Family Night Bike Ride

We went on family bike ride the other night and had so much fun! We rode on the bike path along Lake Michigan up to Northwestern to the lagoon. It was a beautiful night and our favorite part of the ride was where we could see Chicago in the distance. We kept it short this time, only about 4 miles round trip. Our rides have been a little more enjoyable since the recent purchases of two new, bigger bikes (you've got to love craigslist!). This is such a fun place to live!

K-T-B!

Our super good friend, Katy, drove through Chicago last week and we were so lucky to have her stay a night with us. She's currently on a road trip across America visiting friends and family and also going on as many blind dates as she can. If anyone could do something like that, it's her. She's so awesome! We were supposed to find a blind date for her while she was here, but I was too selfish and wanted her all to ourselves instead.

We met Katy six years ago while we were at Penn State. Katy started her PhD program there, but was only there for a brief 4 months. We packed in all we could while we had her around and ended up with a great friendship that stands the test of time. (Is that dramatic enough for you?!)

We didn't have a whole lot of time while she was here, but we did take her over to Lake Michigan and drove around a little bit. These are just a few of the fun pictures that we took with her. We had a great time! Good luck on the rest of your trip Katy!

A boy and his sword. Can't leave home without it.

Who doesn't love rolling around in the sand?

Hamming it up for the camera!

Jo Bro's

I believe that our kids have reached the pre-preteen era of childhood. At least with music. This summer, our car and itunes radio has been tuned in on Radio Disney. We know all there is to know about the teen pop sensations, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, and The Jonas Brothers, led by big brother Joe. We were there on the premiere night of Camp Rock and have been listening to the music over and over on the radio. Needless to say, we've got a couple of Jonas Brother's fans. My nickname for them, The Jo Bro's, doesn't have rave reviews around here though. Brandon actually gets pretty upset when I call them that. It's funny to watch both my kids get so excited about these guys and break out in song anywhere we are (you should have heard them the other day in Old Navy when a song came on over the store sound system).

Anyway, the reason for this whole crazy post is that when we saw this painted on a rock by Lake Michigan, there was no way we were leaving without a picture of it.


We do.

We really do.

I Can Can, Can You?

Remember my post about our overflowing abundance of tomatoes? Want to know what we did with the first round?

We started with lots of these:

Hired some cheap labor:

Turned it into a sauce:

And ended up with this:

8 1/2 pints of tomato sauce and we're still not done.

Related?

Like Sister...

Like Brother...

It's probably just me, but as I was going through some pictures I came across these and thought it was so funny that they both had such similar expressions on their faces. I don't really remember what was going as I took each picture, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with something not going the way they wanted it to.

Great America

K. likes to read. A lot. So much, in fact, that she got herself a ticket to Great America from her school for reading like 97 books!

We couldn't let her have ALL the fun, so we got a few more tickets so we could all go (except for the little guy, who had a lot more fun playing at a friend's house all day). We had a great time on the giant tower overlooking the park, seeing the (fake) Wiggle's live, getting wet on the Log ride, and going on all the kids rides (two words about kids rides: shorter lines).

After a hot and sunny morning, we headed over to the Hurricane Harbor for some fun on the water slides. Skull Island, the only group of slides that we were all tall enough to ride on, was definitely designed for a hot day, because even if you're just waiting in line, you are guaranteed to stay wet. Since it got a little overcast, and a little breezy, we were actually more worried about hypothermia (in Chicago in August?) than sunburn. You should have seen little B's blue lips. But it was definitely worth it!

So we headed back to the rides, just as the Sun came out from behind the clouds. B was a little too short to ride the Superman ride, but we did run into Batman and Robin. We also did the Spacely Sprocket Rocket kid roller coaster for the second time (take a look at the bootleg video below!) and then took one last ride on the carousel. On our way out of the park, we picked up some blue cotton candy for the drive home so we could see Brandon's lips turn blue for the SECOND time that day.

A Year of Plenty

We have tried in the past to heed the council of the prophets to plant a garden and to be prepared. Our first real attempt was while we were in Pennsylvania and we tried, so hard, to nourish our little tomato plants all summer long. We weeded, watered, and weeded some more. By the time they matured enough to produce the fruit, we were so excited to see a little red against the green. Unfortunately, at the bottom of those beautiful little tomatoes, they were rotten. We did however, produce a giant cucumber, but only one.

We tried again when we lived in Washington. We found what we thought would be a great place to plant a garden, but I'm not even sure those little green plants lasted more than a few days (something about uranium in those parts?). End of story.

Or maybe not?

We decided to give it a try, once again here in Illinois. 3rd time's the charm, right? We had a great little garden plot ready to go once the snow melted. After I got to know our urban farmer of a neighbor, she reassured my planning efforts of our garden. We decided on a few tomato plants, cucumbers, jalapeno peppers, zucchini, and watermelon. So, we planted. And waited. And watered. And weeded. And waited a little longer.

Then, all of the sudden our tomato plants (3 in all, one being a cherry tomato plant) sprang to life. They started to grow, and grow, and grow, and wouldn't stop. The plants got so big that they overtook their cages (wasn't that the purpose of the cage?) and ended up building a bigger, and better, support system for the ginormous vegetables. Then the tomatoes came. Thousands of them. (Maybe not thousands, but lots.) Our pepper plant also came to life and started to produce. The cucumber plant started to grow huge and viney (is that even a word?) with lots of yellow blossoms on it. So far so good.

It's not like we didn't have any obstacles in our way. The rabbits tried the jalapeno once. Just once.

After a few more weeks of waiting our harvest has begun. And guess what?

This time it worked!

This is what they looked like about 3 weeks ago.

**Yes, the picture at the top of the post is from our garden.**