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 room. This one is my favorite. I’ve begun to eat a lot healthier. I recently switched over to what I call the “anything but pizza” diet. It’s where I can eat whatever I want, as long as it isn’t pizza. For one of my classes we built and tested the…

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 of I, or just Illinois. He’s had a good if introductory first week of classes, and is really enjoying having a bike. He’s become with a couple of kids who also enjoy biking and they spend free time exploring the area by bike. They cycled out to the outer limits…

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 “happy Friday” as we cycled thru the loop and Pilsen neighborhoods. See below for photos of Cynthia, Geoff and Jeane, but myself and Miles were riding along too

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 had ice cream for lunch, so that’s not too bad!

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 a diagnosis and repair but ultimately got a new dishwasher 2 weeks ago. Exciting! We had clean dishes. But then it stopped working due to an error message that says there is a water flow issue. The installation team is coming out Friday to see what’s up. In the meanwhile……

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 of students on duty to help bring stuff in and generally greet people. When Liam walked into the room where the kids were meant to pick up their keys, all the kids cheered in greeting and welcome, it was really nice! Liam showed his Chicago pride by hanging up a…

Liam’s all packed and ready to move to college! He’s quite a light packer, this is all he’s bringing (minus the secretary desk and John’s bike). Does anyone recognize the plaid plastic with zipper bag on the right? We still have two of those bags that survived two transatlantic flights! He is bringing his own bike, which I don’t think I’ve posted a photo of yet. Here he is outside the Field Museum where we went on Sunday. It was chilly outside and so foggy they cancelled the air part of the air and water show! Tonight we went out…

Miles attended trapeze camp last week, and like when Liam attended the same camp back in 2011 (for a trip down memory lane, have a look at this blog post http://cndkmen.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/liam-on-trapeze/) there was a performance at the end of camp. Miles did a great job as a clown, a tightrope walker, and in the finale, a trapeze artist. Here he is performing a gazelle, or one knee hang. Enjoy! http://youtu.be/wAokW65lQUQ

The Thursday night before we left Phyllis and Paul invited us over for dinner (a very tasty curry) and to hang out for a bit. The kids had a great time on the trampoline in the back garden and playing various sports in the green next door. James got dressed up and Liam and Miles carried him around a bit! Then the next night Paddy and Kathleen hosted a dinner for all at their place in Portmarnock (we got very spoiled!) Barry and Frankie, and Phyllis, Paul, Isabelle, Issac and James all came over, and we had quite a feast…