The Acton Family “North” had a magnificent Labor Day weekend filled with sightseeing, shopping, eating, and napless days for the kids. I will cover the weekend in a multi-part blog, beginning with our time with the Sina’s in downtown Chicago. Forthcoming parts will include our “lazy day” and lastly our day out shopping in Schaumburg with my folks and Kevin.

The weekend started with a visit from our old friends from Packerland, the Sina’s. I have been friends with Sara Sina since 2000 when I started with Procter and Gamble in Green Bay in Charmin Converting. She was my internal sponsor in the department and we were quick friends. She and Jim were married already at that time, but I hadn’t even met Mike yet. When Mike and I started dating and later got married, they quickly became one of our favorite couples in Green Bay to hang out with. Pre-kids, we used to play cribbage through the wee hours of the night drinking our beverages of choice. Now that both of our families have two kids each and we no longer live in the same city (us in IL and they are now in Milwaukee, WI), we have fun in different ways, like family sleepovers and days out in downtown Chicago (our activities of this weekend).

The Sina’s arrived Friday night just in time for dinner at Moe’s Southwest Grill (their first time there since leaving Green Bay over two years ago!). It was delicious, as usual, and we followed up the nice meal with some conversation at home before all putting our kids to bed (kind of…) for the night. The new and exciting sleeping arrangements made it interesting for the two year olds Joshua and Julia. Addy was in her own room so knew nothing was amiss, and Evan wasn’t phased at all by borrowing Joshua’s bed for the night. Julia, however, was very excited to be sleeping in a new home in her blow-up sleeping bag, and Joshua thought he was hot stuff sleeping on a McQueen’d-out air mattress in Mommy and Daddy’s room. After a bit of singing from Julia and some crying from Joshua, all of us did get some sleep.

We were up bright and early on Saturday to catch the 9:58am train to Union Station. We made it with several minutes to spare (quite a feat with only four adults to get four little kids ready!). It was Joshua’s first ride on the Metra train (which goes MUCH faster than Thomas the Train that we rode at the Illinois Railway Museum a few weeks ago), and he loved the ride down to the city. He actually stayed seated for much of the ride, and even smiled and pointed out all of the wonderful sites (machines! tweet tweet! ‘nother train!). The cheese cracker snacks that I packed helped…

Joshua is loving his first ride on the Metra to Union Station!

The Sina family also enjoyed the ride to downtown

Daddy and Addy enjoying quality time on the Metra

Our first stop after arriving downtown was Pizano’s Pizza and Pasta, proclaimed the best thin crust pizza by Oprah last year. Mike and I had been there once last year and enjoyed it, so since it was on our way to our next destination we decided to have our meal there. Lunch with four kids is never very relaxing, but we all managed to stuff in some pizza and soda before heading out to see the bean.

For those who haven’t seen the bean at Millennium Park, it is definitely worth seeing if you are at the lakefront area of Chicago. It is a giant reflective bean that gives alternate views of the skyline, of the lake, and of you! Folks crowd around and underneath the spectacle, laughing at themselves (once they finally find themselves!) and others, and snapping pictures of all of the sights. We all checked out the view from underneath. Joshua especially enjoyed it this year, as there was a group of two-year-olds under the bean towards the edge where they could touch it. They all loved touching the distorted images of themselves in the bean.

Joshua playing under the bean at Millennium Park

Next we continued on to Navy Pier. Once there, the Sina’s took their kids to see Cirque Shanghai (Chinese acrobats – amazing, I hear!). We would have loved to have taken our kids too, but Addy was sleeping sound in the stroller (which wasn’t allowed in the show), and Joshua just doesn’t have the attention span yet to sit through a 70 minute production, exciting as it did seem. Instead, we walked the length of the pier and let Joshua ride on the Thomas the Train ride that he had seen on our way in. Best $2 we spent the whole day; he was in little boy heaven!

Joshua riding Thomas on Navy Pier

We also got some carmel corn (Joshua ate nearly the whole $4 bag!) and shortly after the Sina’s were out of their show and it was time to trek back to Union Station.

The 2.5 mile hike back seemed LONG… Not only were we on a time crunch (only 50 minutes ’til the train went back to Grayslake), but we were all a little tired from the day we’d had to that point. I couldn’t believe that six-year-old Evan hung in there as well as he did. We probably logged over 6 miles total that day, and the kid never complained a bit. Joshua and Addy had it easy in the dual stroller all day, but poor Julia (almost three years old) had walked most of the day and just couldn’t do it anymore. We four adults took turns carrying her throughout the last leg of our journey, and I think she was very thankful (at least that’s what I thought based on the big hugs she gave while being carried – how cute!).

And if we thought the walk to Union Station seemed long, then we were really in for it on the ride back to Grayslake on the Metra. Tired and crabby parents mixed with napless two-year-olds is quite the deadly combination, as anyone in our train car would tell you. We exhausted the snacks, songs, and funny faces about half-way through the ride home, and the remaining half was mostly filled with reprimanding and tantrums. I won’t go into the gruesome details, but the Grayslake stop couldn’t come any sooner. By the time we were 10 minutes from our stop, Julia, Joshua, and Addy were all in full-out scream. We, as the parents, could only laugh.

And so concluded the adventure with the Sina’s. We arrived home and said our good-bye’s (except for Joshua, who had fallen asleep not 2 minutes into our drive home, and never woke up again until 7:30am the next morning) and let the Sina’s return to Milwaukee to continue their adventurous holiday weekend. We really appreciate them making the trip down and getting us to go downtown – an adventure we likely would not have undertaken had it not been for them (AND we couldn’t have done it without them!).

Thanks for reading Part 1. Parts 2 and 3 to come as the week progresses!