Thursday, June 25th-Tour (Waiting, A Boat Ride, and a Nervous Docent)

Late in the day on Wednesday, we discovered that there was a free trolley from very near George's condo to Navy Pier. Even though 5 blocks doesn't seem like that far, with the heat, two little kids and the fact that they're city blocks, we decided to try it. We found the stop and waited...and waited. Patrick was excited and impatient. We played every waiting game you can think of while awaiting the much anticipated "blue bus." We had purchased tickets for an 11:30a boat tour, so we finally had to leave the stop. We took one 3 year old boy literally kicking and screaming the final 4 blocks to Navy Pier. He really wanted to ride that darn trolley. We snagged a lemon ice and dreamcicle float and headed for our dock.

We got on the boat and met our "docent" (pronounced by him with a French accent) named Kevin. This man was educated and entertaining, but took his job VERY seriously. Our kids and his architecture tour on the Chicago River did not turn out to be an ideal combination. Nevertheless, Sam and I enjoyed the ride, shady and breezy at times. Kevin however was terribly distracted by the kids getting too close to the rail. Sam had his back to the rail and was holding Eva as she stood on his lap. Seriously dude, we weren't letting our kids get close to the damn rail. At any rate, overall, we really enjoyed this hour-long tour of Chicago's historic architecture. I will suggest though that for little kids, the 30 minute skyline tour on the lake might be a better idea.

We headed back to the condo, loaded up the Highlander and headed for Milwaukee. Unfortunately, this trip took twice as long as it should have due to a fatal crash on the highway. We finally made it to town and headed to the Masterson's house for dinner. Sarah is Sam's cousin and their daughter Casey was excited to play with Patrick. They had a great time working on puzzles. We were pooped from the day, so we headed to the hotel near the airport. This endeavor proved to be hilarious as the GPS kept sending us in circles. We were too tired to get upset.