The end of summer is here, which also means another year of Gurnee Days! We attended for the second year in a row and had a great time again. We were able to do and see more this year and our daughter was at a better age this year to really enjoy the festivities.

We headed over to Viking Park on Friday early evening. Since the rides had just opened it was the perfect time to go because there weren’t lines and it wasn’t super crowded which made it a little less intimidating for Reese. They had some different rides this year which was nice.

After the rides, we found a spot to sit by the stage to watch Gurnee Idol. This was my favorite part of the weekend. I am a big fan of American Idol and it was set-up similarly. They had 9 contestants and after each performed there were judges who gave their comments. At the end, the winner from last year returned to perform and then they announced the new winner. There was some great talent!

On Saturday night we watched the fireworks show. What an amazing show. One thing that was different than most fireworks shows we’ve seen is that they had almost two shows going on at once. One with fireworks lower to the ground and another set that were higher so you were able to see way more fireworks at once and it made for a great show. The finale was also great with lots of fireworks for a decent amount of time.

Another thing that I really enjoyed were the booths that were set-up with people from the local businesses around Gurnee. For the food booths they had Timothy O’Toole’s and Jersey Mike’s which are two new restaurants to the area among others. There were also many other booth’s set-up by local businesses as well. Reese’s favorite booth was one for a church in Gurnee, they had free face painting and the kids were able to make necklaces too. There was live music being played throughout the festivities which we enjoyed.

We were also able to see the parade again this year. We weren’t disappointed. It was a great parade with some nice floats and entertaining bands, etc. The kids of course loved all the candy that was being thrown.

We were glad to be able to partake in so many of the events at Gurnee Days this year. It was a great time and really a fun weekend for the whole family.

[+/-] click to show/hide this post