Day 114: Chicago Duo

Chicago:

and pizza:

'Nuff said.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Day 113: December 30, 2009 A Little Hackey?

Oy--didn't get home til well past midnight.  Went to a Wolve's game at the arena where hubby used to work as an auxilliary police officer, then out for wings.  Late.  Late.  Late.  So the post is late--but the photos WERE taken!  Here are a few of pictures from the game.  We were way up in the cheap seats on the far corner.  It was fun to use my camera as binoculars, even though my long lens doesn't have IS and I didn't want to use a flash and constantly annoy those around me.  I'm surprised that, although slightly busy, the photos weren't a complete wash.  I was doing lots of calm, meditative breathing in conjunction with squeezing the shutter in an attempt at minimal movement.  Hard to do at a hockey game! HA!

Wouldn't be hockey without a fight or two...

Um..should the linesman be laughing? 

Wolves won!  4-1.  Yay!

We also spent the day at the Field Museum with the kids.  Might post some of those later today somewhere, but right now I'm not up to going through another set of photos.  We're off to exchange too small/large clothing gifts.  Whee!  Have a lovely day, and I'll see you again tonight.  Do you have NYE plans?  So far, we're going out for Chicago Pizza at Giordanos and...uh...not sure what else.  Such party animals we are, eh?  :oD  So please--let me live my NYE vicariously through you!  Tell me what you'll be doing, and I'll imagine being there and enjoying it with you.

112: Architecture from the car

A couple of shots of nice windows and things taken from the car window as we drove by. 

The next one  is kind of odd, I know. It's just a fire escape, but somehow I liked the angle of it against the brick at the time.  Go figure. 

Day 111: Obscure Chicago things and such

It's late and we've been out freezing all day.  I didn't take pics of any of the major landmarks while we were downtown.  First of all, they've all been done and in the cold and freeze andwith my limited lens, I couldn't figure out how to make them unique.  And secondly, it was too darn cold an windy to take many shots anyway!  Nose hair freeze, eyes running, toe numbing cold.  And we've been in it since about noon.  My eyes are droopy, so quickly a couple of things from today:

Waiting to cross the street.  He might not think he has a heart, but at least he has a brain...

Extra points if you know why hubby put on the brakes and said, "Hop out and take a photo of this!" and I said, "OK--but I'm not going into the back alley..."

'I' think! I'll pass

Requisite mascot mobbing snapshot.  We were a couple of the only kids coming through the gates at the time, and the camel, monkey, penguin, tiger, and I don't know what all else descended on the kids en masse.  Luckily, they took it in their stride. 

Caroling to the tiger, who promptly tucked his nose and ears further under his paws as if to let us know in no uncertain terms that he was NOT impressed with our performance, thank you, and would rather sleep.

Day 110: Love Chicago

Up from 8 last night to this morning with a sick little guy. Cough cough cough all night.  I usually post after the kiddos go to bed, but last night it was impossible.  Soo..here's yesterday's photo.  We really didn't do much in the way of anything photo worthy. Just went to church then to visit some old friend's of Meryl's.  I was a bit shy about taking out my camera at someone else's house, for some reason.  But anyway, here's a quick one from the early evening.  I was slightly bored on the drive, so tried making shapes with the lights.  It's like trying to draw blind and upside down (the heart looks right side up in the photo, but to do so I had to "draw" it upside with the camera!), so the stars and treble clefs that I tried didn't work out as well as the hearts--although I tried for blocks and blocks and blocks!!

The plan is to go to the Brookfield Zoo and carol to the animals tonight. We were going to do so on Saturday, but the time got away.  I'll bring the tripod--hopefully will get at least a couple of neat photos!

Have a good day.  I'll see you again this evening--I hope.

Day 109: Bring Honey

When you come to my mother-in-law's house, be sure to bring honey to appease the bears.  They can get a little grumpy if you don't pay them the attention they're due.  Char has a collected hundreds of bears over the years.  Here are three that I randomly took off the living room shelf.  They like the attention, and, thankfully, didn't notice that I had just eaten some honey soaked baklava and hadn't offered to share.  They were too busy primping for their photos, I suppose!

ed:  12/27/09  Char just let me know that this guy is made out of an old carriage robe.

Day 108: Christmas 2009

Images of our day.  It was lovely and relaxing.  I adore Christmas!

And we had a guest for dinner:

"Are you looking at me?"

Julia's favorite part of Christmas dinner:

Have a great evening, all.  Are you grazing on leftovers and nibbling on sweets with me?  We have plenty here--come over and grab a bickie!

Nighters!

Day 107: Christmas Eve on the road

Got as far as Columbus last night.  I discovered the BEST trick to getting the kids to calm down and go to bed.  They were off the wall wired and wanted to bounce all over the beds.  So I told them that if they calmed down and crawled into bed, they could bounce on the beds as much as they wanted in the morning without any nagging from me. 

At that, they were instantly under the covers  And the next morning the first question was, "Can we bounce on the beds now?"  "While Daddy's in the shower," I said, not wanting him to stress out tooooo awfully much about the execution of the aforementioned reward.  So they did:

Does letting my kids jump on hotel beds to their heart's content make me an irresponsible mother?  I don't know.  All I know is that I also gave it a try, but couldn't get much in the way of air for fear of cracking my head on the ceiling.  After about five minutes, the kids were tuckered out, and it made for a much quieter morning. 

On the way out of Columbus, we spotted this sign:

They'll try to market anything, these days.

Julia showing off her new lip gloss that she got at the school gift exchange:

Mr. Serious.

Dayton, Ohio.

PHOTO OF THE DAY:

Uh...yuh think?

But guess who this is?  I think it's...

MATER!!!

(Slightly in disguise...)

And lastly...

Adam all relaxy

Merry Christmas, everybody.  I hope you have a wonderful Christmas spent with joy in the company of loved ones. Cheers!