I’m just finishing up a business trip to Cape Town, so I thought I’d share a few photos of my time there.  It was FCB’s global conference, lasting from Friday to Thursday, with a couple of days/afternoons off, so I didn’t have to spend the entire time in a conference room!  Overall, a really amazingly beautiful city, incredible people/history and certainly in the downtown/tourist regions, a lot safer than popular perception As you can see from the photos below, the hotel we were staying in was very nice, but what was nicest was the amazing views of Table Mountain, which…

We had a lot of coming and going this week. John left for a work trip up Cape Town on Wednesday, and Debbie, Jeff and Maddie arrived for a visit on Thursday.  So far all good for John in SA, and Miles and I are having a lot of fun with our visitors! We are playing cowboys, trains, hanging out with speedy and roux, and have a new game: princesses and cowboys! Note to any movie studios who are reading this, I am happy to negotiate a licensing deal for our movie idea: Elsa from Frozen and her friend Hannah,…

We have had a very unseasonably warm spell for Chicago in February! This inspired us to take my bike in to get gears (hopefully I can go a bit faster with them!) and then for me to cycle to work today. There was fog on the lake tonight in the way home, very pretty and surreal. 

Sorry for the long break between blog posts. Our trip to Australia was the biggest family news item that went uncovered and we are working on ideas about how to retroactively post about it. But in the meantime I thought I’d jump right in with other household news… rats in the garden.  We discovered some holes in the back garden and were concerned that they were rat tunnels, with the intent of getting into the back of the house. A critter removal specialist ageeed but laid out a much worse scenario than I could imagine, rats build tunnels from the…

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We had some changes to the usual plans this year but hope that everyone enjoyed the weekend in the end. First, our usual Thanksgiving companions, the West family, went to Ohio this year but will be back in future years! Next, Nana and Grandpa were set to come up on Amtrak from Kansas City, but Grandpa had a fainting incident after standing for an hour in line (boo, Amtrak for handling your KC passengers so badly!) and they had to miss the train to make sure he was OK. He’s doing fine now but next up after this…

It’s been way too long since we updated the blog, yikes! I have a few photos built up to share and a big happy birthday shoutout to Colette (it’s still your birthday here!) and best wishes to send to Colman as he runs the NYC marathon tomorrow! He’s with a group from Sydney who are running to benefit the hospital where Rory was born, specifically the preemie unit, so it’s a real Team Rory effort. Go team! Also, because it seems crazy to ignore the big items in the news, yay Cubs! The last game of the World Series was…

The last day of our trail was quite fun, lots of mile markers, the Mason Dixon line, the Eastern Continental Divide (Every river east of this flows to the Atlantic, every river west flows to the Gulf of Mexico) the state line separating Pennsylvania and Maryland, and after a long upward climb, a 15 mile descent into our final destination, Cumberland, Maryland. But before we get into details, first a word about our trusted steads on this trip, our bikes!. First up was my “fat tire” bike, which is typically what I cycle in snowy winter Chicago, but is also…

After the first day of our trip, we really broke free of the urban areas around Pittsburgh and got to enjoy some really beautiful scenery.  The GAP trail goes through the Allegheny mountains, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world, but the nice thing is that because the bike trail is an old train line, the grade is very gentle, typically no more than 2%.  That being said, our second day was our longest cycle, a little over 40 miles, and it was basically all uphill, and after 40 miles, 2% grade starts to feel pretty tough! That said…

We’ll do a series of blog posts to describe the bike trip we just took in southwest Pennsylvania and Maryland the last week of August. So to start, a bit of background about the trail and what appealed to us about it. The Great Allegheny Passage (or GAP) is an off-road bike trail that goes from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cumberland, Maryland. It links directly after Cumberland with another off-road bike trail that goes to Washington, DC. The GAP follows a former train line, and the other trail follows an old canal towpath. We decided to do the GAP because it seemed…

I participated in the Chicago Super Sprint triathlon today and had a great time! I had a lot of questions going in (Q. where do I put my glasses while I’m swimming? A. The special needs table. Q. How do I get from the water to the bike? A. Run – barefoot! Q. Where do I put my goggles and swim cap after the swim? A. In my bike space in the “transition” area.) and now I feel like I understand the whole routine a lot better. I have a new appreciation for not only the physical demands of sporting events,…