Billy and the rest of the 7-9th grade Orchestra headed down to Chicago for three days of sightseeing and an Orchestra Festival.There were three bus loads of kids 14 chaperones and a lot of junk food. This was the 24th Orchestra trip and I believe the 8th trip to Chicago. The bus ride down was pretty easy compared to last years 19 hour trip to Branson! We arrived late Wednesday night unloaded the buses and got the kids into rooms and lights out at 10:30.
Thursday morning there was a three hour rehearsal for one hour per grade at the hotel. Then we headed off to Wood-field Mall for some shopping and lunch. Next up was the Blue Man Group. It was a fun-filled crazy fast moving entertaining and crowd involved show, super fun. We then headed off to Chinatown for a walking tour and then dinner at one of the local restaurants. The food was awesome and the quantity was crazy. I think many of the kids are not very adventurous eaters and there was unfortunately a lot of food left. We then headed off to Sears Tower no called The Willis tower, which if you have been there once you know what it is all about. The kids did seem to enjoy the tower even if we were only there for about an hour.Back to the hotel for swimming, hide and seek and generally running off energy. 10;30 was lights out again and everyone was very cooperative.Friday we headed off to Navy Pier to enjoy the nice weather and relax bit before the festival. Speaking of which hit was sort of a weird event. It is a competitive festival where each orchestra is competing against the others however there are no people in the audience, just two judges, odd.
Billy plays the violin and does a pretty good job. We were eat the festival for about two hours and then it was off the Gino's pizza. Awesome pizza and great fun. The kids were a bit wound up on Friday night to the point where we had to close the pool early, stop hide and seek in the hallway but for the most part it was pretty easy.
Saturday was Six Flags and all that comes with it! The weather was great the place was packed however the kids were tired. We arrived at 10:30 and by 12:00 kids we're hanging out with the chaperones asking when are we going home...We actually made it back to school early the kids cleaned up the bus and the tour was over. I have to say it was an interesting chaperone group, the Orchestra director after 26 years is retiring so this was the last hurrah so to speak.....
Willis Tower
6 Flags!
