We had a lovely July, great summer weather, birthdays and visitors. Here are a couple of my favorite muse, the lake. Walking path that I take to walk the final stretch to work. Thanks for landscaping this for me, facilities team!  Back patio at dark matter coffee on a weekday morning when I stopped in there after running, on a work from home day when I didn’t have a commute so going in for a coffee was a treat.  Maddie, Debbie and Jeff came to Chicago toward the end of the month. While Debbie and Jeff went on some fact…

I’d like to show a few photos of our back garden, since we haven’t featured it much since the anti-rat work was done earlier this year. We’ve planted some containers with flowers and have been spending a lot of time out here. And I am thrilled to report that we have seen ZERO rats! The solution of taking out all the plants and covering the ground with a grid of wire worked! 

I just wanted to share a few photos from the recent trip to Cannes and Ireland this year. As usual, Cannes was very glam, with lots of star presentations from folks like Helen Miriam, Ira Glass and Halle Berry who I ended up seated quiet close too (while being interviewed by the editor of Teen Vogue) As is usual, FCB had a boat on which to conduct client meetings and everyone agreed it was the nicest boat that we’d ever have (not that I’m complaining).  Here’s a picture of the top of the boat where we had a breakfast meeting…

We all had the day off today for the 4th of July, and while Miles didn’t want to get up terribly early, John and I decided to take a bike trip north. We drove to the start of the off-road trail that leads to the Chicago Botanic Garden, and cycled from there. Some takeaways: the trail is really nice and at 40 miles round trip it was a good distance without overdoing it, the Cook County Forest Preserve areas we cycled through are really great – all full of people celebrating the holiday, and the lunch options at the Botanic…

Happy 4th of July! I thought I’d take a few moments today to share some June photos and moments. John and I went to an Illinois alumni event held in the metropolitan club at the Sears (now Willis) tower. The talk was very interesting, about rare book crimes, and the view was spectacular! We aren’t in that part of the loop too often so I took a pic from the ground as well. Summer movies at Millennium Park started with a real crown pleaser, the blues brothers. What a bunch of stars in that movie. In honor of Aretha Franklin’s…

Better get this posted while it’s still May. First, we were very saddened by the news from Douglas this month, and hope that fond memories of Veronica will be a comfort to all who were lucky to know her. I’ve been getting our houseplants repotted, which proved to be a good rainy weekend day activity this month. The center plant here was Liam’s and it had a repotting emergency when the wind blew it off the windowsill and the old pot broke. Miles and I walked to Humboldt Park after dinner and caught this slightly different view from the one…

Miles had a pretty chill birthday today, since it’s his spring break he had plenty of free time. John took the day off and in addition to hanging out with Miles cycled the entire length of the lakefront trail and back again! The stats: distance 33.4 miles, average speed of 18.4 mph. Elevation gain 0 feet.  In the evening I met John and miles in the west loop and we naively attempted to get a table at au cheval – but there was a two hour wait! So we went to Nando peri peri, the same place readers may remember…

We heard that Miles’s birthday celebrations kicked off, of course, in Sydney where everything happens earlier! Rory and Colette sang happy birthday along with granny and grandad on Skype.  Other highlights of Miles’s last day being 15 included his first trip, solo at that, to the state of Illinois building downtown to get a state ID. Success! He is officially Illinoised. We also went to Sultan’s Market in wicker park for falafel for dinner.  Note the new leather jacket that miles got last weekend.  On the minor news front, the city of Lexington Kentucky is advertising big time in Chicago.…

I have been meaning to get into a regular blog update schedule and while I can’t promise this is it, I can try for a post. It’s a start!  John’s birthday was lovely today, starting with riding bikes to yoga at the Garfield park conservatory. We’ve had a ton of rain but it all cleared up for this weekend, and it got up into the upper 60s today. The conservatory was beautiful inside as usual.  Later in the afternoon miles joined us for a cycle to the grocery store, then for dinner we all went out to Mott Street, a…

After some symptoms I’d rather not go into in this forum, we took Roux to the vet last week. Turns out the poor little guy had a urinary tract infection and was prescribed an antibiotic and a medication to make him more comfortable, to be taken every day. I was skeptical about my ability to give a guinea pig two medicines every morning, but it turns out the process is much easier than I expected. Here’s a video of this morning’s medicine session – enjoy!