Trip to Shedd Aquarium

Last weekend, Kathryn and I were supposed to go camping with Bill, Jen, Amber, and Sarah. Fortunately, as last weekend was the hottest weekend of the summer, we decided to go down to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. We all met at the train station near Sarah's house. Kathryn and I had a momentary detour, after she uttered those words every parent dreads: "Daddy, I really have to go to the bathroom now!" At that point there's no reason to ask, "Why didn't you go before we left," but we all it do anyway.

We made it to the station in plenty of time, and 90 minutes or so later, we were in Union Station. I'd forgotten how cool that station looks. I normally take the Union Pacific Northwest line, which comes into the newer Ogilvie Center. Union Station is right next to my favorite building in the world: the Sears Tower. There was a time when I used to walk past Sears Tower every other Saturday, but I hadn't been back to Union Station in almost 14 years.

The aquarium was very nice. Kathryn and I both consider the penguins our favorite exhibit. We could watch them for hours. We also saw a few eels during feeding time. Unfortunately, only one of the eels actually ate anything: he snapped up everything they dropped into the tank before the other eel could react. Poor guy!

In the evening, we all came back up north and went to Gino's in Lake Zurich for dinner. Then Kathryn and I went down to Schaumburg, where we stayed for the night. We didn't get there until 11:00, and we didn't actually get to sleep until midnight or so. Kathryn wanted some "music" on, but since we didn't have a radio in the room, we turned on "Command Decisions" on History International. I figured she'd be so tired (and so bored) that she'd fall asleep instantly. Little did I know that "Command Decisions" includes a lot of multiple-choice military questions, which (for some reason) interested Kathryn very much.

The next day we went to Woodfield Mall for a while. I made another mistake by going into the Lego store with Kathryn. I didn't know they had a whole princess-themed set of Legos! "That was an important piece of information, wouldn't you say?" Fortunately, Kathryn doesn't often make a fuss about buying toys right away. She'll just calmly mention, "Daddy, maybe I could get this for my birthday or Christmas...?" in a cute little expectant tone.