Chicago-Day Four

So because I opened my big mouth and mentioned I was taking the kids to downtown Chicago during our visit here. I had to make good on that-even though I wanted to just sit by the pool all day while sipping strawberry daiquiris and judging my boy's cannon ball dives off the high dive. So today we took the train to downtown and arrived in Union Station. The boys were impressed- and Jack mentioned it reminded him of Harry Potter (#2 I think)....next a cab ride and the Chicago Institute of Art. Now this is a pretty 'serious' art museum....but I thought my boys could handle it. So we saw the sculpture gallery that looked like this...

And then instinctively- my boys did this (with no prompting from me, since we were all being as quiet as a mouse- using our best 'Museum Manners')....needless to say we had a great time!

We laughed a lot (Tucker really could not get over all the 'butts everywhere- oh 7 yr old humor!).....but I was thrilled to hear things like "now this is the kinda art I like'...and 'mom can we Google this guy Edward Hopper?'. We saw lots of famous works that the kids recognized instantly...and were generally excited about it. They both agreed that seeing these works in person was so totally different than in a book.

"Sunday in the Park" was a big favorite of Tucker. He stood in front of it a long time- and pointed things out to all of us. "Mom! It is made up of DOTS mom! Just Dots!" (those clever impressionists ya know). We then walked Michigan Ave. Watched part of a parade, sat in Millennium park and managed to get back to the train station without any drama. On the train ride home the boys were fighting over the little souvenir book of 19th and 20th century art....fighting over it like it was a Gameboy or something! This was a good day folks....really. good.