road trip--day 2

Lewis got up kind of early the first full day in Evanston. Beth had some really cool toys to play with, including a ball that glows in the dark and changes color every few seconds. He loved looking at it with a glitter ball right next to it.


Another funny thing was Lewis' new name for Aunt Beth. He kept doing the sign for 'aunt' (the letter A next to his chin') for Aunt Ellen. But by Saturday he was pairing that sign with the sign for "bath" when speaking of Aunt Beth! It really cracked us up because the words do sound similar, and he was very consistent in referring to her differently. He stills does this when I ask him about her......so cute.

Beth is a gifted tour guide for the Chicago area. We have visited many times and always do different things. This time we went to the Kohl Children's Museum in the suburbs. It was a lot of fun. Lewis didn't like all of it, but the parts he liked, he REALLY liked. The first part we saw was all about water. He would've stayed there all day, but we forced him to check out a musical section,


some fake construction equipment,



and a train exhibit where Owen got to have his first experience milking a fake cow. Notice how much is in the bucket!



Lewis loved the train exhibit, which was sponsored by Brio. This was a temporary exhibit, but he had a blast pushing buttons and making train sounds like a real conductor.


They had a more scientific area. This thing below had a button that controlled air coming out of this cone. It had a whole bunch of foam shapes that kids could try placing above the air to see which ones would float. We discovered that only the egg shape would work,


and the sphere. Lewis had a blast with this thing!



Another area was a mini theater where kids could dress up and put on a show in front of a camera. Under the camera was a TV so they could actually watch themselves perform. This is a really cool idea if you ask me, and Lewis really enjoyed singing songs (doing the motions) and watching himself jump. Notice Beth in the top right of the photo frame getting crazy in front of the camera. We all liked this one!



The museum featured a pretend store with little grocery carts to push around and a mini daycare...lots of other cool things. The last part was an area with cars. Lewis and Beth spent quite a bit of time sending cars down a ramp.


The rest of the day involved Thai food, a trip to Trader Joe's, a nap for most of us, and some more time at the play ground.