As many readers know, I have been in training (strong word for a 5K fun run, I know) for the Comer Children’s Hospital 5K race. I’ve never run a race before, and while I enjoy my runs, running for me has been a very solitary activity. Just me and some…

Yesterday evening John and I went downtown to see the Chicago Fire Festival. Miles stayed home because he’d been outside volunteering at a pumpkin patch all day, and was really done with being outdoors in the very chilly weather! The fire festival celebrated the great Chicago fire, which lasted from…

Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone! Thought I would share some photos of my adventure in jury duty. The jury duty part itself has been uneventful so far, just waiting in a big room. But lunch break has been interesting. I brought my lunch. Good call! Dining options are limited!…

Hey everyone, this is Liam, I just wanted to show off some of the highlights of the year so far. This is a dorm room down the hall from me: These are some more complete pictures of my room and my desk: I also purchased a new poster for my…

Mom mentioned how loud the cicadas are in Kansas City right now, and I started thinking that our cicadas seem a bit louder than usual too! Here’s a video of our back yard, with the sound of cicadas buzzing away.

The clematis in our front yard bloomed this weekend, signaling the start of another school year! Two nice surprises were that the clematis recovered from whatever traumatic event happened to it over winter (Chiberia!) and that Liam was back over the weekend! Liam is enjoying life at UIUC, or U…

It’s been a while, but last night we had an opportunity to join Chicago’s critical mass event where thousands of cyclists get to ride around the city with out a lot of cars getting in the way, everyone was in great moods, even temporarily delayed loop drivers, shouting and honking…

Miles before: And with brackets. He needs to have a few teeth extracted (this is fairly common, just means his teeth are a bit big for the space) and after that will get the wires that connect the brackets. It’s a little bit uncomfortable but on the other hand miles…

This report pales in comparison to the very exciting news about Rory joining us and Liam starting college, but still there have been a few minor developments around here that readers may enjoy! First, readers may remember that we started having dishwasher problems in November of 2013. We tried for…

Today was move-in day for several of the residence halls, including Liam’s, at UIUC. We loaded up the car early and got to campus a bit after 9, where move-in action was in full swing. Here’s Liam’s building (below) with a nice welcome sign out front. There were a lot…