Spontaneous Scotts - to Chicago!

Eric had to go to Chicago to do a training on December 3rd, which was a Friday. He decided to leave Thursday night and before leaving work, called and asked if I thought we should go for a quick family trip. Work was going to pay for the hotel and reimburse for mileage. I remember laying back on our bed and thinking, "Well, they'll miss their spelling tests, but those could be made up. Xela and Graigry would miss their Lighthouse Leader celebration, which is no big deal. We could probably make this work. I'd have to send a few emails and make sure that Robinsons would pick up Julia and Timo after school. Shouldn't be a problem. I'd have to drop off stuff for mutual and bail on them, but that should be okay. Family should come before calling." So at dinner, Eric still at work, I asked the kids if they would like to go to Chicago with Dad and what it would mean if they did. It was a unanimous YES! After getting their opinion, I told them it wasn't a for sure thing, yet, that I would have to talk with Dad again when he got home.

That was around six. He asked how soon I thought we could be ready and I said about 30 minutes. I finished the dishes while Eric got out a suitcase. I gave the kids a list of items to bring downstairs: clean underwear, pjs, clothes for tomorrow, socks, pillow. They moved fairly quickly. I got swim wear as we would play in the pool in the morning to give Eric some quiet work time. We were all packed and in the car in about 45 minutes. I emailed the teachers about the impromptu absence and talked to Robinsons about picking up in the morning and we were off to Chicago.

We actually spent the night in Merriville, Indiana at a Residence Inn. The kids loved watching tv and found a Christmas tv special on. That used to be one of my favorite things to do at Christmas: post the tv Christmas specials listing on the fridge and highlight which ones we were going to watch. But, not having a tv, we don't do that at the Scott Zoo. We called it a night around 11pm.

After breakfast and an hour swim, we got dried off and headed a 45 minutes north to Chicago. Having never been in downtown Chicago, I was a little nervous. Eric hopped out of the van when we reached his destination and said, "Go find something to do for a few hours. I'll call you when I'm done." Me and five kids in downtown Chicago where I'm in completely foreign territory? Yea, I think I made a few drivers mad because I wasn't sure where I was going.

Eric had mentioned something about Navy Pier, so I looked it up on my phone at a red light and GPS'ed it from my phone (I would have been lost without the unlimited data plan and internet access on my phone). We went there and actually had a fun time. We saw one magic act, the same balloon making, balancing act two and a half times and got a free tour of a coast guard boat.

The magic act was cool, but I didn't get any pictures of it. The balancing act guy was funny and the kids liked it, but after a few minutes of standing, I wanted to go see something else, so we wandered to a Winter Wonderland Festival. I thought maybe it would be free to go into. Oh no! It was $15 per person and I wasn't willing to pay that kind of money for something that I knew nothing about. I had prepped the kids that if it cost too much money, we weren't going to do it, so we headed outside to walk along the pier by the boats.

While doing that, someone said the coast guard boat was giving free tours, so that's where we headed. I'm all about free! I think the kids enjoyed walking around a big boat and learning the terminology. We quized Eric when he finally met up with us.

Do you know what stairs are called? A ladder. A door? The hatch. The back of the boat is the stern (at one point when the tour guide was quizing the kids, I thought I heard Xela say "sperm" which inwardly made me chuckle, and she quickly corrected herself). The place where the captain sits? The bridge, which my kids remembered from Star Trek Enterprise.

That lasted for about 45 minutes and then there was a little demonstration on water pollution. When that was done, we went back inside and sat on the front row of the balloon and balancing act. I took several pictures and some video. The kids LOVED it and all but Neta got some balloons. She was the only one that didn't go up. I got video of Xela and Aurora, but no pictures. I got video of Nate and pictures. Then I tried to get more video of Nate and Graigry, but my phone's memory wouldn't save anything else. I only got pictures of Graigry.

After flipping the hat on his head, the guy made him some balloon swords and a holster. Before Nate left the stage, they used the swords.

Nate balloon fighting

Kid juggling
"Do you have juggling insurance?"

"Do you have other kids?"

"Graigry the orange nosed reindeer, because he didn't have any red balloons!"

After that show, Eric called and we waited for him to walk to the pier. After he arrived, it was kind of too late to go to any of the museums (that again were $10 - $15 per person) so Aurora wanted to go up and see the atrium. We went and it was BEAUTIFUL! It has really cool arching and shooting fountains that the kids and I could have watched for a long time. They ran around there and Daddy got them a little wet....

Then we went on the ferris wheel. Everyone liked that, even Eric who is afraid of heights. I love how he looks his fears right in the eye. We had to split up as only six can ride in a car and we are seven.

Aurora and Neta came with me (Aurora wanted to see me puke - where she got that idea I don't know) and the other three with Dad. It was a fun family activity, to be able to look out over Lake Michigan and downtown Chicago at the same time. It was a little cold, but not as bad as I thought it would be. We all enjoyed being up in the air.

After that, it was long past dinner, so we went to the McD's at the pier, then packed in the car for the four hour drive home. The kids colored and worked in the books they'd received from the coast guard until we got out of downtown and then we put on a movie. We stopped to get gas at one point and turned the movie off telling them they had to go to sleep. We got home around eleven, I think and slept in our own beds.

It was nice to just be together and do something just us. Sometimes we let jobs, callings, and other stresses and activities take over our emotions and lives. It takes effort to focus on family and build those relationships. It is these relationships that matter the most and sometimes we put them on the back burner while we busy ourselves with things that seem to be important, but in the eternal scheme of things, really don't matter (I'm mostly talking about what I am far too guilty of). I need to build and deepen the realtionship I have with each of my children and my spouse. Building that trust and feeling that love is what will make us want to be together forever.