A Day in the Golden Isles

On the first day of Thanksgiving break we were blessed with perfect weather- sunny and cool.  The kids and I decided to take advantage of this by doing one of our favorite activities- biking on Jekyll.  We rode for about three hours and traversed many of our favorite routes. 

After our bike ride we drove over to St. Simons to see a WWII B17 plane.  We were able to go aboard and check it out.  Our plane tour was followed by dinner at Mellow Mushroom.  It was a great day overall.

Coding Kick-off

Our high school started a Girls Who Code chapter this year.  This club was nice enough to invite Olivia and the other female members of the middle school robotics team to go with them to Atlanta for the state-wide Girls Who Code kick-off event.  Olivia really enjoyed herself at the event.  The girls were also able to tour the computing department at Middle Georgia State University in Macon.  Olivia loves anything tech-related, and I'm so glad that there are people and organizations that provide these types of opportunities for our students.

Soccer

 Owen played soccer with the rec this fall and had a great season.  Some of the games were nail biters but in the end, Owen's team went undefeated.  This is probably Owen's last season of soccer so I'm glad it was a good one.

A Classic Halloween

 This year's Halloween theme was "classic characters".  As you can tell, we were a witch, werewolf, vampire, and black cat.  We were joined by Q and her family (as a mummy, bat, and Frankenstein) and by Hannah as a pumpkin.  We went trick-or-treating in Granny's neighborhood.  Our party was a little small as the older girls have outgrown trick-or-treating (and this is Owen's last year).  I guess we'll be giving out candy from here on out. Even though Olivia didn't trick-or-treat, she still walked around with us and helped out with Maren.  And she still walked away with tons of candy- as did all of the kids. 

,Indiana Dunes

 We spent the last day of our fall break vacation in Indiana (state 29) hiking in our newest national park- Indiana Dunes  We hiked the Dune Succession / Long Lake Trail Loop.  It was a nice but sandy hike.  I do mean sandy- we kept having to stop and empty the sand out of our shoes.  Our favorite part was hiking toward Lake Michigan.  We had a very pleasant afternoon at this park and are glad that we stopped here to check it out.

Chicago Day 2

 We began our second day in Chicago at the Museum of Science and Industry.  This is the best museum of its type that I've ever been to.  There were so many exhibits, and almost everything was interactive. We spent a large amount of time in the Storm Science (weather) exhibit. We also visited the transportation, wearable tech, genetics, and numbers exhibits.  One of the coolest things in the museum was a German U505 submarine.  We enjoyed that exhibit as well.  After more than four hours at the museum, we decided to leave because I wanted to visit the Art Institue and I was worried we wouldn't have enough time there.  Well, the kids did not want to leave the science museum.  We had to practically drag them out.

 We made it to the Art Institute in plenty of time to check it out.  I am pretty much the only one in the family who wants to see the art, but Brian and the kids are usually pretty good about sticking it out in the art museum with me (with minimal complaining).  I had some very specific pieces that I wanted to see, and I was able to see them all.  So, it was a successful visit.

 Next to the Art Institute was Millineum Park.  We walked over to see the famous "Cloud Gate"  (aka The Bean).  We did the typical tourist thing and took a bazillion pictures here and then returned to our motel for a short rest.

 That evening we went out for some deep dish at Lou Malnati's.  It was pretty good.  Olivia ate more than the rest of us.  Turns out she really likes deep dish.

My favorite part of the trip- we saw Hamilton!  So, I knew everyone likes this play but oh. my. goodness.  It was so good.  I'm now obsessed.  Like, sitting at home listening to the soundtrack all the time obsessed.  Brian never ever ever goes to the theater with us, and even he wanted to see this play.  And he loved it. We all did- perfect way to spend our last night in the city.