he didn't get to enjoy it as much as he would have liked.) We had three week days to do stuff with our kids before regular schools let our for the Christmas break. So we had an opportunity to visit places without the crowds as a family.
Day 1:
Ice Skating at the Aerodrome. We considered going to the outdoor rink at Discovery Green, but the Aerodrome is so close to our house. AND it has a skate walkers for those who are learning to skate. So that's where we went. There was a homeschool group there for a while, but after they left we practically had the whole rink to ourselves! It was awesome! I'd never had a chance to ice-skate without tons of people in my way before. Arden started out with the walker, but halfway through our time there she felt confident enough to skate without it. She did really well!
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| I'm not sure how this happend, but Google added snow to our skating fun. Weird. Do you see it? |
Day Two:
We spent the day experiencing downtown. We started off at the Downtown Aquarium. Halle won a couple of Aquarium all-day wristbands in a swim team poster contest back during the summer. We used those wristbands to do all of the attractions there.
There was a chance of rain so we knocked out the rides first.
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| Arden was really scared to go on this ride. By the end of it, though, she wanted to ride again. Halle and I are going to turn her into a fellow adrenaline junky even if it kills us! |
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| we are on the Shark Voyage train here. It's really loud which is why Arden is covering her ears. |
We then headed inside for the exhibits. I loved loved loved watching Arden's and Jack's expression when they saw the different fish and sea animals!
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| Checking out this gigantic fish |
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| This pic cracks me up because this huge eel looks like it's about to attack Halle. |
Not sure why the Aquarium has a white tiger exhibit. Nonetheless, Jack liked it.
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| Jack kept calling the tiger a dog. Not quite, buddy, not quite. :) |
The last attraction was a stingray exhibit. You're allowed to touch them!
After the Aquarium we walked through the streets of downtown. We headed to the Chase Tower. There is a sky lobby on the 60th floor which lets you have beautiful scenic views of downtown. Plus the express elevator is fun to ride. I went there on a field trip as a kid and remembered it being neat. But the sky lobby was closed!!! It was under renovation until January. Ugh. So we did the next best thing and took the elevator up to the highest floor we were allowed to go to. The girls got to experience the ear-popping from the altitude change. And Arden got to push elevator buttons. So they were happy. :)
Next we took the escalator down to the underground tunnels. It was a BIG deal and major highlight of the day that Arden got to ride the escalator without holding my hand ;) We walked through the tunnels for a bit and then headed back up to the streets.
We hopped on the Metro Rail and rode down to the Museum District.
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| This is my favorite picture of the Day. Arden is so excited to be on the train. She is mesmerized and trying to take everything in as the train moves along. |
Halle studied the Holocaust this year, so she and I went through the Holocaust museum. Such an emotional museum.
We then headed to the Health Museum. This was the first time for all of us to visit. The girls loved it.
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| There was a 4-D movie about germs at the Health museum. The 4-D freaked our Arden for a bit, but then she relaxed. |
After being in the downtown area all day long (and lots and lots of walking) I was craving grilled fish and Halle wanted sushi. (Go figure, we looked at fish all morning.) So we finished off with dinner at Red Fish grill by our house. Sarah and Adam met up with us there.
Day Three:
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| We went to the lake at Windrose and had better luck. This is the biggest fish of the day. |
That is so weird...and a little creepy...that Google knew to add snow to your ice skating picture. I don't even know what to do with that.
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