museum passes.. I love free stuff!

Jason and I are pretty “frugal.” Ok, that is really a nice way of saying cheap but as I have stated before we get a high from finding things cheap or for free. One of the perks of living in Chicago is the free museum passes you can get from any library branch. Every library branch in the city has passes to get you and four other people into any museum for FREE! Now, it sounds too good to be true right? Well, the catch is you have to snag the right pass at the right time and they do not reserve them, it is every Chicagoan for themselves. I literally spent about 2 hours last summer calling around and then driving to branches just to acquire the free aquarium pass (one of the most sought after). It became a challenge and I could not quit. After driving all the way to a far away branch only to have the woman in front of me grab the very pass I had driven like a mad woman to get!! I thought about jumping her in the parking lot but thought that might be in poor taste.

All this to say today when we saw that yet again the weather was dismal we needed to find something fun to explore indoors. Jason got the Nature Museum pass and we headed out to let Annikah see the famed butterfly room. At first she was a bit scared as the butterflies whizzed around her head but then really enjoyed watching them. Her parents got a high as they got into the museum for free and even found street parking (now all you suburbanites may not appreciate the amazing feat this is but take my word for it) so the only money we shelled out was for a diet coke (ahh, my other addiction) and some pretzels! Here are some pictures of us invading the butterfly habitat and the rest of the museum. As for our free museum pass Ferris Bueller would say, “it was so choice, if you have the means I highly recommend picking one up.”