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Archive for Things to Do in Chicago

Chicago at Night from Willis Tower – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on December 4, 2013
in Business, Things to Do in Chicago, Travel, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday

In October I went into the city of Chicago for a business meeting with Moms.com and after the meeting we walked to Willis Tower. The photos below are of Chicago at night from Willis Tower. It was really cool.

Willis Tower, or the formerly known Sears Tower, the tallest building in the United States. Sears was actually the company that built it to house all its employees in one place.

The Sears Tower became Willis Tower when a London company rented out a large space in the building and had the option to rename the building in its contract. And that’s exactly what they did.

When you visit Willis Tower you get to watch a little movie on the history of the building before you are escorted up to the Skydeck. On the Skydeck you can walk around, shop for gifts, look through the telescopes and walk out onto the “ledge”. The Ledge is a glass box basically and when you step out into it you can look down at the city of Chicago through glass. I was not brave enough to walk out onto the ledge, minding heights as I do.

I definitely recommend you visit Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) the next time you travel Chicago.

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Chicago Field Museum: 1893 World’s Fair Exhibit

Posted by html404 on November 21, 2013
in Education, Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Homeschooling, School, Things to Do in Chicago, Travel, Uncategorized

My husband is a history buff and he has passed on his love of history to our children. We love visiting museums. Last weekend we went to the Chicago Field Museum to visit the 1893 World’s Fair Exhibit, which will be here in Chicago until early next fall. We took advantage of one their free admissions day knowing we’d have to purchase a Discovery Pass for the Fair exhibit.

Those of you who live in the Chicago area you may be interested in knowing upcoming free admissions days at The Field Museum:

December 2
December 5
December 9
December 10
December 11

For all the storms Illinois experienced last weekend, it did not deter people from venturing out in the cold and rain to visit The Field Museum.

What is the 1893 World’s Fair Exhibit about?

The Field Museum was born out of the 1893 World’s Fair and belongs to the people and the history of Chicago. The World’s Fair exhibit are all original collections that were all displayed at the Fair and is the single largest collection of items displayed at the Fair. The truth is, The Field Museum is the legacy of the Fair; scientists conduct ground-breaking research on the ever-growing collections.

The Field Museum Tours App

The Field Museum Tours App is available to help visitors with their tour. We had downloaded the app before we got to the museum so all we had to do was connect to “FieldMuseumWiFi” upon arriving. You can download the Field Museum Tours App too. The Wonders of the 1893 World’s Fair takes visitors back to that time in history, to the World’s Columbian Exposition – one of the greatest events in the history of Chicago. The exhibit shows visitors what visitors back then saw at the Fair 120 years ago.

The app is informative as you can see from the following screen shots.

What did we see?

We saw more than 200 artifacts and specimens from the the Fair’s ground.

We find it interesting to learn about different aspects and cultures in history. It’s amazing what you can learn! Below is a photo of a small stuffed female lion, but there was also a stuffed male lion as well. One of our sons loves lions so he was interested in this display. He was also interested in the tigers and seeing inside the mummy. There were over 20 mummies! All the children thought the pyramid was really cool to go inside!

The children thought the computer from the World Fair looked like the computer from the show S.H.I.E.L.D Agents. They thought that was really cool too.

Another cool thing they liked was the DNA lab.

Below you can see in the display cases a trench drum/log drum and behind them on hanging from the ceiling was an octopus! (Pictured in a photo below in the photo with our children)

There was an Inuit display from a group of Inuits who came to the Fair from Labrador (Canada).

There was an Inca Active Instruments display that had a simulator allowing us to play the instruments. We found that pretty interesting.

Our daughter B was quite interested in the oils and herbs displayed in their original bottles. All from different countries around the world. Her words, “It was amazing! To see Frankincense and Myrrh from all around the world.” None of any of these items have been displayed since the 1893 World’s Fair.

Here is a stuffed Indian elephant with a giant octopus hanging over our children.

This last photo is a from a slideshow or video footage.

The 1893 World’s Fair Exhibit was an incredible learning experience and we hope we can go back again before September 7, 2014.

I was selected for this opportunity by Clever Girls Collective, however all content and opinions expressed here are my own.

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Just in Time for Christmas….RUUM Kids

Posted by html404 on November 10, 2013
in Children's Clothing, Gift Ideas, Holidays, Kids Stuff, Shopping, Things to Do in Chicago, Uncategorized

Christmas is just around the corner and I am still working on my Christmas shopping list. This past week my youngest daughter and I went shopping at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. It’s been a long time since we’ve gone to the mall. We had a lot of fun! We were clothes shopping for Blondie since she needs a few more pants for winter and we had a gift card to RUUM Kids (pronounced “Room” and formerly 77Kids).

RUUM Kids had a 40% off sale going on so we took advantage of those savings.

Blondie is seven and she is a girly-girl, which is amazing since she is smack dab in the middle of four boys! Her taste in clothing steered her towards this sparkly holiday dress:

Gotta love her style! It’s beautiful but I had to tell her no because she has plenty of dresses and this dress though it was 30% off was a bit out of our budget right now. We were shopping for winter pants.

That led us to the 40% off rack. We ended up getting two pairs of sparkly pants. I thought it was a nice compromise for her. She got her sparkle and glitter and I got her warm clothes!

