Yesterday we tackled Navy Pier. My plan was to do the Chicago Children’s Museum, which we could get into almost free with our Magic House membership, then eat our packed lunch on the Pier, play around on the beach, eat dinner at Joe’s Be-Bop Cafe (chosen for its live jazz), followed by a river boat tour of Chicago.

What actually happened, though, was this: we went to the museum, along with the entire day-camp population of Chicago (which, if you were wondering, is a LOT). It was so crowded in there we couldn’t move. I finally asked if they were always this crowded and if we could leave and come back. We were told that field trips come a lot, but that the afternoon tends to be better, so we took our chances and left. We walked toward the Ferris Wheel where we just took pictures standing next to it and not riding it, then had our lunch.

We did the boat tour next, followed by three pretty non-crowded hours at the children’s museum, where the girls had a ton of fun once they were able to walk in it. When their Free Family Night on Thursdays began at 5 and the place filled up to the brim again by 5:30, we headed down for dinner. I talked the girls into skipping the play time on the beach and we took the free trolley back as far as it would take us.

Here are the girls, touristing in front of the Ferris wheel:

And a Chicago River view of the city:

Of course, no boat trip is complete without a picture of these two first mates:

Choosing just one picture to capture the children’s museum was tricky. The museum was fantastic and we could have stayed much longer (than three hours even!). I settled on the shadow shot:

Chicago is fun, but the hours we are keeping are not. They translate into some pretty significant relational issues in our family which we all have to compensate for, and we don’t all do a very grace-filled job with that. I’m really hoping my girls remember this trip as something enjoyable and fun, and not one in which we all drove each other totally nuts. The jury is still out on that one.