2013 in Pictures

Before I wax rhapsodic about what I did and didn't accomplish this year, let's have the photo spam. My favorite pictures of 2013:

January
Our decision to get a vasectomy was the right one. Even if I still feel sad every time I think that I'll never be pregnant again. Because I am insane.

February
Three of the most delightful children I've ever known

March- a tie
SI and DD helping Aunt Genocide with the four questions. The first time we've had a Passover seder without my parents, and hopefully the last for a very long time

March- a tie
Grandma and Grandpa came to town for Easter, and we walked up to the chapel for services. It was a beautiful day, despite my panic fueled humiliation. 

April- a four way tie
People have told me since they were born that my kids should be models. Well, if I were going to send a picture of DD to an agency... it would be this.

April- a four way tie
I love everything about this picture. Everything.

April- a four way tie
That's one stylish guy I'm married to.

April- a four way tie
We went to New York City for my cousin's bar mitzvah... and if there's one picture that sums up everything about it that meant the world to me, it's this one- my daughter playing with my cousin, while my great aunt watches. My children had never met half of my family. Never. And of course, everyone loved each other instantly. I will never forget it. And neither will they.

May
Poppa, SI, Aunt Something Funny, and DD.
We went to Grinnell for my father to receive an honorary doctorate. It was amazing, and wonderful, and beautiful, and one of the best long weekends we have ever shared.

June- another tie
I finally got to introduce my children to my best friends, and it was magical and amazing.

June- another tie
The bride- a friend of mine for fifteen years- kidnapped my children and took photo after photo after photo with them.

July- another three way tie
We saw the Body Worlds Animals exhibit at the MSI, with our Spanish loaner teenager.

July- three way tie
DD steering the River Queen in Au Sable

July- three way tie
SI steering the River Queen in Au Sable

August
SI and DD were flower girls at the wedding of another friend.

September
DD and SI second first day of school

October- another tie
SI and DD turn four years old

October- another tie
Our family of superheroes

November
I don't care about how much happened in November. This is my favorite picture. Aunt Something Funny reading to her nieces. It just doesn't get better than this.

December
The three sweetest little girls I know.

Now- onto 2014!

Each year, I eschew the traditional "New Year's Resolution" in favor of a to-do list. But rather than a bucket list of things I want to do, I give myself a checklist every single day of simple tasks I'd like to accomplish to make my life better.

I've been doing this for years now.

I know how many paintings I painted and how many books I read, and nearly how many hours I played with my infant twins in 2009.

I can tell you ridiculously mundane details about 2010. For example, I read 21 books that year, three shy of my goal. I cooked on 239 days.

In 2011 I wrote on 321 days. I cooked even more often, and I read a whopping 28 books.

In 2012 I started focusing on more self care. I managed to eat two meals on 347 days. Yeah, I measure that.

So what about 2013?

Me, hard at work, writing a book

Goal: Wrote Daily (365)
Outcome: 293
I feel like I should be shocked I wrote so little, but then I consider what I DID write. I was published on HuffPo a dozen times. I finished a first AND second draft of an entire book. You know what? I might not have remembered to sit down and pen a haiku each day, but I'm very pleased with what I accomplished.

Goal: Ate Two Meals Daily (365)
Outcome: 336
This number went down. And while part of me wants to feel guilty that I did so poorly at feeding myself, I have to remember... I kept getting sick. I kept not being able to eat. And maybe I wasn't as good to myself as I should have been, but I feel better than I did a year ago. I feel healthier (cold notwithstanding) than I did a year ago. I'm going say I succeeded here too.

Goal: Maintained Hygiene Daily (365)
Outcome: 281
Yes, this is still totally unacceptable. But I did better than last year, horrifically enough. And every day that RH is more independent and each day that her big sisters are more interested in playing with her is a day where I can take five minutes to splash some water on my face and brush my teeth. I'm determined to bring my weekly shower average up to at least a two. I think I can do it.

Goal: Went Outside 6xWeek (312)
Outcome: 268
I know I could do better, but I'm pleased to know this number is going up. Plus, now that RH finally walks, I'm confident there are more trips up and down the stairs in the coming year.

Going to BlogHer and meeting this awesome lady?
(And lots of other awesome ladies?) Rocked it.

Goal: Had Alone Time 5xWeek (260)
Outcome: 238
I totally nailed this one. That said, I only nailed it because I enforced nap time so strictly. If this week is any indication, 2013 will bring a fairly dramatic change in nap time. Mostly, in that most days I'm not sure the big girls will take one. And that's a little terrifying. I'll have to find another way to get some time to myself.

