Liam is back and wearing a shuka! He forgot to bring shaving cream on the trip, and had has quite a beard going on. Liam says he will post about his trip once he has more photos from the others on the trip.

We got an email from Liam in Tanzania today! I thought you all might hearing about his trip as much as we did. He said that all is going great there. They are staying in a Masai village and built a boma. In case you were wondering what a boma is, me too! I look forward to hearing more from Liam about that. In the meantime, Wikipedia has a very informative entry about what boma are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boma_%28enclosure%29 He said the Masai people sacrificed a goat for them, which was very nice. And that the food is really good. He’s also liking the people…

The Gorskis were in town again over the Christmas break and we all met up over at Annette and Dave’s house on Dec 30, for dinner this time. This is becoming a common theme, but I didn’t take photos. Goal for 2015, remember to take photos! It was a lot of fun catching up with everyone. We enjoyed playing with Sylvie, Nadia, Ben, and Will, and their parents too. Will is really good at the app trivia game “Heads Up”! Annette and Dave made two delicious Indian dishes with rice and quinoa, and a salad and fruit. We also had…

One of the highlights of Maddie’s visit to Chicago was playing the Bop game with Miles.  It was hilarious!!

Happy new year! We had a great time last night at the Groves’ annual new year’s party. I don’t have any photos of it but the theme was France so people brought food that was mostly on-theme (I brought a very American sounding “Awesome Mushroom Pate, Theresa brought those cookies that are made by melting chocolate over those crunch “Chinese Noodles”, and we called them chocolates chinoises, Beth made mussels, the Groves made several quiches, Anne and Tim brought a baked brie, and there were chocolates that said “merci” on the box. All delicious, and mostly French-ish!) Also in case…

After Maddie’s nap on Christmas, we took a trip downtown to check out the new Maggie Daley Park. It’s just east of Millennium Park, so we parked underground by Michigan Avenue and walked up. The head sculptures in Millennium Park look very cool at night. We walked over the newly re-opened Frank Gehry bridge that connects the two parks and got, along with many other curious Chicagoans, our first glimpse of Maggie Daly Park. Like everyone says, it’s really amazing. I don’t have photos to do it justice or even cover what’s open now, but it’s all based on playgrounds.…

Maddie adapted to the cold weather very quickly. After less than one day of politely declining a coat, she quickly discovered that wearing a coat and hat is really a good idea outside in Chicago in winter! Here she is at Smith Park all dressed up warm On Christmas morning, we unwrapped presents with Jeff joining us on Skype. Miles also invited Mr T and Speedy to the living room for the event. Maddie was a big help in getting all that wrapping paper off the presents! As you can see, John is as pleased as can be about being…

Readers will know that I have been trying to get to Florida to see Debbie, Jeff and Madeline for some time. Right at the end of 2014 we figured out a way to make it happen — I would go to Florida for a few days then Debbie, Madeline and I would travel back to Chicago to spend Christmas here while Debbie was off work and Jeff was working. Aside from a bumpy, sleepy start (I woke up 30 minutes before my flight was to take off but managed to reschedule for later in the day!) all worked out great.…

I thought readers might enjoy seeing a minute in the life of Mr T and Speedy. In this one minute video, you will see Mr T eat some hay. Speedy hides in his house, looks out warily, then comes out to get a mouthful of hay. Then Speedy does his signature backwards walk into his house. Mr T continues to eat hay. Cut. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_cD3wGq1NE&w=560&h=315] And here’s an aerial view, showing their new multi-colored bedding! Miles commented that this is how Wes Anderson would have photographed our piggy habitat. I’ll take that as a compliment!

The last stop on my global tour was Lisbon, where unlike London and Delhi, I was in meetings all day and it rained the first three days we were there, so not a lot of time or opportunity to do sightseeing. That said on Friday night and Saturday morning I did get a chance to walk around the suburb we were staying in, aswell as visit the city centre of Lisbon. While I didn’t see much, what I did see was really beautiful The first three are of my hotel and the surrounding area, a huge statute overlooking the bay,…