Finally a weekend solidly above the 70s, we went down to the Indiana Sand Dunes where we went on a walk with the Kings.  Here is Cindy, Liam and Andrea.  Later we came home and had dinner in our back yard!  Yipee!

Miles did an assignment this week: choose a forest animal and write about why it would not make a good pet. He chose a lion and did a very good job on his paper! Oddly enough, this assignment coincided with a news item in Chicago this week– a cougar was seen roaming around and generally freaking people out about 3 miles north of where we live, and the police had a confrontation with it and shot it dead yesterday. So it's a very timely essay as well, while Chicago is thinking how big cats aren't really good as pets.

Readers have asked how the work is going on the lot behind us and the sidewalk in front of our house. Both projects are definitely coming along, albeit slowly. Kinda like Spring this year! It's getting here, but slowly. This photo is of the new concrete pad they poured in back. It seems to be pretty much the same as the old one. ??? Maybe the last one was sinking or something.   

Sarah, Alexander and Thomas gave Miles some amazing microwave popcorn for his birthday–it was a cob of corn that you put in a bag and cook in the microwave. The popped corn pops right off the cob into the bag! Below, I'm holding the still-steaming cob with a few popped kernels still stuck to it. Below that, Miles blows out the candles on the cake we made for John and Miles. Yum!

Seven and dancin' Miles had a birthday party yesterday, there was no school so we took the King kids to the Mythic Creatures exhibit at the Field Museum. Then we went to Greektown for lunch. Yum!

I was lucky enough to see a solo performance by Herbie Hancock (fresh from his grammy win) the day after my birthday at a marketing awards show (I think the gig is he performs for a bunch of advertising people in return for an increased chance at getting one of his songs included in an ad).  Anyway, amazing to see him live.  Here's a blurry photo I shot.  

Entrance to the caves 150 feet below worlds of fun A fascinating day trip to kansas city involved a trip to the mile long tunnel where they store, among other things, stamps in the worlds largest underground storage facility.

One of the highlights of the trip was our day hike into Rabbit Ears Canyon, a razor thin crack in the mountain that had been carved out and rubbed perfectly smooth by thousands of years of flash floods.  During the rainy season these slot canyons can be death traps with water levels rising to 40+ feet in seconds, but for us, we were able to enjoy a really amazing place.  

The last night on the river was extremely cold, getting down to below freezing, and leaving us all shivering in our tents, watching the full moon set, so we could finally get up.  As the pictures below show, we were all pretty happy when the first cup of coffee was served.  When the sun finally came up it felt like someone flipping the switch on a heat lamp.