Legoland Discovery Center, Chicago



We had a little worry this weekend. Back in late July/early August when the kids were visiting my folks, Erika woke up screaming because her leg hurt. She's complained of her legs hurting off & on for probably 6 months now, but the complaints come & go.

However, on Friday she started complaining during the day that her leg hurt, and on Saturday I noticed that her entire posture changed. Sunday she had a good, solid limp. I don't know how it is, but my kids always get sick or injured either after hours or most usually on the weekend. So by the time the doctor offices around here opened this morning, I had googled all the likely causes of leg/hip pain and concluded that it was either benign growing-type pains, or something ultra-serious like a tumor or septic infection. After 4 x-rays, the dr. was able to conclude that the bone structure looked completely normal, so most likely cause was a strained muscle.

After having been in this hotel for the past 9 days, I sure am glad that we decided to bring a bin of legos with us. I don't know how thrilled the housekeeping staff is because the kids have the legos spread all over the floor, but in fairness, they are using them a ton & it is so nice to have an activity that all 4 kids can participate in.

We went to Legoland Discovery on Saturday for Blake's birthday. It was a really over-priced expedition, but they had a lot of variety of lego building activities for the kids, so we ended up spending about 4 hours there. Kyle & Blake competed in Aliens & Robots, and Kyle's chinese-waiter robot with chopsticks hands won! Kenna & Mark built a lego structure that grew to 10 feet tall (they were larger legos made out of the same material as Croc shoes). The kids also built a couple of lego cars and raced them down the raceway. All in all, it wasn't the best value, but it was a good Blake-birthday activity.

We have had a lot of good food here. We've tried 2 well-known "Chicago deepdish pizza" places, Gino's East & Giordorni's. We ate at a great chinese restaurant, called Big Bowl, that prides itself in local, fresh meat & veggies. And we've eaten at a few other diners around here. Surprisingly, the hotel itself has really good food as they make most of it here. Rumor has it that most of the staff at the hotel have been here 10+ years; the chef has been here for 28 years! Given the nature of the industry and the modern era, that really surprised me. My favorite restaurant so far is Portillo's. They advertise their Chicago hotdogs. Even Mark like them, which is saying something since he often gets ill from sausage & hotdogs. But it was their Italian Beef Sandwich that really caught my attention. My mom didn't make them often, but I was surprised to bite into one and immediately remember Mom's Italian Beef Sandwiches. Knowing that she lived here for several years, it doesn't surprise me that it came into her recipe book.

Still, as much as I enjoy eating out and love not having to do dishes, I am so glad to have the RV back to dine in. While the RV was at the shop, we learned that the propane refrigerator on the RV requires a little bit of battery power to keep running. It appears that a light was left on for the 3 days that the RV sat on the lot when we dropped it off for repairs (our fault, not theirs) So the kids & I went to Costco yesterday & reloaded the fridge. Today we got to enjoy omelets, ham & cheese croissants, and raviolis & garlic bread. Don't tell the kids I said so, but I think even they were relieved to be back on dish duty as they were complaining that they had no way to earn any money while we were in the hotel!