Sisters

Sisters

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Alder Planetarium/ Shedd Aquarium

One day in January we took advantage of being Illinois residents and went to the Adler Planetarium on one of their free days. I had only planned to go the Planetarium that day and not the Aquarium as well. Albert was unable to come with us to the Planetarium that day. Albert loves space, stars etc so I managed to find an excellent deal on Groupon for us as a family to attend the movies/shows as well on another day. We just had a quick look at the Planetarium and by lunchtime we had seen everything there was to see (not in depth though). The girls did some cool experiments which the Planetarium provided free of charge. So I did some checking at lunch to see if any other Museums had free days. It turned out that the Aquarium was free that day as well for the basic entry (shows etc cost an arm and a leg!). The Planetarium and Aquarium are very close to each other and so we walked to the Aquarium for the afternoon. A great home school day out :).

Kate and Zara experiment with a 'rocket'
(the balloon races up the string
like a rocket once the air is let out)
Grace having a go
Kate
Zara
Grace
Do I have to Mum?
(Michaela)
Grace on the space toilet
sleepy Zara?
Sleepy Kate?
One of the experiments was making slime and testing it in various stations
this one is speed
Look how long my slime stretches?
(Grace)
Zara having a go


How strong is slime?
Showing us what a 2-second delay looks like on the space station
One HUGE telescope!
Infrared family photo
Lake Michigan on our walk to the Aquarium
In front of the Aquarium
Grace
This is how much the Amazon rises
(Kate)


Pretty cool these tiger stingrays!


Pretty cool lizard
This is plain creepy
(see photo below for explanation)


Zara with a HUGE fish
Spider Crab, pretty cool I thought!
Feeding time in the tank very cool


It was cool to watch the fish being fed

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Our Mini Vacation to Chula Vista

After Albert finished his oral exam we took a mini vacation to a water park about 3 1/2 hrs drive away. All of our expenses were given/donated to us. What a blessing! Unfortunately Kate wasn't very well that week and we took her to a local emergency room but thankfully it just turned out being the flu. She had a very high fever for four days before we took her in. She missed out on one day swimming but was feeling better and so was able to join us on the last day. Despite this we all had a great time and it was nice to spend some quality time as a family relaxing before another very busy semester. 

Someone gave us a grocery voucher for Christmas
which we used to buy some treats for our vacation
View from our room, the summer water park!
Indoor waterpark
(they had a tunnel connecting our hotel room to the waterpark)
Poptarts for breakfast!
One of the girls on the left and Albert on the right
Kate is standing on the side with Zara coming down the slide
Albert and Grace on the indoor roller coaster
There they go!
Albert and Grace
Albert and Kate coming out!
Kate
the HUGE water bucket tipping
Zara, Michaela and Kate
Getting ready to go the slide
Michaela
The roller coaster
(Girls LOVED this!)
Grace
Zara ready to go down on a mat
Looking down from the slides, lazy river on the left.
Having lunch on the last day
(we took our own)
Albert showing off :)
Got it!