Goal: Exercised 3xWeek (156)
Outcome: 123
Pretty damn close! Of course, the bulk of that "exercise" was grown up private time, which I recognize only counts if you're a) very athletic about it, and b) take an awful long time. So I recognize that I didn't *really* get as much exercise as I like to pretend I might have. That said, the new year will definitely have me sweatin' with Richard Simmons some more, so I'm hoping that 2014 will blow that number out of the water.

Goal: Observed Sabbath (as much as 52- but realistically closer to 35)
Outcome: 29
And you know what? That's not half bad. Considering the number of nights M and I had Friday dates, or were out of town on a Friday night... I'd estimate we lit Sabbath candles at home four out of five weeks. So I think I can do better, but I'm glad it's becoming so habitual. Which is really the point of all of this.

Goal: Finished Book 1xMonth (12)
Outcome: 9
This is where I really failed. Especially considering how many books I started. I have four unfinished books on my Kindle, and two on my shelf. If I'd managed to FINISH them I'd be really pleased with myself. Instead? I'm kind of embarrassed. This year- less WordFeud and more reading!

Goal: Made Art 1xMonth (12)
Outcome: 13
CRUSHED IT. Yes, I counted costumes and cards as "art," but let's be honest... it's a creative enterprise, and there are lots of post-modernists who would completely accept a gallery show of homemade children's Halloween costumes as a legitimate thing. So I'm taking it.


I'm only making two changes in my 2014 goals. Instead of "Made Art," it will be "Finished project." And I'm adding another one- "Sang."

It shocks me how little singing I've done recently, and I know I'm emotionally healthier when I sing a lot. So now, it's a daily to-do. So- you can expect there will be many more karaoke nights in 2014 than the last year saw.

Happy New Year, one and all!

Finding God, or Asking the Wrong Parent the Big Questions at the Worst Time

You can see how this might get complicated.

This most awkward church moment was thanks to Moses on Mount Sinai and the baby Jesus.

-----------

In the several weeks leading up to Passover, the girls and I discussed the upcoming holiday a lot. Not just because I *love* Passover, no, but because I had certain expectations of them.

I expected them to sing the Four Questions.

RH displaying the four questions

Now, if you're not Jewish, that probably made no sense to you. Allow me to elaborate. At the Passover seder, it is incumbent upon the youngest child (who is physically able) to ask four question- in Hebrew. I know, there are undoubtedly families that do the questions in English (we always follow our Hebrew questions with English versions), but the four questions have since time immemorial been set to song (as all Hebrew prayers) in order to make them nice and memorable. It's the nature of oral traditions.

And so, every time we watched, "It's Passover, Grover!" I insisted they pay extra attention to the four questions. I sang along with them. I coached them. I even got RH her own little four question book- mostly for the benefit of her big sisters.

The four questions are based on the overall question, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" The next four questions are elaborations of that. "On all other nights, we eat bread- why do we eat matzo tonight?" "On all other nights, we eat any vegetables, why on this night do we eat bitter vegetables?" "On all other nights, we don't dip our herbs. Why do we dip them twice tonight?" "On all other nights, we eat sitting up, so why do we recline tonight?"

Remember, all of this is in Hebrew.

As they learned the four questions, they made adorable and absurd mistakes. Rather than, "Shebechol halelot anu ochleen..." she would sing, "Beautiful halelot a new oh clean..." It was adorable.



They got a little stage fright at the seder, but...



It was sweet and adorable- as is generally hoped and expected. I'm sure next year they'll be even better- RH still won't be old enough to take up the four question mantle.

There was only one hiccup in my preparations for Passover- Eater. In the kerfuffle of planning a seder, teaching my kids the four questions, helping them learn all ten plagues (Angel of Death- really, you are a giant bummer to three year olds), and preparing them for living on matzo for a week (because of course Passover lasts for a week)... I also had to make Easter arrangements.

That meant working with a dear friend of mine to put together a smallish, toddler friendly Easter egg hunt.

So the only thing that the girls heard from me about Easter was that we would go to their friend's house and find colorful eggs. They were beyond ecstatic.

...except they asked me, "What's Easter?" and I said, "I think your daddy should explain it to you."

