Getting ready for the Texas Transfer! Liam spent a busy couple of days getting ready for the drive to Houston, renting an apartment, buying a car, and buying some shirts for work (probably the most stressful of the three – what do corrosion engineers wear to work?). Kat volunteered to drive down with Liam, so before they all headed off, we had once last taste of Chicago, heading up to Papa Cache’s on Division for some great Puerto Rican chicken!      Once all that was done, they headed off on the first leg of the trip, down to Urbana…

Post graduation Liam is getting all set for his big move to Houston, having secured a lease on an apartment in the Museum district in Houston this week, he then needed a pair of wheels to drive to Houston (16 hours away) and to get around once he gets there.  One evening of research and a quick half hour visit to CarMax, we were able to figure it all out, with Liam driving off with a Hyundai Elantra, and while the salesmen was sad that he wasn’t able to sell us financing and a very elaborate extended warranty, he was…

Wow, the 4 years since Liam moved in to college went fast! We went down to Urbana-Champaign for his graduation yesterday. We first went to Liam’s apartment where he showed us a recent poster he worked on for his senior thesis. Thanks Miles for holding the corner down! We got to hang out with Kat for a bit before she went to her own ceremony. One of Liam’s friends made this great caricature of him! We had some lunch at Liam’s place, then the Kenny side of the group headed out for a campus tour (Mary and Herb had already done a…

Paddy and Kathleen arrived in Chicago last week and summoned some very warm weather – in fact shortly after they arrived we had a very summery day (huge contrast to winter conditions up until that day!) and the report said that it was the warmest day since Oct. 9, 2017, which I think was just about when they left after the marathon trip last fall! So it’s very nice to have them here, and very nice to have the warm weather, and I think we know what we need to do to get winter to finally end around here next…

In April 4 friends of mine from high school visited Chicago, and we had a great time! Three took the train from KC, one drive from Michigan, and we had a bonus visit from another who drive in from Michigan with his wife on Saturday. Here we are at Sabroso for brunch. On Friday night we went for a drink at Cindy’s Rooftop (readers may remember Cindy’s from our Thanksgiving meal last year) then took the green line to the west loop. Right off the Morgan stop on the Green Line we ran into this sidewalk donut! The wait for…

  We woke up this morning to an inch or so of snow on the ground, not fun in April. On my way to the el this morning, I took a few pics of some snow in Wicker Park scenes. First, remember our place on Evergreen? It’s in good shape – after some disrepair a few years ago, the paint work is looking sharp again. This house on Evergreen has a tree with blossoms and snow… And just a transportation scenic… everyone bundled up on the el platform. See the edge of the white shelter at the far right, lit…

Miles’s birthday was last week, and we celebrated on Friday evening with what looks like a plate of fire, but really was a selection of brownies and lemon bars. It looks like Miles celebrated his birthday with just Maddie and Jeff, but everyone else was standing behind the photographer! The next morning, before Miles’s ACT test, we had a game of Buckaroo! Whoa, who loaded a dinosaur on Buckaroo? Daring! Must have been Maddie! Liam made a large batch of pancakes. He’s more used to cooking breakfast for an apartment full of roommates than one child! There were a lot…

We started off John’s birthday with a trip to the MCA. This cat in the style of Sue the T-Rex at the Field Museum is a recent and fun addition to their second floor. Nice installation of a circle of levitating brooms upstairs… And we really enjoyed the Howardena Pindell exhibit on the top floor. This is from an early work that was a large sheet of graph paper with tiny numbers written in each box. We also went for a lovely lunch at the Purple Pig and did a bit of shopping, before heading back to John’s office for…

John and I went to yoga at Garfield park conservatory this morning, along with about 120 other people. Really good attendance today! It was so crowded by the time we arrived that I staked out an unusual spot – between these potted trees. All good while I was sitting, but I did have to work around the branches during standing poses. Stay tuned – a Tribune photographer got a photo of me in this spot so we’ll see if it gets in the paper! You’ll note my mat has Miles’s name on it and is very dirty – it is…

We are very pleasantly surprised to note that the dibs system of saving street parking spaces is not currently in effect on our street. We’ve written about the complicated situation around dibs before, including the argument that if one’s labor is used to clear a street parking place of snow, one should enjoy the space. However it feels way more civilized to look out the front door and see the calm of open parking spaces rather than cardboard boxes and broken lawn furniture marking claimed spaces. Plus you can move your car without the fear of having to protect your…