Belly update

This one's by request of Kristin...24 weeks, 3 days. I particularly like the navel dimple (hah!). At least it's not an outie...yet.


Well we've spent the last 3 weekends doing our part to help out the economy. This weekend we did a bunch of running around doing last minute errands for our upcoming trip to Yellowstone (leaving Tues). We looked at four different stores to find the 6day Coleman coolers that are essential for keeping samples frozen while we're there and driving back. We set up the tent to see if the new air mattress would fit in it- it does, but moving around on it produces a great beached whale impression. Hopefully it will at least help me sleep better while we're there, even if I do look ridiculous getting in and out of the tent! Oh, and we bought a swanky new camera (Pentax K200D). The above photo NOT taken with it. Actually we thought it would come in handy with the munchkin on the way and that we may as well break it in now. I'll update when we get back with what I'm sure will be fabulous shots of me sweating by a hotspring swatting flies.

Happy Birthday Alex and Libby!

Congratulations little monkeys, you've increased your age by an order of magnitude!

Back in the game

Howdy all. Well, we got back from our vacation a week and a half ago, and are more or less recovered. We've had a couple of very busy weekends since then and I'm just now getting around to updating this with pix from the trip! Not a lot of energy for commentary right now, but the short story is that we went to London to see the Blandix team, and Ireland with my family for a nice vacation. Mostly, we tooled around the Connemara region, with a few excursions into nearly counties. Highly recommended-this place was beautiful!


Happy babies at Kew. It was great to see all these nice folks, and to watch the littles getting close to walking on their own!

One of our first stops in Ireland was the Cliffs of Moher, in County Claire. Really stunning. Cool rocks.


Rew by a replica of one of the main "high" crosses at the Abby of Clonmacnois. This place was an active center of learning and art when the rest of Europe was suffering through the Dark Ages.


We climbed a big hill in Connemara National Park. Those three are my Dad and sibs coming up over the ridge. Nice view from the top!

This is Kylemore Abby, which is really close to the town we were staying in (Clifden) throughout the trip. It was a rich guy's estate in the 1800s, but now is an Abby (complete with a boarding school run by nuns). Very pretty grounds and gardens here. And awesome scones with cream.

A group shot on our last touring day of the trip. This is Aughnanure Castle, which was one of the best "historic" type locations that we found. The display gave a great sense of life in a small Norman castle circa 16th century.

happy birthdays and hats

Happy 2nd birthday to our friend Timmy, and also to miss Sara (whose was a week ago)!
Kristin is here visiting this weekend (yay!), and came bearing cute baby items. So this post's pix are all of our collected baby hats. Also, we're leaving for our London/Ireland vacation on Tuesday, so we're doing last minute prep work. Probably won't have another post until after we get back...

My Mum made this very cute little hat. She's convinced that baby will need many hats for the Chicago winter. This is her first creation.

Kristin brought this cute little hat (which is reversible and has cute stripes underneath). I like the froggy tag on the side.

Go Cards! This was my pre-Mother's Day gift from my parents. They thought it was good to start early with the training.

Snow in June...

Ok, so not really. It was a gorgeous weekend here, and we spent a lot of it outside. We went to a BBQ on Saturday. Sunday we did a lot of yardwork and Andrew put together our new grill! It's very exciting. It's name is the "Bonza Deluxe", which I just found amusing. But, back to the "snow", there were big clouds of fluff that were floating all over town this weekend. I first assumed that they came from Cottonwood trees, but inspection of the fluff seems to indicate otherwise. There are areas of town that this stuff was actually drifting in people yards! Seems to be a very good dispersion method for whatever plant that released them!


Here's Andrew with our inaugural grill. He's cooking up some tasty Bison steaks and corn. Yum!

Here's a silly video that tried to capture the fluff snowing all over us. It's hard to see.

Yay long weekends!

We had a very busy Memorial Day weekend. Despite the fact the it's currently 44 degrees here in the city, the weekend was actually seasonably warm and sunny and we were out and about quite a bit. We saw the new Indiana Jones movie on Friday night, and weren't disappointed (although the plot was somewhat less plausible than the previous films, which is saying something!). Yes, Harrison Ford is still hot. On Saturday, we broke above 50 degrees again (just in time for the weekend!). We decided that it was time for us to do some Chicago-oriented touristy things, since we've somehow avoided almost all Chicago activities since we've moved here. We spent about 4 hours walking around Grant and Millennium parks (see pix below). It clouded up later in the day, but it was nice to get outside. The rest of the weekend we did a bunch of furniture shopping, for pieces that we've been noodling over for the last 6 months. We ended up finishing up our bedroom and most of our office/library furniture needs, plus we bought a new TV cabinet (which replaces the now well-loved one I inherited from Gretchen). This buying spree activated Andrew's cheap gene, but luckily most of the furniture was found at Ikea, or else we used gift certificates from Christmas (thanks Boy/Amy!). So, we spent most of yesterday assembling our new stuff, and rearranging the living room to accommodate our swank new TV stand. It's very cozy now. I'll post pix later when it's all put together.

FYI, here's a place to find more info on Grant Park
http://www.aviewoncities.com/chicago/grantpark.htm
I didn't know that the park was basically formed by pushing the debris from the Great Fire into the Lake.

Here's Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park (apparently modeled after a fountain at Versailles) with some of the key bits of modern Chicago architecture behind it. If you've seen "Stranger than Fiction", that red building will look familiar.


This is the Lurie Garden, which is technically in Millennium Park. It's 2.5 acres of flowers in the middle of the city! Right now it's full of pretty native prairie flowers.

Here's an artsy shot of part of the Cloud Gate sculpture. It's supposed to look like a blob of liquid Mercury, and it does a great job of reflecting the cityscape. I think it looks like a giant Mercury coated jelly bean. Yum.

Family and Flowers

We were in St. Louis this weekend for my Grandpa's 80th birthday party on Saturday (which was also my brother's birthday and parent's anniversary! Conservation of holidays). The whole Meyer clan was there, in true Meyer form and fashion. On Sunday, we had a chance to stop by the Missouri Botanical Garden, one of my favorite places. It happened to be Chinese Culture day there, so the place was pretty packed. But I think it would've been anyway because it's actually spring in St. Louis and the weather was fabulous. It was nice to get outside and soak up some sun for a change!


Here's my Grandpa with his cake. That's my youngest (first) cousin, Lydia, who was helping.

Rew at the garden.

My Dad looking svelte. The garden occasionally showcases sculpture, and currently they're having a big Niki de Saint Phalle exhibit (which was in Chicago over the fall but we missed it). It's pretty cool because the garden doubles as a sculpture park. Dad's sitting on one of the chair sculptures (yes, it's allowed).
The irises were SO nice. They have a huge bed, and it was just a sea of color (and people)!

Here's a close-up of some of the irises. I like the fluffy ones.

This is part of the big reflecting pond in the middle of the garden. The palm house in the background was built by the same guy who built the one we had our wedding reception in. On the pond, you can see some of Dale Chihuly's artwork which is from a display that was there last year (I guess they purchased some of it). Chihuly is one of my favoritest ever artists. Some of his work is displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and in Vegas. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Chihuly.

Here's one of Saint Phalle's big pieces outside. It was one of several totum poles.

While creepy, I liked this one too. It's actually open on the side and kiddies can crawl through it.