Chicago in April

The first week of April, we headed to Chicago for 4 days. I knew it would be hard to travel with two kids later on this year so I wanted to go back and visit my parents before I couldn't travel anymore. I made it just in time as I was 32 weeks during the visit and I think the cutoff for flight travel is 32 weeks.

This trip was very Anderson oriented as we hit the spots and sights we thought he would really like. We took advantage of the free night at the Chicago Children's museum on Thursday night (as did a lot of people). This was a great museum (albeit kinda crowded) because it's made for kids and I didn't have to worry about things being destroyed or where he was going. It was a place made for kids to climb, explore, tear apart, etc...

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If there was one thing he loved, it was this excavation pit. They had bark made of recycled tires and kids could pretend they were digging up a dinosaur. The whole looking for a dinosaur thing was totally lost on Anderson. But he did know that he could play with bark and could dig. Two things he loves to do. Oh, and throwing bark. We literally had to drag him out of here kicking and screaming so he we could check out the other exhibits.

Those carrots aren't real kiddo.

The next day, we spent the day at the John Shedd Aquarium. The morning was a little rough since we had to spend quite a bit of time in line, but once we were inside he LOVED it. He loved seeing all the animals, particularly the octopus. It was funny though because being the cautious kid he is, he wanted to get close but not too close, and he wanted to be held the entire time. And when we came home, all the animals we saw at the aquarium were all he could talk about - sharks, dolphins, whales, octopus! He even got his first movie experience with a 10-15 minute movie of Planet Earth. He wouldn't wear the 3D glasses but he loved it anyway. He even had his cheerios and water out while watching the movie to complete his movie experience. And when the movie was over, he just looked around at all the people leaving and said "more movie!"



He didn't want to touch anything or get too close to anything in the aquarium except for this. A wall of star fish with people that donated money. He was all over this.



Our last day in Chicago was a beautiful day. So much so that we were able to walk to Millenium Park to see the bean.

Doesn't this kid look great in yellow??



Let me tell you something about Anderson. He loves himself. He truly, truly loves himself. He loves looking at pictures of himself, he loves looking in the mirror and seeing himself, and he really does think he's just about the cutest thing alive (he is). So when he got to the bean, he loved it. It was Anderson all over all the time!

Super Franks

Now that I'm on maternity leave, I thought I'd try to take some time and catch up on what's been going on with the Jang family of three before we become a family of four!

Early April, we went to Wilson's cousin's son's 2nd birthday party at Super Franks in the Bay Area. Super Franks is a Chuck E Cheese like place - minus the gigantic rat. It has a play area for toddlers, arcade games, etc... Neither Wilson and I have stepped foot into a Chuck E Cheese (or anything similar) in ages - since we were kids so we really didn't know what to expect. Well, we walked in and I think all 3 of ours jaws dropped. We were dumbfounded. There were so many people and kids running around we didn't know what to do, what to say, where to go. Finally, a hostess was kind enough to see this small family frozen at the door and asked if they could help us. They directed us into the right direction and all was good.

Anderson is naturally a cautious kid, especially in new environments so he clung to us for most of the time. But he did explore during the open gym/mat play time area a little bit on his own.




I do think his favorite part of the whole party was eating the cheese pizza, drinking juice and then having ice cream cake. By the time pizza was served, he was starving. So much so that he ate 1.5 pieces of pizza, drank all his juice and then tried to take another kid's juice when she wasn't looking! He didn't even pay attention to the fact that "Cars" was on TV. He was too busy stuffing his face.