Liam’s classes start tomorrow and he’s been back in Urbana since last Thursday. We stopped at my office on the way where Liam fit in an end of summer 5 minute internship in digital asset management. Here he’s sitting and thinking about metadata. Or just sitting. (Shout out to Courtney Barrett) Liam and his roommates have upgraded to such a nice apartment this year it almost seems like they missed a transition year in a just OK apartment!  They are also raising a lot of plants, mostly succulents. Eric started all these in one dish, it’s a little succulent nursery. …

Miles and I got to visit Debbie, Jeff and Maddie in Florida earlier this month and we had a great time! We arrived pretty late at night, but she was happy to see us when we woke up in the morning. She sang us a lovely song. Maddie really likes to sing. We went to Maddie’s gymnastics class on Saturday morning, then stopped by Wal-Mart for a few things on the way home. We had a little aunt / niece time in the shoe section. Miles and Maddie did ipad puzzles together. See the paw patrol figures on the couch,…

After his tour of duty in the Mekong Delta, Miles went through some lost years…    Photo by Liam

We’re finishing up a lovely summer weekend here. After years of the delicious challenge that it was to control temperatures on the Oklahoma joe smoker, John listed it on Craigslist (to immediate response!) and went the Big Green Egg route. The BGE is a more otimized smoking, grilling and cooking machine, with the ability to hold consistent temperatures very easily. It’s also a lot smaller!  Just in terms of patio space, a shocking amour of food can fit inside.  Our backyard is looking very nice, due to the pruning of the day lily foliage that I should have done years…

It was a big week for birthdays, first Debbie on the 24th then Liam and Kathleen on the 26th. Happy birthday, all! We celebrated Liam’s birthday early so we could take advantage of the weekend, and gave him a cast iron skillet which should last, no pressure Liam, his whole life. Notice anything different? Liam shaved his beard. We also went for brunch at the publican. Yum! Tonight John and I went to a performance at humboldt park. A group called fantasmagorie danced on floating platforms in the water while a movie all about nature played behind them. Here they…

We’ve been talking for years about making improvements to our parkway, or strip of land in front of our house and between the sidewalk and street. Parkways in Chicago are an odd bird, not owned by the homeowner but kinda the homeowner’s responsibility. Our parkway had two bushes / small trees on it and the first step was to hire landscapers to remove them and amend and turn over the soil. Bravo to the landscapers who were able to do all this despite a car parked in front all day! Then, John and I dug s trench by the curb…

We had a quiet 4th of July weekend, starting off with Cindy going for a half mile swim in Lake Michigan, something she’s started doing on a weekly basis! Here she is in her wetsuit:     And here she is setting off, it really is a lovely spot for a swim    The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet, but we did enjoy a lovely July 4th BBQ with some slow smoked ribs.  Kat joined us too and she brought us a lovely berry tart!   

So this year I was able to turn my annual Cannes trip into a bigger “Euro” tour, visiting Dublin along the way, and catching some of the Euro 2016 football matches.   Cannes as always was delightful, I always forget how hilly and mountainous it is, and while the conference itself is pretty exhausting, there are worse places in the world to be exhausted in.  The food is great (lots of tuna, croissants and rose wine) and the towns delightful.  This is a picture of the South of France while flying into Nice (about 45 minutes away from Cannes itself.…

We’ve had very summery weather ever since the Memorial Day holiday! Here’s some of what we’ve been up to.  We are having our floors sanded and varnished, and as part of the prep I cleaned out the spare room by the dining room.  Thought Rory might enjoy seeing some teddy friends from Chicago!  Yesterday we moved all of the furniture out of the ground floor, and balanced the couch so that it’s not on the floor.  This weekend Anne and Brian were in town and we were able to do quite a few fun things with them. We went for…

Despite some rain at the end of last week, we ended up having really great weather for our Memorial Day 3-day weekend. Today, John and I rode bikes to Northerly Island then back by way of the lake front to Chicago and over from there. Here’s some of John documenting the trip with me (and my Swedish backpack!) in front of him. New landscaping on Northerly Island includes hills! We saw a triathalon training club in wetsuits and wading into the lake for their first swim of the season. It’s making me think I should join a club like this…