Chicago with the Kids - Day 2

I'm sure that there is a fact out there that vacations with kids generally go downhill starting the 2nd day...even if not, there SHOULD be!! We woke up early, ate breakfast and headed out to get as much letterboxing in as we could! We were welcomed with rain. Not a good thing for a day of letterboxing! We had a list of boxes - mainly driveby ones - to find in north Chicagoland. We ended up with 8 boxes for the day...but attempted another 8-10. It was a frustrating day to say the least. The kids were very tired of sitting in the car. With it raining off & on, it was hard to let them out to run off energy. Here is one park that we stopped at to play (while Matt looked for Weeee Girl.) 

Alex climbing the dinosaur

We stopped for lunch (hoping and praying to rejuvenate the family!!). Luckily, it did revive us and we continued up north to find Just Lion Around by Tat2Bob & Kimberly. What a beautiful park, Chain-o-Lakes!! I had Matt & the kids stand on this bridge while I took their picture from the road.

We knew our daylight was coming to an end, so we quickly drove to Glenview to "The Grove". We spent some time in the visitor's center and then hit the trails. We came across a family of deer while on the long boardwalk. It was amazing to watch! We found the box (again, we were off on the clues!!) after hiking the trail 2 times!! The sun was setting by the time that we got to the van...but then Matt remembered seeing clues for another box located there. We read them quickly, looked at a map and decided to try a short cut (since it was dark now!). Matt ran ahead, found it and stamped in.

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Farmer Katie



We were excited to try to find two of the train station stamps by Beetle...and hoping to see a train!! Will loves trains and airplanes...so we decided to forego swimming that evening so we could go to the train stations and to eat a late dinner at the O'Hare Oasis. You can imagine how bummed we were when, not only the stamps were missing...but no trains either!! We got to the Oasis around 8 and ate dinner while watching all the airplanes landing and cars driving under us! That was a highlight for all of us!

Maddie shows how we all felt at the end of the day!