Summer, 2014, Trip to Chicago (part 2)

This morning the family and my sister got together at Glazed and Infused, a yummy doughnut shop.  Then Katie went with Tina on adventures and the rest of us took the El to Michigan Avenue and then on to Chinatown, where we had yummy dim sum and saw a martial arts competition.  After we all met up again we headed back home to Peoria.  We saw lots of fireflies in the fields on the way home - it was sort of like fireworks and sort of like a meteor shower.

Summer, 2014, Trip to Chicago

We brought the girls to Chicago to hang out with my sister.  While Kris and a friend went with her today, Karen, Katie, and I took the El to Portillos for lunch and then the Water Taxi to Chinatown.  We did a little shopping and ate a yummy supper at Go 4 Food.  We took the Water Taxi back to Michigan Avenue, had ice cream at Ghiradellis Chocolate, and took the El to stay at Tina's friends' condo.

Vacation Bible School 2014

St. Anthony's Church is doing Vacation Bible School this week.  The theme is Weird Animals.  Katie is a participant, Kris is a group leader, Karen is working in the kitchen, and I am helping in the crafts and science area.  Things seems to be going pretty well. Yesterday, we had a snake and a hedgehog as examples of weird animals.

St. Louis Visit

On Saturday we rode with some friends to St. Louis for the day.  We stopped for a couple of hours at the (free!) St. Louis Science Center.  To me, one of the things that is memorable is the walkway over a highway where you can track the speed of the cars going underneath, but they also have stuff related to dinosaurs and space, and a platypus skeleton.  After that, we went to the City Museum.  I have been told for years that it is a really cool place and that I would really enjoy it, and I did!  It's hard to describe, it has a playground-like labyrinth of places to climb or crawl into - bring your knee pads.  I especially liked the "cave" area.  It has an aquarium, circus, and arts and crafts area, architecture museum, and just all sorts of oddities.  All of this is stuffed into a sort of nondescript old shoe factory.  What a lousy description I just gave.  You will have to see it for yourself sometime.  After all that, we went to dinner and headed home.

45th and 10th Anniversaries

Today is the 45th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. 2014 is also the 45th anniversary of Woodstock, Sesame Street, and me.

We also moved from Peoria to Seattle a decade ago for an 11-month sabbatical, I thought I would post some retro pictures from that trip.

Setting up for VBS and HOI Fair

We are back from our trip to northeastern Wisconsin and getting back into our regular schedule.  We also have begun to set up for Vacation Bible School at St. Anthony's Church.  The theme will be strange animals. Today, Kris, Alaina Bland, and I helped with science demos at the Heart of Illinois (HOI) Fair.  We saw stuff like logrolling "lumberjills", animals like skunks, and a loud tractor pull. Another note: Ten years ago today an F4 tornado struck northwest of here, obliterating the Parson's machining plant.  Everyone survived thanks to their using the shelters built into the facility.  I remember it was sunny at home at the time and showing Kris the top of the storm downwind of us that was producing the tornado.