Update on the honeysuckle rejuvenation project: it seems to be working! The tree crew cut the honeysuckle trees in front of our house way down to the ground and said that in the spring they would rejuvenate into nice bushes. It was really hard to believe, but there’s a tremendous amount of new growth, all in the last week! Here’s the view from the front door. The new growth has completely covered the stumps! Crazy! You can also see from this pic that the forsythia in front of the house is in bloom. Close up of the new growth.
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As mentioned, we drove to Springfield on Thursday to take Miles to the Illinois History Expo — the “state” history fair event. Friday Night Lights fans will appreciate the great honor in “making it to state”! Miles showed his video to the judges and received a very nice round of applause afterwards — I still enjoy watching the video too. We also got to see some other students’ history fair works, and were quite impressed by the quality of entries. We then went to lunch at the Feed Store, located right across from the old capitol building (below.) We went inside…
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Isabelle, Isaac and James sent Miles a birthday card over with Paddy and Kathleen. We didn’t quite get it at first, but it seems they were influenced by his history fair video to create their own doomsday clock — albeit a digital one! Speaking of Miles’s project, news update: his project was chosen to go to the state competition. On Thursday of this week, we are going to SPRINGFIELD!!!
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We’ve had a couple of lovely visits in the last week, from the Kennys and from spring! Both were very welcome in Chicago. Last weekend we went to Hyde Park and visited the Museum of Science and Industry, then took an informal tour around the University (major points of interest, my office and then the Mansueto library.) We also visited the Garfield Park Conservatory, closer to home. This weekend we went to C2E2, a comics and entertainment convention, where John and Miles met R2D2 then at Sarah’s excellent suggestion we went to the Pleasant House Bakery in Bridgeport for…
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Update – New link! No glitches! http://youtu.be/Tdp2OANMEX8 Pop some popcorn and settle in to watch this awesome, 10-minute documentary about the first controlled, self-sustained nuclear chain reaction and the Atomic Scientists of Chicago. It was written, produced and everything else by Miles! Great work on your history fair project, Miles! And good job presenting it at the city competition Also, we just ran across a news story about the creator of the Doomsday Clock: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-04-09/news/ct-met-langsdorf-obit-20130409_1_louis-atomic-scientists-kennette-benedict Interesting reading!
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Today was Miles’s birthday party, which went really well! I can start by listing the things I did not get a picture of: John smoking ribs for the 11 and 12-yr-olds at Miles’s request, nerf warfare, ice cream and cake, the other boy present (Thomas) and lot of chaos in the basement. But I did get pictures of the kids hanging out with Mr T and Speedy!
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It’s birthday week chez cndkmen! Happy 12th birthday today, Miles! And happy birthday to John earlier in the week! Here is John blowing out the candle on his cake ball, a lemon cake ball with blueberry sprinkles, from West Town Bakery. John was very nice to trade with me after the first bite, since I had gotten the Mexican Spice cake ball and it was way too spicy for me! Miles had the French Toast flavor, and Liam had triple chocolate.
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Miles is going to the Lane Tech academic center! Whoo hoo! We’re so proud of you, Miles!!!
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Later the same week I flew out to Denver to see Madeline, Debbie and Jeff. Madeline is very sweet and very photogenic, so I think I’ll let the pics speak for themselves!
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We had a great visit to Minneapolis, starting with an exploration of the art in our hotel What looks like trash bags behind Miles is a bronze sculpture. Talk about fooling the eye! Of note, this piece of artwork appeared briefly in a movie called Wasteland that we saw this year about an artist that goes and works with people who work in a massive dump outside of Rio. Miles picked up on this — he has a really good memory. More art — modern day Vikings or just regular giants? Then we met our friends Danielle and Chris for…