We had a lovely thanksgiving celebration at Debbie, Jeff and Maddie’s place in Naperville. We were 11 people total, with Bronwyn and her sister Kaylee joining us this year. We had a great time chatting, playing Nintendo switch sports, eating the salmon, turkey and many yummy side dishes. After dinner Maddie played some songs on piano, giving us a preview of her upcoming recital. Lovely music, maddie! We also took a walk around the block to see the neighbors’ Christmas lights. Very impressive but we forgot to take photos. Then some friends joined us for dessert and it was lovely…

On our last full day in Quebec, we decided to walk near the ramparts or old city wall, and also visit the Jean-Baptiste neighborhood. Back to the map! See the red circle where we stayed? The walls are a shaded area just to the left of that, following around the edge of the gray circled old city. However, the walls were not maintained for decades, while the gated areas are in really good repair, the other walls are currently undergoing some construction. Instead of walking on the walls now, you can walk near them, at the street level. So we…

On Monday afternoon we took an Uber out to Siberia Spa in the forested mountain area outside of Quebec City. It was so nice – with many features like previous spas, like a series of buildings and pools all outdoors, and you can stay as long as you like, going from a sauna to a hot pool, to a cold pool, to a relaxation room. We really enjoyed the forested setting at Siberia. it was so pretty – and the pools / rooms were arranged so they felt secluded from one another. There’s a relaxation yurt with hammocks inside, and…

On Monday, we set out to explore the Petit-Champlain neighborhood. A quick description from the tourist office describes the neighborhood as having picturesque pedestrian streets (confirmed!) and as being the first permanent French settlement in North America, over 400 years ago. It’s a lively area to stroll around, day or evening! Our day started here then ended here too, with dinner in the neighborhood. Another map although a flat surface doesn’t describe the extreme (to a flatlander’s eyes and legs!) variations in altitude! The red circle is where we’re staying, gray loop is the old city, purple loop is petit-Champaign.…

There are no direct flights from Chicago to Quebec City this time of year, so we flew by way of Toronto. Here’s our maple-leafed air Canada wing over Lake Ontario as we approached for a landing. Love flying over the great lakes! And also thought we’d start off with a map – this is a historical map of areas in French and British North America where forts were held by one, the other, or both. Note Mobile in the very south and Quebec City in the north in this area of French historic influence. We got to Quebec city after…

We tried out the new Guinness open gate bar in the Fulton market area. Our analysis was that it has a fun vibe, cool design and really good Guinness and food. It’s very table based though so felt more like a restaurant than pub, interesting that it was set up like that! There’s an Osage orange tree in the park that has just lost all its hedge apples, something we note and talk about annually! Thus tree produces so many hedge apples, it’s really hard to believe. And every year I say the only thing I know about hedge apples,…

Ok the new place is here! We moved the blog to this new site. Hope you like it! On the familiar side, we visited the Indiana dunes national park recently. Really pretty fall colors and perfect temperatures!

There’s quite a bit to report on from August! We’ve already posted photos of Finland (first week of August) and the air and water show (weekend in mid-August), so now I’m going to go back to the second week of the month and go right through to Sept 1 for thematic reasons – skipping over the air and water show. Right after Finland, I had the mole removal procedure, which all readers have heard a lot about! Sarah was so amazing on the day of the procedure, coming over with an Ottolenghi eggplant parmesan and a salad – doubly meaningful…

This weekend we had front row seats at the annual Chicago Air and Water Show, one of the biggest airshows in the world! Because Liam works at the big water purification plant by Navy Pier, all employees and their families are able to enter the facility to view the show (normally its a federally protected space due to the fact that this is where all of Chicago’s water is processed). Due to the location, it really is a perfect location to view the show! Here we are at the blue dot, looking directly north onto all the action happening at…