Henry and Eleanor had a super fun week as we attempted to check off all the remaining items from our summer bucket list. Mom and the kids hit Maggie Daley park and the bean one more time, met up with Lala for lunch at the Choo-Choo cafe, met up with Dad for a horse and carriage ride, explored a few new parks, and had a sleepover with Lala. And that was just during the week! Saturday we hit a park and then did a backyard cookout complete with hammock. We finished strong with a Sunday visit to Navy Pier for two boat rides (one sailboat, one speed boat) and a visit to North Avenue Beach and Castaways (the Boat on Land) on Monday. Whew! I think the winner of the weekend was the beach, Henry and Eleanor both really had a good time swimming and playing in the sand, and lunch at Castaways is something we had been talking about doing for years so it was great fun to check that off the list. The boat rides on Sunday were a bit of a split – the sailboat ride was a bit disappointing, the “Pirate Cruise” was just one person dressed up as a pirate who told two very strange pirate stories in an unsteady, rambling, I’m not very good with kids or public speaking kind of a way. The speedboat ride came second, and Eleanor was already asking to just go home instead. She said she definitely wouldn’t have any fun – but I think the pictures tell a different story :) Henry loved it too, but he was pretty positive on the whole boat ride idea the whole time.
Also of interest this week:
– Eleanor and Lala invented a new board game involving monkeys
– Henry learned to cut peppers with a real knife
– Henry made a painting of a rainbow that can be readily identified as a rainbow (no scribble scrabble!)
– Both Henry and Eleanor had visits to school to see their new classrooms and meet their teachers
– Henry has become quite competitive at the game of Sorry – he decided against moving a pawn into home so that he could knock Mom’s pawn back to start, and told her, “I know, I just want to move this one to knock you off because I want to win” :) He also trashed the whole board once when he lost – so it is a bit of a work in progress…
