July
Jul 11Wow, what a couple of weeks that was!
It started on Tuesday, June 28 when Andrew stopped by our house and surprised us. Their family wasn’t due into Chicago until Sunday night for their annual vacation up from Houston, so this was a pleseant surprise. Turns out he just finished his final interview with Willow that day and got offered a job. (which he accepted). The process had been ongoing since May, and it was finalizing this week (he signed the contract on the 8th, so we were asked not to say anything until then).
Saturday, the 2nd, we headed up to Hutchinson Lake to spend family time with my cousins and aunts/uncles at my uncle Van’s cottage. We left later than we expected and got stuck in heavy, heavy holiday traffic. What is normally a 2 hour drive took us 4. We were less than happy with that. We were offered the opportunity to spend the night at their cabin, but we weren’t fully prepared for that, so we did head home later in the evening.
But not before having a couple of hours of fun playing in the lake and playing baseball on the lawn. We got Alex a life vest and that gave him a huge confidence boost. It was tough to get him out of the water. Sara, Alex, and I all climbed on a jet ski for a short excursion around the lake. We went out past the 7:30 “no wake” time cut-off, so I didn’t want to spend too much time out there lest we got Van in trouble. But we had a nice 10 minute trip with short bursts of speed and Alex had a lot of fun doing that. Next time we’ll have to get there much earlier to get some boating time. The plan to try to drive during nap time just sort of backfired on us.
The water was only up to his waist all the way out to the boats.
Sunday was relax day. Although we did go to the baseball field and that was when kids were shooting off fireworks on the next block over which Alex was sure they were being fired off for his “home runs.”
Monday was the holiday. At noon, the parade came down the side street and turned east (so not technically in front of our house). We walked to the corner and put our chairs in the street for a good view. Alex loved running out to grab all the candy that was being thrown out. We haven’t eaten any of it yet, it was just more fun to chase it all down.
Monday evening, Andrew & Cathi and the kids came over for a BBQ. The kids swam in the pool a little bit too. Alex became a daredevil by jumping off the cube into the pool.
We walked to the park on the praire path to kill some time and energy (and to walk by any houses that may be for sale). Then around 9, we walked down the street to get a seat in the grass at the church for fireworks viewing. It was late and the kids were tired. We wondered why we were doing it. Oh well.
Tuesday was back to work. Tuesday night was the U2 360 concert at Soldier Field. Hmm. I just realized those pictures are on Sara’s phone still. Well, here’s one from Cathi:
It was a great show. It ended late and getting out of there was tough (can’t go East!) We got to bed at 1am on a school night. I’m way too old to be doing that! But it was fun anyway.
Wednesday evening was BBQ at Emily & Dan’s place. Good to hang out with them again, too. Thursday night was my softball night. Friday night: day off! woohoo!
Saturday we drove up to Warren Dunes State Park (90 minutes) to meet up with the whole Bemis gang. This has become an annual tradition as this beach is perfectly between GR and Chicago. Traffic wasn’t near as bad as the week before, thankfully.
So we spent the afternoon playing in the water, getting sunburned and having a good time.
Alex surfing on a boogy board
Burying Andrew
14 Kids from 6 families
The Women
The Men
So that’s how July started. I need a vaction from all that!
Texas
Jan 25I should probably say something about our Texas trip. I had a free round trip ticket from Southwest (thank you frequent flyer program) which expired in March. Our original plan was to go spend New Years with the Andrew & Cathi, as that was sort of a tradition for us when they lived close. But as the holiday season approached, the ticket prices kept going up. I looked a little farther out and airfare was much cheaper just a couple weeks later, so we opted to do that instead.
We flew in on Thursday and out again Tuesday. An extended weekend of sorts. It was really cold that Thursday. We had left our heavy winter coats in our van in the airport parking lot because we were optimists. Well, the weather report said the week was going to progressively get warmer, into the low 60s over the next few days. It never really did. Mid 50s was about as high as it got. And we only saw the sun for a couple of hours Monday afternoon. Oh well. We survived.
Friday, Andrew worked and Cailey had school. The rest of us went to the Houston Zoo. I was really impressed with that zoo. They have done a lot of work to keep that zoo up-to-date. I was shocked to do a little research and learn that the Houston Zoo opened in 1905 whereas the Brookfield Zoo opened in 1919. However, the Houston Zoo feels much more modern. Brookfield still feels like a 1920s zoo in many respects, while Houston was much nicer – the animal pens were varied and the landscaping was really well done.
