Last week in January

Here are a sampling of photos from this past week's adventures. Here are Lena and Ramsey baking crackers.

Lena and Ramsey with stockings on their heads.

Lena feeding her zebra crackers?

Eating lunch.

Ramsey drew a picture of Lena with some animal friends inside this box which slides out of the sleeve in the bottom right of this photo. Lena loves it.

Close-up of the box.

Lena and Sophia playing with (scaring) Riley. Sophia has a cat at home that's not nearly as tolerant as Riley (who is?). She was pretty excited to get this close to the wildlife.

Paul and Lena reading a book after Paul got back from a trip this week.

Lena and Morgan at Palos Hills Park earlier today.

Car, costume, time on the piano

After over 10 years of having our first car we bid it adieu this morning. It was dead, had over 213,000 miles on it, and was ready for a change. We donated it to our local NPR radio station via the car talk website where hopefully its parts will see some resale and reuse (thanks to Becca and Mark for passing along the info for this) and signed up for i-go for our remaining time in Chicago. Below are some random photos and music videos from this week. Lena playing costume in Paul's shirt.

One of the wild things.

A couple videos of Lena playing Ben & Crystal's electric organ they lent us.

Of fevers and forts, cooking and music

This past week temperatures were at two extremes. It was close to -25 degrees farenheit with windchill outside and inside our apartment Lena's temperature was raging with a fever that topped out at 103 last Monday night. We spent the weekend juggling being sick, taking lots of naps, and doing projects mostly inside. Lena is feeling much better now which is great to see.

Lena helping make apple muffins with Ramsey. She has been getting into cooking projects a lot of late. Here she is at the counter using her 'learning tower'.

Lena with her appetite returning.

Lena playing with Riley in a fort she built on Friday with Ramsey.

We made crackers tonight which were a big hit!

A couple videos of Lena and Paul playing music and having a snack.

Art sale / fundraiser

Lena's nanny, Ramsey, is selling prints of some of her art work to cover vet expeneses for her cat Stella who sadly died after expensive surgery. Images of some of her art work are above and can be seen enlarged on her website along with info about ordering: http://everydaypants.com/blog/.

California

From December 28 - January 4 we traveled to California. We flew into San Diego and spent a fantastic few days seeing Morgan's mom, grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. Our first day there we explored Ocean Beach with Lena - the photo above was taken near the pier - and then spent the rest of the day with Candace (Morgan's mom) and Marvin and Mary (Morgan's grandparents). Lena particularly enjoyed climbing the hill behind Marvin and Mary's house and got a chance to pick her first avacado from their trees! The next day we stopped by Candace's office for a visit with some old friends (Morgan also worked there during college) and meet some of Candace's newer coworkers. That night we had a fantastic dinner at Lynn and Jack's (Morgan's aunt and uncle) cooked by Gabe and Jenny. They made three different kinds of vegetarian ravioli that were all yummy. We stayed late talking, visiting, and looking at photos. Our last day in San Diego we went to Balboa Park, the merry-go-round, and the Science Museum with Candace. That night we ate at a restaurant Morgan and Candace have gone to for years in little Italy and then hit the road and began driving towards Carmel to visit Paul's grandmother (stopping outside LA for the night). This head start paid off as we were able to stop at one weirdo-elk preserve state park and even better at Pinnacles National Monument near Soledad where we ate lunch (Lena is feeling a bit tortilla-deprived after our trip). The next couple days we spent south of the bay area visiting MomHelen (Paul's grandmother), going to the aquarium with Paul's parents who were also in town, and then visiting our friends and former neighbors, Mark and Becca, who now live in the redwoods near Santa Cruz. We are all slightly sad to be back in boots and jackets but Chicago is getting a good snowy winter for a change (as the next couple photos will attest).

Cookies and Hiding

Lena in her new "Learning Tower". A pretty cool platform that allows her to observe her parents and cats like they are local wildlife and also participate in activities at our height (e.g., making cookies).

Below is a small video from last week taken by Ramsey.

Snowy

Last week Ramsey and Lena made Lena's first snowman which she was so excited about that she has now continued to wave hello to it from our bedroom window for days. Then this weekend we got quite a bit of snow and took the photos below while running around at the nearby park on Saturday night. It was most fitting as we'd just read the night before about two Norwegian arctic explorers in a recent issue of National Geographic. No walrus blubber was needed on our expedition. We just brought crackers and made it home before dark.

Christmas in Michigan

Here are some photos we took at home and in Michigan over Christmas. Later this week we'll post some photos from our past week in California. Eating blueberry pancakes for dinner the night before our trip to Michigan for Christmas. Lena is such a blueberry-ovore that she started shaking out the rolled pancakes to get at the berries directly.

We spent Christmas with Paul's family in Ann Arbor, MI. Here is Alan (Paul's dad) on Christmas morning.

Leon (our brother-in-law), Vanessa (Paul's sister), and Izze (our niece) opening up stockings on Christmas.

Paul's parents, Gillian and Alan.

Paul, Izze, and Lena playing "little red caboose".

Izze and Lena playing with fantastic scarves brought to them by ol' st. nick (with a bit of help from his elves on Power St. in Baltimore).

Alan (alias Baba Be), Izze, Lena, Gillian (alias MomG).

This year for Christmas we decided to involve everyone in a project. Vanessa, Leon, and Izze brought supplies from Baltimore and we brought supplies from Chicago to make beeswax candles in the backyard. Here we are, strings in hand, ready to start.

The fire we melted the wax on.

Paul with Izze and Lena.

Gillian and Vanessa wielding beeswax candles. They turned out well, though a bit odd because of the temperature extremes between the hot wax and cold air.

During our candle fest.

The cousins wearing beautiful matching dresses.

Our last morning in Michigan MomG led us in a cookie making extravaganza.