Family Fun in...Champaign, Illinois?

Our final destination for our end of the summer trip was Champaign, IL so that my husband could attend a recurrent training course for an aircraft he flies. Now, this is not really your typical family destination. I have never once said, "you know, I have always wanted to take the kids to Champaign for a few days". So I was not terribly excited about it. To tell you the truth, the thought of spending three days there made me a little nervous and sweaty. Not because I am fearful of Champaign or Illinois in general, but because the thought of figuring out how to entertain two kids in a hotel room for three days by myself while my husband was at training did not sound like fun to me, at all, in fact it made me a little grumpy.

The flight there was uneventful and pretty smooth. The kids and I slept most of the way there. I think it took us about 1.5 hours to get there from the Dells, not too bad. The Willard Airport was very nice and we were able to get a free shuttle (Yay, Lance) from our hotel. The hotel we stayed in was the Hawthorne Suites which was surprisingly nice with an indoor pool, free breakfast, and even a free dinner on Wednesday night, who knew?

I did not do very much homework on Champaign before we left, which was a mistake, I should have spent some time figuring out what in the world I was going to do with my two kids. Once we got there, I spent the first evening on my iPad trying to locate something, anything for us to do. I found a park located close by and thought we would check it out the next day. So the following morning, my husband was up and out before the kids and I were out of bed so we were left on our own. We had breakfast and then I found walking directions to the park on my iPhone (seriously what did I do without that thing?) The name of the nearby park was Hessel Park and let me tell you it was fabulous! There were walking paths and grassy areas and two playgrounds. Not to mention, the favorite feature for the kids, a water play area! We played and played until it was time for lunch and then we headed back for some food and a much needed rest time. After Ella's nap we played in the pool until daddy was finished and grabbed some dinner.

Dr. Ella future Veterinarian checking out a chicken

I had also found a "hands on science center" that was not terribly far away from where we were staying so that was our destination for our final day in Champaign. I had to check out of the hotel around 11:00 so my husband set it up for the hotel shuttle to take us to the Orpheum Children's Science Museum and drop us off. The kids and I set off for another adventure in Champaign. The science center turned out to be a fun little excursion. I have been to several children's museum-type activities centers and this was decently put together. They had several different activities for the children to engage in and each one found there favorite very quickly. Ella loved the pretend Veterinarian office and Nolan loved the legos set up on the upper level. When the kids got hungry we walked a couple of blocks to a very nice cafe/coffee shop. Champaign has a really cute downtown area with interesting shops and restaurants, I would have liked to explore a little more, perhaps without the kiddos! We returned to the science museum for a little while after lunch until our shuttle arrived to take us to the airport (my husband had talked someone who worked at the training center into driving their own car to pick us up!). All in all our trip to Champaign was much less painful than I had anticipated and should you ever find yourself there for a couple of days, I would highly recommend both the Orpheum and Hessel Park.

At the end of our trip we flew into our airstrip and pulled right up to our backdoor, thank goodness, because we were one tired family. Our end of the summer trip had been a great success and now it is time to prepare for school. I will continue to teach part-time this year and my little guy will be starting Kindergarten!! Unbelievable.

Ella and Nolan at the Ice Cream Shop laughing at Daddy acting silly