We are back from our fall break trip. We aimed a bit lower than the epic Niagara trip from last year; this time I took Friday off and we just overnighted in Chicago. We dropped the van off at a mechanic on the way out of town because it had been making a loud roaring/rattling noise from the back end for a while. Then we got breakfast at the new Crazy Egg Cafe on the way out of town, and headed to Chicago and went straight to the Museum of Science & Industry. We'd wanted to go see the "Robot Revolution" traveling exhibit for some time now, and that was the primary reason for the entire trip. The exhibit was really cool, but not as cool as we'd all thought/hoped. We also caught an Omnimax movie (about whales) while we were there, and stayed overnight in a nice motel out in Schaumberg, which had a pool, of course. Early the next morning (so early we had to wait a few minutes for it to open) we hit the IKEA and spent almost $350. But we did get the desk attachment that goes under the loft bed we got for Missy a while back, and a storage unit for Alex's room that should make things a lot better there too. On the way back we stopped in Merrillville at the Albanese Candy Store, which was...busy...and at the Valpo Fazoli's, which is fast becoming the kids favorite restaurant. And I even had a win with the van just before break; the big rattle it turned out to be a loose exhaust pipe heat shield that according to the mechanic wasn't really needed, so they just removed it and it only cost $20. So I had a tire repaired and an oil change while we were at it and still got out for only $86, sweet.