The Windy WARM City

Last Wednesday was yet another Fun Filled Family Day. Yet, with a bit of a twist and a hidden agenda.

Hayden has been dying to take a train ride for decades... and with the eve of our papers needing to be apostilled, we thought what other way is there to travel to the city... "The way to really fly..."

So we hopped onto the Metra train early Wednesday morning after making a pitstop for a group of papers we overlooked that needed to be notarized. Luckily prior to this, our GREAT AUNT RITA lent her time and hand, notarized the majority of our papers and mentioned our Village having a notary - free and open at 8:30 every day. So we quickly notarized the ones we forgot and headed off to our adventure.

Anyway, we made it to the city without a hitch. Made it to the Sec. of State with no issues. Hayden was a trooper with all the walking. We passed many "skyscrapers" that kept us busy/occupied... not to mention a lunch stop. Once we handed the papers off for apostilling, all we could do was cross our fingers. However, nothing seems to come easy for us, least it doesn't look that way. I had a feeling our doctor's license's were going to give us trouble - and they did. They will have to be notarized separately by our doctor and then apostilled. Fortunately we are waiting on our change of country which coincidentally also needs to be apostilled. Either we will make another trip downtown, or mail these 3 forms to Springfield.

After we finished at Sec. of State, we headed off to do some sight seeing. We planned a surprise for Hayden, since he has also been talking about tall buildings that scrape the sky. We hopped on the subway (another cool treat for Hayden) and made our way to the John Hancock. The 94 floor flight up the elevator was some ride (Mommy felt yucky afterwards). But Hayden will be tickled pink to tell you he saw Navy Pier, and that the Ferris wheel is actually named after the man who made it named Ferris ("get it Ferris Wheel, Ferris made it" then he giggles).

The morning had started out cool, but ended quite balmy. We left the city sweaty, worn out, and in awe. Yes we are ready to do it again, but we should take a closer look at the weather next time :) .

With that out of the way, we have continued on our mini one day family vacations. I hope to post in the next coming days pictures of the giant park we encountered. Hayden enjoyed climbing the huge rope contraption - following Michael, with a bit of help. We are so proud of all his accomplishments everyday. In addition to that, his reading is coming along well! The radio in my car shows the name of the song, band, etc... and seeing that we are in the car a lot - Hayden is constantly reading the words and sounding things out (this just being one example of many times a day he asks us about words LOL). We are surprised every time.

Bike camp starts next week for Hayden. We hope this will give Hayden the encouragement and confidence he needs to ride his big boy bike more often - in addition to seeing his peers in the group riding.

We are still chugging along with Baby V stuff, hence the trip to Chicago. I am eagerly looking for a wall mural in a cherry blossom motif in pink and brown to help pull the room together and put some paint on the walls. Etsy,com is a great source with many choices, I'm just undecided.

We will continue enjoying our summer, we hope you will too - before we know it, fall will be here...

Posted by Mel at 9:43 PM