Our three months with Anakin, our exchange student from France is coming to an end on Monday. We thought we would share a trip to Chicago before he leaves so we headed there on Saturday morning.Our first stop was Dick’s Last Resort. It’s a fun restaurant where the waiters are rude. They also make these hats out of end roll for the customers.

Asa’s was the best especially because he mentioned that he was out of shampoo before we left home.They also served the sodas in giant cups which the girls found funny.

Then we checked in at the hotel and walked to Water Tower Place for some shopping. Nova had a hard time just looking and wanted to buy everything even though she only had $8 in allowance saved so we didn’t stay long.

One of things Nova “had to have” was this mermaid with no price tag in a fancy store.

Asa played chess against a cashier at the Lego store. He won!

I had planned for us to go to Lincoln Park Zoo for Zoo Lights but if the 14 minute walk was any indication, the girls were going to complain and ruin it so Nole suggested going to look at a big tree and that happened to be at Millennium Park. I had never seen Cloudgate at night so it sounded like a good plan. We took the bus there.And then we walked back to our hotel.

This morning, we decided together to do then Museum of Science and Industry before heading home. We had an excellent free breakfast before driving to the museum.

Before we left the hotel, Nova asked for a picture of her loose teeth.

I rarely drive to Chicago but with 7 people, Ubers won’t work unless we take two and the bus gets expensive. Although parking is crazy expensive we still saved money and lots of time that would have been spent waiting for and riding buses.

We didn’t get to see everything at the museum but we saw a lot of it. We had to head out because I need to stop in at work tonight. We hit the Lake Forest Oasis for late lunch and now we just crossed into Wisconsin.

Anakin leaves tomorrow morning and we will miss him. Asa and he play a lot and it has been nice to have a “big buddy” for Asa since he sometimes doesn’t get as much attention as the others. Anakin is the most polite and kind teenager I’ve ever met and I look forward to seeing him again someday.