Feb. 28,2009: Family trip to Chicago's Art Institute

Saturday morning, Feb. 28, we decide to head downtown to visit the Art Institute. The month of Feb. is free admission and we're finally going to take them up on it. We made a lunch, bundled the kids up, decided on one stroller only, and take off - walking the 1.5 blocks to our El station. Luck has it that the money machines are not working, so the attendant had to let us in for free. Change trains at Howard to take the Red line downtown. I love the train station platforms here in Chicago! They all have heaters that you can stand under. Way better than the cold German and Dutch platforms. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the station and walk the 2-3 blocks to the Institute. It was SO COLD out there. I definitely needed another layer. The Art Institute was PACKED OUT. I guess b/c of the free admission. There was a homeless guy outside selling those magazines with the tagline "admission to the institute is free today, so you can spare $2 for a magazine". Good idea. We get inside - there is actually a line out the door to get in, in the super super cold - and plan our route, picking 2 areas to check out. We knew the kids would only last so long, so we just picked the most promising. Zach started getting pretty whiny at one point, so we put him in the stroller and Wyatt in the Ergobaby. That did not please Zach who wanted for DaU to get him "uppa". So he was a bit of a pill for awhile. Wyatt was well behaved though. We'd been there for about an hour and it was getting time for lunch. I nursed Wyatt first in the infant care room in the ladies bathroom (nice!), then we headed downstairs to the cafeteria. We were hoping we could just buy a drink or something and park it at a table and eat the lunch we brought. No such luck. They were pretty strict on people getting in line and going through. So Art went and found us a great place to sit and have lunch. Several other families had the same idea. After we ate, we were all pretty exhausted, so we started the long trek home. Wyatt fell asleep in the Ergobaby, and so we put him in the stroller once we got on the train - Zach wanted to look out the window. Zachary was getting very very tired and kept asking for his paci so he could take a nap. I didn't bring it of course, so he just had to wait until we got home, then he passed out. It was a fun day, but exhausting of course. When we got home, I took off for a ladies get-together from church and Art stayed home. We were too beat to even go out for our usual Zoba's, so we ate waffles! :) Good end to a good day.

Some things we saw:
Monet painting for the bridge outside his home. We took this picture because we saw this actual bridge when we went to France over Easter in 2007 and toured Monet's house and gardens. So cool to see a famous painting depicting a scene we have seen in real life.


Art with Wyatt in the Ergobaby and Zach pouting in the stroller. Art would stand in the middle of the room and I would go look at the paintings up close, then we would switch. Zach was interested in some of the paintings and such for awhile. He really liked this "big bed" that was on display in the Asian section. He said that when he gets big he's going to sleep on that bed. So funny.


Here is a painting that I really liked. I forgot to write down the title and artist. I guess I can look it up.


Here is a painting that Art really liked. He liked all the vibrant colors.


Here is the long hall in the Art Institute. There were statues and artifacts and paintings all in the hallway.


Art holding a cuddly Zach near the beginning of the visit. I got in trouble with this picture b/c I had forgotten to turn the flash off. Two separate museum attendants swooped down on me.


Famous Van Gogh self portrait. We spent a good deal of time, as Art would say, "paying homage to his people". We also both really liked the painting of his bedroom. The paintings hanging on the wall of the bedroom (a painting within a painting) were also of his works - a self portrait and something else.


Here is a picture of Staci's favorite (don't know if it still is) painting that she used to have a poster of. I was shocked by the size of it. It is huge. I wish I had panned out some so you could see how large it is. You can kind of tell - there is a guy wearing a black coat standing to the right of the painting. Amazing really. So talented.


Here is a painting that Art and I both really liked. Again, we did not write down, or take a picture of, the title, artist and description.