The Chenery Family: A Much Needed Family Vacation

Loving their time with Daddy

The boys and I met Ryan in Chicago last Thursday for a five day vacation as a family. This was Andrew's first vacation and first time out of the state. The boys had a blast with Ryan, as usual. We went downtown to Shedd Aquarium and saw all kinds of neat exhibits. We also went to Brookfield Zoo and saw more animals and even ran into a friend from here that was visiting some family in Illinois. We spent a lot of time hanging out as a family in our hotel, or as Matthew called it, Daddy's house. Yes, "Daddy's house" has three elevators, cool doors at the entrance, and a pool. We swam everyday, ate lots of good food (Cheesecake Factory, Portilios, Weber Grill to name a few), saw lots of new things (Matthew loved the shopping cart escalator at IKEA), tons of cool buildings downtown, big airplanes and spent lots of time with Ryan, which is why we were there in the first place!

Matthew's favorite animals were the dolphins (at both places), the giraffes and the lion. Andrew loved the dolphins, too. Though he kept calling them fishies...oh well :) They both loved the dolphin shows at both places. We saw part of a 4D movie at Shedd (a 15 minute movie of Happy Feet), but had to leave early because Matthew got freaked out by the moving, shaking and rumbling seats. Andrew, on the other hand, loved it! I think my favorite part was the jellyfish exhibit at Shedd and the lion at the zoo. While we were at the zoo looking at the underwater viewing of the dolphins, something cool happened. A guy took out a plastic comb and started strumming on the comb fingers at the glass. All of the sudden the dolphins (at one time all 7 of them) came to the window trying to get the comb. The strumming is similar to one of the sounds the dolphins use to communicate. It was quite the site to see and the boys loved it.

Andrew loved sleeping on his new Aerobed at the hotel and having the freedom to walk around at night and tickle our noses and mess with Matthew while he was sleeping. We drove around Schaumburg, Barrington and Hoffman Estates and drove by my childhood house. That brought back lots of memories of old friends. I completely forgot that we had a lake/large pond in the neighborhood that we would go fishing at and for some reason I thought of the time that I accidentally hooked my brother in the eyelid with my fishing hook. Sorry, Brian.

The boys were spent by the end of the trip and both crashed in the car on the ride home, a rare thing for Matthew who has not taken a nap for me in over a year! Once we got home and relaxed, I took the boys to see the fireworks in Schoolcraft. They were amazing, as usual. It was Andrew's first experience with fireworks; he stayed home last year. So, now it's back to reality and back to routines at home. The boys are adjusting to being home and we all can't wait to see Ryan again in another five weeks. Let's hope these next five weeks go as fast as our five day vacation! To see more pictures from our trip, visit our photo site.