I read once that butterflies rest with their wings closed, whereas moths rest with their wings open. This beautiful one or the other was in the black-eyed susan plants this morning. I was surprised when it crawled right onto Miles’s finger!

This was taken on one of the last days of school this year. Whenever Charlie’s outside, Miles and Liam stop by to give her some love and affection.

I was down in Champaign-Urbana for classes this week. One day I explored Urbana, Illinois, a bucolic town of about 40,000 on the east side of the University of Illinois campus. The public library in Urbana, the Urbana Free Library, is really nice. There are a lot of very picturesque…

We got this email from Liam’s biology teacher yesterday about all the things Liam’s class has been up too. Its quite impressive! Hello friends, supporters, colleagues, family, inspirers, and community members, It is with great pleasure and pride that I write you with news on the outcome of the first…

My plot in the community garden is on the right. I’m sharing this since I also have all the space in our yard for plants. Mine is the first third, up to the first wooden stake. [slideshow]

Last Monday was a national holiday, Memorial Day, so we had a nice extra day in our weekend. We started off with breakfast at Bite (Flying Saucer was closed) which turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. It’s been completely redone inside and has a new menu, not that…

Last Sunday we went on our first Bike the Drive, which is the Active Transportation Alliance’s annual event of riding bikes all along Lake Shore Drive. We drove our bikes to the lakefront and parked at Soldier Field. Then we rode north to Fullerton, turned around and went south to…

The black-eyed susans are lovely but have been coming back in such force they needed some thinning and scooting over. Today I dug up a lot of them and thinned them out to other places around the yard. We also put some in front of Sergio and Beatriz’s house. The…

We had a lovely visit from Mom / Mary / Nana / Gail last weekend! (Gail is the least known of my mom’s possible names, it was her nickname when we went bowling on Saturday.) We went to the Field Museum, saw a massive cold weather front hit Chicago while…

A few weeks ago at breakfast Miles ordered the pancake flight, or assortment, and got this, the cutest dish of pancakes ever.