Friday night, Sara, Alex and I borrowed Andrew’s car and drove 40 minutes south to visit Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dirk and their 2 dogs. The dogs, being small terriers, were an amusing curiosity for Alex. He didn’t want to go anywhere near them, but he enjoyed looking at them from a distance. But once the dogs were put in the bedroom, Alex really relaxed. He and Uncle Dirk had a great evening together and there was a lot of laughing and giggling. Alex did some, too.
Saturday morning, Cailey had a basketball game and Andrew is the coach of her team. So we went to watch them play. Afterwards, we went to the Houston Children’s Museum. It wasn’t too crowded, which was nice. Although Alex did have to wait his turn to drive the ambulance and never did get a chance to play at the grocery store checkout. But all the kids still had a lot of fun.
After that, we went back to Herman Park and rode the train ride around the park. We fed the ducks and then went home.
Sunday we went to the church where Andrew works and got a little tour afterward. Alex was okay being left in the kids room with Nate. Sunday afternoon was dedicated to the Bears game. We went out for some Texas BBQ for dinner. It rained most of the day, but stopped enough in the evening to let the kids bounce on the trampoline for a while and let out some built up energy.
Monday we all drove to Galveston. This was an interesting little beach town. There’s a beautiful historic district (where the cruise ships come in). There’s the seawall and beach that is gorgeous. There is the cool ferry ride that take people and cars across the channel (for free!) and you can watch for dolphins swim alongside the boats. There is the pretty Moody Gardens park and pyramids where the aquarium is. And there are a bunch of lovely historic homes from the 19th century. Unfortunately, due to Texas’ lack of zoning laws, there are also plenty of car repair shops right next to all those lovely historic homes. It’s a weird, stark contrast.
But we had a great time. We started the morning at the aquarium since it was still cloudy and cool. It was a pretty good one, too with good penguin and shark exhibits (not in the same pen). And the beach was great. The kids could have stayed at that beach all day long. The sun even came out for a little while (of course, as it was getting time to leave).
In all, it was a very fun trip. Andrew & Cathi still have 2 cats and on the last day Alex was able to muster up enough courage to pet one. It was great seeing them again and we’re sad we had to leave. We look forward to them coming up here for a visit this summer.
November
Nov 30Wow, that month flew by. Here’s some highlights.
From Alex’s birthday party:
Playing with one of his new toys:
We went to a wedding up in Sheboygan, WI the next day. We stayed at a hotel with an indoor water park. Alex really loved the lazy river. Maybe next time we’ll try a water slide. At the end of this video, you’ll see what they do every half hour – dump 10,000 gallons of water on kids. I wasn’t so inclined to see what it felt like.
For Thanksgiving break, we drove to MN. All Alex wanted to do was play tackle football with whoever would play with him.
For an excursion Friday night, we went to downtown Minneapolis to watch the Holidazzle Parade. Think Disney’s electric light parade without much music and 100 degrees colder. It was pretty bitter. I couldn’t help but laugh every time Sara’s parents said they couldn’t believe how empty it was downtown. Yea, because only the crazies stand out in 10 degree weather to watch a parade!
Well, that was about it for November. Not a real exciting month. Sorry. Plus my freelance work is keeping me pretty occupied.
New York Trip 2008 videos
Dec 17So I’m no longer going to wait for Emily to finish processing her pictures and run with the ones I got. My subscription to Animoto expires in a couple weeks and I haven’t decided if I’m renewing or not. So here’s our NY trip, split into 2 videos because there were just that many photos (even without Emily’s) It’s split into the Long Island parts and New York City parts. Enjoy.
The song used in this first video is called Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros, an Icelandic band. The song is mainly about reliving childhood meanings … if the translation is correct on Song Meanings.
NY Trip: Friday, August 8
Oct 08So we got together with all the NY travelers this past Sunday. Emily wanted to set a time for all of us to get together to share our photos and also create a deadline to get all our photos processed and ready to share. It forced me to finally go through and weed out my pictures and get them online for viewing. So the last few days of the trip are now online. Also, I’ve added all the pictures from Todd and Kim. But guess who didn’t meet her own deadline. *cough* Emily *cough* [I'm expecting an angry IM message any minute now]
So if you are a fan of the Department of Redundancy Department, you can check out some new photos in the older albums to get multiple perspectives on some of the same things.
Friday was the biggest day of our trip. We started by taking the commuter train into the city instead of driving, knowing that we’d be there so late that driving would be tough. We ended up taking a Peak time (ie: rush-hour), which was fine, but there was a row of girls that talked a lot and loudly the whole trip. Towards the end, a couple regulars acutally yelled at them. It made me think of Dan’s post where he complained about the loud talkers on the Metra.