She also found a sparkly butterfly t-shirt and hair gold band that coordinates really well with both colors of pants she choose. Nearly all of RUUM Kids clothing coordinates well with each other.

I also found a couple of things for our younger boys that I put away for their Christmas gifts.

All and all Blondie and I really enjoyed our day out (we went grocery shopping at Mariano’s too!). Blondie loved the VIP treatment she received while shopping at RUUM Kids – choice of a candy treat (RUUM Kids employees asked me first before giving anything to her). When we checked out Blondie was asked if she wanted her own bag, which of course she did, and then employee personalized it by putting her name on it! Blondie loved it!

When we got home Blondie modeled her clothes for me. Everything fit perfectly.

We were very happy with our RUUM Kids purchases.

RUUM Kids has lots of gift ideas including headphone hats ($19.50) and texting gloves ($9.50) for the hard to buy for tweens, and layering pieces with coordinating accessories for all ages. RUUM sizes range from newborn to age 14. Find RUUM Kids on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to day for holiday specials. Right now they have a 25% off code for online just for this weekend only.

Do you buy your children clothes for Christmas?

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My First Trip to Mariano’s in Chicago

Posted by html404 on August 20, 2013
in All Natural Products, Deals, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Fun Stuff, Health and Nutrition, Money & Finances, Parenting, Reviews, SALES, Saving Money, Shopping, Things to Do in Chicago, Uncategorized

It takes a lot to feed our family of ten. A huge reason we started farming was to grow our own food because buying all organic food for a large family is soooo expensive! There is no way we could do it by shopping at Whole Foods. We try to buy as much organic as we can, but it’s not always possible due to our budget. Enter Mariano’s. We had seen bags with Mariano’s on them but until we shopped there we did not know anything about this store or that they offered organic produce.

My husband and I went out ALONE to Mariano’s in Jefferson Park, Chicago. It was a rare treat to be alone but it was also a treat to go into the city for a change. We looked forward to purchasing organic milk, natural products and organic produce. First we went to Whole Foods in Sauganash, Chicago, then we went to Mariano’s in Jefferson Park. The stores are literally only a couple miles apart. We bought the exact same items at each store. The goal was to see how much money we could save by shopping at Mariano’s for organic produce and all natural products.

Mariano’s in Jefferson Park

Mariano’s in Jefferson Park is a large spacious store. There was lots of room to maneuver aisles, even though there were lots of people in the store. It was pretty easy to find everything. The only thing we couldn’t find right away was Kombucha but we found it just before we checked out because I almost forgot to buy it!

Shopping at Mariano’s was a good experience for us in that we discovered a new store we can shop for organic produce and all natural products our family loves and enjoys and SAVE money, which makes my hubby very happy!

Here’s a list of items we bought:

Organic Valley Milk
1-1.5 lbs Organic Tomatoes
2 lbs Organic Carrots
2 lbs Organic Blueberries
2 pkg.Applegate Organic Bacon
1 bottle of Kombucha (fermented tea that is carbonated)

Below is our receipts from both stores to show you how much we saved by shopping for organic produce at Mariano’s. We saved a whopping $12.24! We were impressed.

This past weekend was customer appreciation at Mariano’s. In celebration of this they featured over 3,000 roses on display at all stores – just $1 each. Over 100 varieties – a rainbow of color and called it their Rose Extravaganza! It was truly a gorgeous display of roses. Robert and I loved looking at the roses and we even took time to stop and smell them.

Customer appreciation at Mariano’s includes a FREE rewards card with the potential to earn rewards!

We are looking forward to shopping at Mariano’s again in the future.

Please mark your calendars because you are invited to Mariano’s Twitter Party which will be on Thursday, August 29, from 12-1pm CT/1-2 pm ET RSVP link: http://cbi.as/5bh5f #cbias #MyMarianos. Consider “liking” them on Facebook as well.

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Long Grove Chocolate Festival

Posted by html404 on May 7, 2013
in Blog Stuff, Family Stuff, Things to Do in Chicago, Travel

This past weekend I really flubbed up on a blog opp. I felt horrible, seriously, because in all honesty I was really looking forward to doing participating in the opportunity since it was for Chicago area bloggers. However, since I was already at the Long Grove Chocolate Festival I determined to make the best of a sad situation – I bought chocolate – of course.

Blondie and “B” were with me and we spent a little over an hour walking around the festival. Thankfully, we had arrived a little before opening time which enabled us to find parking very easily and we avoided massive crowds and lines during checkout. It definitely pays to be an early bird to popular Chicago events.

It was a beautiful day on Sunday for the Long Grove Chocolate Festival. We enjoyed stopping to smell all the tulips and daffodils in bloom. We rested on park benches and watched people. We visited a Christmas shop called, The Pear Tree Shoppe, the Scandinavian shop, the Irish shop, the Nifty Fifties shop as well as an antique store and others.

My girls were very pleased with our outing, especially when it came time to visit the Confectionary and buy chocolate! We treated ourselves to creamy chocolate fudge, a chocolate covered pretzel and a peanut butter cup with M&Ms on top. We treated those at home to a dozen apple cider donuts and chocolate coins.