St. John's Arboretum & Mulan Jr.

 Last week I got a text at 7:51 in the morning from my friend Amanda.
Homeschool field trip with another co-op we don't belong to. St. John's Arboretum. There was room for us.
The field trip began at 9:30 a.m.
We hustled. Missing out on anything happening at St. John's truly feels catastrophic.

The kids stopped at stations along a path and learned about plants and the local environment. In our walk through the arboretum we visited plains, wetlands, and the woods.

Here is our group walking through the wetlands.

This seemed very appropriate because we had just finished reading, and were then listening to, C.S. Lewis's Narnia book, The Silver Chair. Jill and Eustace had just flown by owl to find a special Marshwiggle who would guide on their quest through the land of the giants. Which, if you know anything about Marshwiggles, you will know that wetlands are where they live.

 Unfortunately, we did not spot any Marshwiggles or their wigwams - and no smell of eel stew.

Those black lines are there for a reason. If you're a kid, you're supposed to walk between them. The boardwalk was bouncy because some of it was supported on floats.

Every so often the group would stop and get comfortable and learn something about what's happening in that particular area of the arboretum.

 Then we left the boardwalk and entered the woods, which were amazing.

 The trees were so ridiculously beautiful! We had so much fun and really appreciated the nice gals that gave us the tour and introduced us to so many different plants. Very fun! We can't wait to go back to St. John's, where, if it was allowed, I would set up permanent residence. I love that campus.

 The girls and I went to the local theater to see a children's production of Disney's Mulan. It was really cute.

 If you are a reader from the northern Illinois area, think Coronado Theater, minus the 100+ year old preserved dried plants and a velvet ceiling with stars. The Paramount Theater is built on a much smaller scale but is still lovely - with a massive and unfortunate lack of velvet overall, though.

Elin and Svea squabbled over who got to sit on the end balcony seat, and ended up sharing it. I suggested switching seats during intermission, but I guess squishing in together for the entire show was much easier?

I have to confess, I've never seen the movie Mulan, and now we all feel the need to. The show was really cute and the kids in it did an excellent job.

 Those guys in the middle there are the terrible Huns. Yes, that kid is super tall - he's 6'5. He had scary makeup on and he was definitely the bad guy. And Elin wanted his autograph so badly. (We did get it.)

 There was an attempted coup - that dragon isn't just wandering onto the stage for no good reason.

But everything turned out all right in the end and Mulan brought honor to her family.
Isn't that nice?

I was so impressed with the beautiful set and costumes.

After the show we braved the crowd for some autographs (of course we got the Hun's).

Elin now wants to be in a production and Svea seems to be considering it. There are different ages casted for each show, so this would be fun to pursue (: We're so glad we live in an area that offers such exciting opportunities for kids!