So we got into Penn station and walked up through Times Square. Our first stop was a surprise for Emily: the M&M store. 3 floors of M&M merchandise. Emily has extreme affection for these candies and was quite overwhelmed by the store. She had to call her mom to tell her about it and was overheard makeing the statement: “I’m getting sweaty.”
After spending quality time in that store, we made our way over to Rockefeller Center. Our first objective was to get tickets to the NBC Studios Tour. Unfortunatly, all the morning tours were already sold out, so we settled for an afternoon tour and altered our schedule a little bit.
We headed outside and loitered around the Today show set, but as it was just about 10, they were ready to call it a day and we didn’t see anyone famous.
We then walked across the street to St. Pat’s Cathedral.
From there we walked downtown a bit to Grand Central Terminal.
We had lunch on the dining concourse and then went outside to meet up with a free tour of Grand Central and neighborhood. From the description of the tour, I was excited to hear this guide. And he was extremely knowledgeable about the city and it’s history. Unfortunately, he injected way too many of his own opinions and made unnecessary and long-winded anecdotes. We didn’t tour very much – we stood in place for long periods of time as he went on many rants such as how Americans like their things fake and how Walt Disney never took time to look things up (he had a lot of hate for Disney for some reason).
In between his rants we did get a few nuggets of information. And we had an entertaining little segment on Alice in Wonderland where he selected Emily to play the role of Alice. What it had to do with Grand Central wasn’t exactly clear, but we did get to watch Emily act.
We quit the tour shortly thereafter. We had to get back to Rockefeller Center for our NBC Studios tour.
No cameras were allowed on the tour, but we did get to stand on the set of NBC Nightly News, right next to the MSNBC studios (we could watch the action through the glass wall). We got a few peaks at a few other places in the building, but because the Olympics were starting up, we weren’t able to go to every place normally on the tour such as the Saturday Night Live studio. Although, because of the Olympics, we were allowed to go on the Today Show set, which was a treat for all the ladies. One idea early on for the trip was to get to the Today Show outdoor set early enough to see the anchors, but for time reasons, we decided not to get up that early. Getting to walk on the set was a very good surprise substitute.
The day was surprisingly starting to get away from us, so we took the subway up to mid Central Park. The nice thing about that was it rained while we were underground and when we came up, it was just starting to dissipate. It didn’t take long for the sun to come out again. We made our way into the park and navigated to Belvedere Castle.
I need to Photoshop myself into this picture because it’s one of the few group shots we took. I guess we forgot to do that.
We then walked south. Our intention was to walk around the area known as The Ramble, but we couldn’t exactly find a path that led out to the edge of the park and ended up rambling through it. Fortunately, we made good decisions and quickly made our way through it. Getting lost would have seriously cramped our tight time schedule.
We arrived to cross Bow Bridge (you know – the one you see in all the movies) and then walked up to Bethesda Terrace and Fountain.
Todd and Kate walked on ahead of us as Kate’s ankle was bothering her again. The rest of us made a detour over to Strawberry Fields.
At the memorial to John Lennon, we ran across a very interesting homeless man who made interesting comments such as how amazing it was that it was raining and now the sun was out and shining right on the memorial. And then he started singing some Beatles tunes. Hence my crazy look.
We continued south down to the South East corner of Central Park and met up with Todd and Kate. It was getting close to dinner, but Kim had a desire to see Carnegie Hall. So we split up again. I guess the split towards the respective subway stations wasn’t exactly even because our small group made it to view the famous music hall, catch the nearest subway, and still beat Todd and Kate to the Thai restaurant we had chosen (on the recommendation from my cousin – and it was a great choice).
We had plenty of time to relax and rest our feet during dinner. It was a crazy day of walking. From there we went over to Broadway to see the musical Mary Poppins.
I kinda have to agree with that sign. It was spectacular. Or should I say, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? (don’t correct me on the spelling – I don’t care.) We had nice seats – the front row of the balcony. While we didn’t have anyone in front of us, the row was incredibly narrow. Sara might have been the only one comfortable in that row, but there was a high railing. Thankfully, the kind woman across the aisle told me where to find the booster seats (yea – seriously! They have them for adults of shorter stature!) It worked out great for Sara.
The show got out around 11, but our day wasn’t done yet. Todd and Kate had been to NYC before and had done the Empire State building, but not at night. And since I really didn’t want to stand in line for 3 hours like it can get during peak summer days, we decided to try the ESB at night (it is open until 2am!). And it worked out great. There was no extremely long line.
It was nice to see that they made some updates to the line process. I can remember waiting in the dingy, dirty basement of the building with no air conditioning just to get tickets. They’ve made vast improvements to the whole process.
So we got to the top and enjoyed great views of the city at night.
