Spring in the Midwest

In May we took advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend and headed out to the Midwest to do a little sightseeing and visiting family.  We started out with a couple of nights in Chicago.  Now, given that it was May (late May at that), you'd think it would be nice and warm.  Yea, not so much.  Regardless, we still got out and had some fun.  

Our hotel was one block away from the John Hancock building.  So we walked on down the street and headed up the 100+ floors to the observation deck.  It was pretty cool.  They gave you a headset to listen to as you walked around, telling you the history of Chicago.  They also had headsets for kids, which Nick really liked.  

View from the deck.  That's the Sears Tower on the right.

They had a description of the window washers that clean the outsides of the windows.  So inside they had this little booth you could go into and pretend you're washing the windows.

One of the things we looked forward to for the Chicago visit was going to Wrigley Field.  We were not completely prepared for just how cold we would be.  Our seats never got any sun and it was somewhat breezy.  We had Nick bundled up pretty well, but I was freezing most of the game.  Here is Nick with his hot dog.

Showing the camera his hot dog.

Daddy & Nick (see how Kevin's jacket is zipped all the way up?)

The view from our seats (the sun got to about four rows in front of us.  And the ushers were pretty strict on making sure people didn't move down closer to the field.  Bah.)

The classic Wrigley Field scoreboard.

Nick and his cool Cubby Bear baseball.

The next day, we headed up to Milwaukee.  Thankfully it was a bit warmer.  And even better, the Giants were in town playing the Brewers.  We've never been to Miller Park, so it was a first visit for all of us.  Here are Kevin & Nick walking into the park.

The view from our seats.  It's a very nice park - more of a full modern park versus the "old style" kind of park that AT&T Park is even though new.  And obviously VERY different than Wrigley!

We were wearing our Giants duds of course.  Local fans were very nice and there was no heckling of us (although I wasn't expecting much of that in Milwaukee - it's not LA after all!!)

Nick, his grapes & Mommy.

The roof on the park is retractable.  So after the game (which, sadly, the Giants lost), they closed the roof.  Here it is nearly closed.

Almost there...

After the game in Milwaukee, we drove up to Green Bay.  Unfortunately, Cindy & Mike and Ed & Teri were out of town for the weekend, so we didn't get to see them.  But we were able to catch up with Pat & Dan and Al & Penny.  And, of course, Grandma Mary.

It's becoming sort of a tradition now - each trip we head over to the wildlife sanctuary.  This time we caught a large family of Canadian geese as they moved through the park.

Nick had fun feeding the geese.

He tried to get as close as possible.

He got pretty close to this one - I was a bit worried it would nip him, but thankfully the goose was pretty tolerant (probably because he was getting a lot of snacks).

Another thing that is fun to do in the summer months is head to Bay Beach.  They have a bunch of small kid oriented rides.  Tough to get a good picture, however.

Of course, Nick wanted to ride the red car!

Overall a very nice trip, even though the weather wasn't perfect!!