Epic Fail

A couple of weekends ago, our family embarked on an epic adventure.

The trip had its ups...

And its downs.

It started out with more of an "up."  We took the Amtrak train to Milwaukee.  We've always wanted to take the train somewhere because we thought the kids, Asher especially, would really enjoy it.

The train was quite the hit.  They really enjoyed being able to look out the windows and watch everything go by.  Having never been on an Amtrak train before, I didn't really know what to expect. It was a pretty enjoyable way to travel.  The seats reminded me of airplane seats, only more spacious and a little more comfortable.  We were traveling on a Saturday morning so we could spread out which was nice.

Here comes the "down" part of our trip.  The Chicago air show is Tyler and the kids' favorite part of summer.  Unfortunately, it's held in mid-August which puts it a week after we move to Iowa.  Stink.  Luckily, Tyler saw that Milwaukee was having a very similar (but maybe not quite as spectacular) air show in June so we thought it would be a great way to cross a couple things of our Chicago bucket list (Amtrak and an air show, double score!).
By the way, Albert did get to leave his stroller during this trip; I just don't have a lot of photographic evidence of those excursions.

We took the train to downtown Milwaukee and then walked a couple of miles to the beach for the festivities.  Unfortunately, when we got there it was very foggy.  It was so foggy that it was unsafe for the planes to fly.  That meant we had to find some entertainment while we waited for the fog to burn off.  Elias resorted to watching some kids play a pick-up game of badminton.

We waited and waited.

Some were less than thrilled with all the waiting. It didn't help that it was 50-60 degrees out and that the beach we were seated at was officially closed to swimmers because of an e coli issue.  

The kids seemed to enjoy playing in the sand nonetheless.  They dug around and buried things and generally had a grand ole time.  This just shows me that a real beach trip (where it's warm and they could actually go in the water) is a must before we move.
Anyway, we killed time and waited for the fog to go away for over 4 hours, until after 3 when the organizers finally gave up and cancelled it for the day.  Stink.  We were beyond bummed.

We were a super grumpy group as we headed to find some dinner and get back to the train.  Luckily a decent cheesesteak (apparently the best one outside of Philadelphia) and a long walk seemed to make things ever so slightly better.  By the time we got to the train, we were even able to look vaguely cheerful as we posed with our train home.
So all-in-all, we were able to cross one thing off our list which is something I guess.  And now we just have to find a time to come back for another Chicago air show (which are really the best anyway).