As it approached midnight, we realized we had to hustle to get over to Penn Station to try to make a 12:25 train. If we missed it, we would have to wait an hour for the 1:20AM train. Well, we were tired and got a little confused on the directions so we missed the train. By only a couple minutes. So we waited around for the hour and finally got on the train to get home. It arrived at 2:45AM.
The next morning we learned on the news that there was a power outage in the ESB and some people got stuck in the elevators for 45 minutes. I recalled how shortly after we started walking away from the building, I turned around to try to get a picture of the colorfully lighted spire from the ground, but it was all dark. I was confused at the time, but now realized we narrowly missed being one of those people trapped.
NY Trip: Thursday, August 7
Sep 05I know – you’re thinking this is taking forever. Me too.
Thursday was an improvised day, although we expected it a bit. Todd and I had discussed right after the All-Star game that if we didn’t get Yankee Stadium tour tickets on the orginally scheduled day, we’d go back another day. And it actually worked out really well.
Two days earlier, there was a fantasy baseball camp going on, so we wouldn’t have been able to have the full tour. And also there were a limited amout of tours that day. So thinking there were only two tours (a noon one and 1pm one), Todd, Emily and I got up early and made it to the box office well before it opened. We ended up being 15th in line.
The line got to be very long and we were feeling bad for a lot of the people behind us, especially those with kids. We had even considered buying a couple of extra tickets to hold on to for those familys. But when the box office opened at 8:45, we were told that there were tours every hour that day. We were relieved and got 9am tickets. So that altered our day, too because we were wondering what we were going to do until 12. Now we walked right into the stadium.
Man, that got exciting. Todd even said he felt faint. We first walked up to the press box. There were several rows of benches that had a great view of the field. And by the way, we had a great tour guide and you could tell he really loved his job.
After the press box, we walked out to left field and down into Monument Park. This is a little shrine behind the outfield wall dedicated to the retired Yankee uniform numbers as well as plaques to some of the great players that wore Yankee uniforms.
Monument Park is already so close to the field and the gates were open so you could see everything, but the security guards were closely watching everyone – there was no sneaking out. But after everyone got a good look at the monuments and got all their questions answered, it was time to go down to the dugout – on the field!
Oh yea, we walked along the warning track all the way to the dugout. It was awesome.
We walked past the visitor’s dugout and before you knew it, we were sitting on the same bench that so many Yankee greats have sat on: DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, the Babe, Gehrig, Jackson, Mattingly, Jeter, A-Rod. It was intense.
(so intense, I guess I couldn’t smile)
Todd and I had fun pretending to be managers along the railing.
From the dugout we walked into the clubhouse, where picture taking was not allowed (although you could do an image search for one)
There was a roped off section we could stand in to view the lockers – I couldn’t get close enough to leave my note in Mariano’s locker (it said that even though he’s like 90, the Cubs would still love to have him.)
We left the locker room and back out into the dugout briefly (hey, empty bench! Todd – sit down!)
Then we headed out of the stadium (and into the Yankee store, of course).
Well, now we realized we had a lot more time on our hands than we thought we would that day. It was about 10:30. Everyone else had gone to the beach, so we decided we’d go catch up with them.
But first, Emily wanted to stop at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park to get a close up look at the giant globe. Unfortunately, there was a Mets game starting, so getting to the park took a lot longer than we anticipated. Eventually we made it and got to take some fun pictures.
It’s too bad the fountains weren’t on, but then Emily wouldn’t have been able to get underneath it.
After stopping home to change, we finally got to the beach. I think it was around 2pm by then. Kate and Sara, along with Alex were starting to think about leaving shortly, so we hung out a little while with them, eating some lunch in the sand. Unfortunately, the water left something to be desired. There were no waves – it was flatter than Lake Michigan. And there were a ton of jellyfish floating around.
Still, I would have gone for a swim if it weren’t for the lightening that was detected in the distance and the lifeguards ordered everyone out of the water. Oh well.
Sara, Kate and Alex left for home and the rest of us stayed to walk the boardwalk a little bit. A little bit turned into a longer bit and we eventually made our way all the way out to the Fire Island Lighthouse.
Once there, we decided to go up to the top, which provided awesome views of the bay, Fire Island, and the ocean.
I hit my head on one of those guy-wires pretty hard and left a bruise right above my eye. That was fun. I really enjoyed the climb (all 192 steps up metal-grate stairs – so it’s not for everyone) and the view. Of course, back on the ground, we can’t go a day without taking ridiculous pictures.
I can’t remember what we did for dinner, but we did just kick back and relax the rest of the evening. We were resting up in preparation for the following day.
