Miles's group did a performance as the Beatles last week in their show. Here's his costume before the show. The teacher gave them all wigs but really his hair was already pretty appropriately styled. By the way, that's John's job interview tie and my job interview jacket he's wearing. Sarah–that's your sister's white shirt and blue pants that would probably fit Alexander now for the next band concert! A totally thrown together costume!

I'm going to attribute the blooming of the black and brown eyed susans wholly to encouragement they got from readers! Thanks! The black eyed susans are shorter and have larger flowers. They come back every year. The brown eyed susans are tall plants (though I think these are especially tall because they were in a quite shady area and kept trying to get some light!) with smaller flowers. Also their petals are squared off rather than pointy. And they do not necessarily come back every year, but supposedly every other year. We'll see about that! I'm holding my arm straight…

Liam had his last day at Columbia College summer camp today. We all went down to watch their movie trailers and performances, which were great! Liam played the role of the butler who murdered all the guests at a party.  Funny because in Miles's play this spring, he was also the murderer in the who done it. We're looking forward to seeing their movies in the screening on August 28th!

Maybe it's because this July is the coolest in 118 years but these black-eyed susans are sure taking their time. They've been at this stage for weeks! But today this one showed signs of opening. Maybe tomorrow… Bee balm, thanks to Mrs Capper at Newberry! The two cherry tomato plants are full of tomatoes. 4 have ripened and been eaten, they're good! This is a large tomato variety called a "mortgage buster." Of two plants, only one tomato has started growing. Why would a tomato be a mortgage buster? I don't get it. I also don't get why these tomato…

Miles and Will both took the day off camp today and we went to Ohio Street Beach. They swam and played in the sand and I waded around and read an entire issue of the New Yorker. Great day!!! This is taken from a viewing point in Olive Park / aka the water purification plant, looking toward Ohio Street Beach. What a great beach! What a great city! Clumps of a grassy seaweed were floating in the water and the boys tried swimming under the clumps. Pretty! Geometric!Curvy! Thrilling! Miles and Will are in the double chair in the bottom…

We started off the 4th of July at the Chicago History Museum celebration. In a glorious mish mash of people and time, Abraham Lincoln read the Declaration of Independence (because he was very influenced by it), descendents of Burnham and Bennett gave addresses to honor their great-great grandfathers who wrote the plan of Chicago, and Burnham himself sat in the audience with an oversized umbrella and watched. Miles sat next to Burnham. They were both very interested in the British regiment with muskets. The British regiment later retreated to a more intimate part of the park to sing God Save…

I really don't think I've been up in the Sears Tower since I was about 15. So when we heard that they opened The Ledge on a weekend when we had visitors in, it seemed a good time to go back. Look way up at the top, see the little bumps that look like window washer scaffolds? Here's a zoomed view. They are glass boxes that have been built to stick out of the building on the 103rd floor. You can go inside the box and look all around. There are 4 "ledges", two to the left and two to…

Colette and Colman are on their way to Ireland right now (readers in Greenland, look up and wave!) after a visit that we enjoyed thoroughly in Chicago. Here are some highlights, some photos are theirs so you may seem a few shots pop up on their blog soon! Colman has always visited Chicago in winter before this, so he finally got a chance to see Buckingham Fountain. This was taken on their walk from the Field Museum along the lakefront up to Buckingham Fountain. They then braved the Taste of Chicago and headed over to the el. The Groves came…

Another great haircut by our neighbor Beatriz! Liam is happy, he just makes this morose face for photos. Miles is karate chopping because Liam saw Kung Fu Panda today, and I told them to say "Kung Fu Panda" before taking the picture. Liam's wearing his camp t-shirt. He's doing all this fun stuff at camp, making puppets, making films, doing improv. Also fun is his commute. Liam and his friend Haden are taking the el and transferring to a bus to get to camp every day. They have reduced CTA passes so it's a very reasonable $2/day round trip, and…

I heard that early summer flowers in these parts are all purple, but I never took much notice of this in our garden before this year.  Everything in bloom right now is purple–prairie iris, columbine, dragon's breath and sage.   The back wall has become quite a jungle, with huge amounts of growth since last year in the oak leaf hydrangea bushes (large leaves), the ivy, and the brown eyed susans, which reseeded and came back in force after taking last year off.