Lately, we have been loving our local library card. And not just for the loads of books we check out every week, the free Wii games we rent for our family or the free storytime hours we meet friends at and get some well needed time out of the house. Our library, and many throughout Illinois, is currently offering the Museum Adventure Pass. It’s a new program that started this past September and goes until August of 2010 that let’s you check out free or greatly reduced passes to lots of local museums in the Chicagoland area. The passes are usually good for a family of two adults and two children and is can be checked out for 1 week at a time. Since we love to go on lots of adventures with our kidlets this pass is perfect for our family. I love being able to give our littles lots of exposure to fun things in the area, especially if it’s FREE!!!
We have used the pass for numerous places on the museum list but our most favorite recently has been the Morton Arboretum. This place has been so fun for the kids to run around and burn off some much needed energy as well as just to get them outside in the sunshine and fresh air. Usually admission is $11 per adult and $8 for children 2 years old and up, so that pushes us to a grand total of $30 and that is without eating lunch or getting a snack…yikes! (And you definitely want to eat a little something here, their restaurant not only has some amazing food but their dining room has these huge floor to ceiling windows that overlook part of the arboretum so you can dine among the trees!) Here are some pictures from our last trip there:
Check out this giant tree table…so cool!
A look at some of the super sweet suspension bridges.
Lots of fun for the kidlets (and us mommas and daddas too!)
Noah feeling like Indiana Jones...
and jumping his way across this bridge
Time for some Treehouse fun.
Penny, livin’ on the edge
So, if you live in Illinois or are somewhat close to the Chicagoland area, you have to get to your local library and check out one of their free museum passes before August of 2010 (and if you don’t, maybe check to see if your library and your state does something similar…I mean Macy’s are nationwide and they are sponsoring the program so they might have this awesome program in your state too). If you live by me and find the Morton Arboretum pass is always checked out, well…sorry, but we are just trying to live up this nice weather before the freezing temps and windchill are here!!! I only kid, har har I’m a jokester! Oh, but did you know that we had snow on Thanksgiving day!!!!!! What the Heck was that all about!?!
I’ll have to check about the Museum Pass. There’s so many great places to explore around Chicago! We have a membership to the Arboretum and LOVE it – we go as often as we can. My son just basically runs laps on those tree bridges!! There’s so many other fun places to run around and explore too. Wait until the bulbs all come up in the spring, you’ll love it!
We have checked out the Museum pass for the zoo and the children’s museum….Macy’s is not my favorite after the whole Marshall Fields debacle but this is a GREAT program that has made me at least visit a Macy’s (but not the downtown one!)