Of course I did. Why on earth would M want me to explain Easter? I would no doubt do it without any sense of happiness or excitement. Because, as we all know, I'm Jewish. My relationship with Easter is strained at best. I don't believe that Jesus was the messiah, I don't believe that he rose from the dead, and I don't believe in any sort of divinity associated with him. Those are Christian beliefs, and I simply don't share them. So I told the girls, "Daddy will tell you about Easter," and promptly moved on.

The inside of University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel

Apparently, they never asked him. All they did was tell him how excited they were to collect Easter eggs.

The day before Easter, we had a lovely Easter Egg hunt (more on that later), and the girls seemed totally appeased. The news that they would have ANOTHER opportunity to wear their fancy Passover dresses was beyond belief. I started worrying that they had no clue what was going on, and that M's parents, who were in town for the weekend, might suddenly find it weighing upon them to teach their grandchildren about Jesus. But we kept busy- first the egg hunt, then the HUGE Easter dinner... it was excitement and fun until bed.

And so, on Easter morning, we got into our "princess clothes," and walked to church.

It's an incredible church. It's only a few blocks from home, and it is unfathomably gorgeous. It houses an incredible pipe organ, and one of the largest carillons in the world. There were performances by a stellar choir, an orchestra, the organ, and the carillon. It would be perfect.

And so, the girls bounced practically all the way to church. They colored happily on paper bags for a post-service Easter egg hunt, and they gaped open mouthed at the astounding colors streaming in through the enormous windows.

As I pointed out details of the stained glass, showed them all the pipes all around us (streaming beautiful music all the while), their eyes widened and their jaws dropped. But there was also some concern, some obvious confusion. RH sat on Grandma's lap, DD sat on Grandpa's lap, and SI sat between me and Grandpa. M was on the aisle, to give his leg the most space. I began to wish desperately that it was M sitting next to the kids. I had a feeling that something very awkward was about to happen.

RH is in awe of the church

And then, finally, as the chorus sang... it did. DD couldn't contain her confusion any longer. With her brows furrowed, she nervously called my name.

"Mommy? Are we slaves?"
"Oh no, we're not slaves. This is about a different story. This is about the Easter story, not the Passover story."

A pause. A slanted look at the enormous sanctuary. More furrowed brows.

"Are we in Egypt?"
"No, honey, we're in a church. This isn't Passover, it's Easter."
"It's not Passover?"
"Well, yes, it is Passover. But we're here for church for Easter," I said in the quietest voice I could muster.

A pause, waiting for the bomb to drop.

"Mommy? What's Easter?"

Crap. "Well, um, Easter is a different holiday."
"With Easter eggs?"
"Yes, but that's not why we're here. We're here because of the Easter story."
"What story?"
Crap crap crap crap crap... "Um, it's a holiday about Jesus."
"Jesus?"

Suddenly, I was in panic mode. Did I really want my in-laws to experience the horror of their granddaughters asking, in church, on Easter, "Who's Jesus?"

"Do you remember baby Jesus from Christmas?" Bingo.
"Yes..."
"Well, the Easter story is that he grew up and died and then came back, and that's Easter."
The look of abject horror on DD's face was stunning.
"He DIED?"
"But then came back, and that's the story for Easter."
"Baby Jesus DIED????"
"He grew up, and then died, and then came back."
"HE DIED?"
"Yes honey, but it's okay."
"BABY JESUS DIED?"
"Yes he died but then he came back and now it's Easter!" I hissed, desperate not to draw the attention of the rest of the church-goers.

She seemed satisfied for one glorious, fleeting moment.

This expression is the precursor to all unanswerable questions

"Why did baby Jesus die?"

Why, indeed. I knew what M would have liked me to say, what my in-laws would have liked me to say, which would have been something along the lines of, "So that we could all go to Heaven someday and be with him," but I just couldn't do it. Instead, I said, "Because that's what God wanted."

Got it. That's what God wanted. Everybody can be happy with that, right?

DD looked concerned, but pacified. As I began to relax again, enjoying the beautiful strains of Vivaldi echoing through the stunning room, I heard it again- that stage whisper.

"Mommy! Mommy!"
"Yes, pumpkin?"
"Is God like the bush on the mountain?"
"Yes, like the burning bush."
"Mommy? Where is God?"
Really? Now? "God is everywhere, honey."
"God is in Egypt?"
"Yes, and God is at home, and outside, and in the sky, and in the trees, and in you... God is everywhere all the time. God is here now."
"God is HERE?" She looked around as though she might catch a glimpse.
"Yes, but we can't see God. God's invisible."

She seemed utterly satisfied, and returned to coloring her paper bag.

The service continued beautifully. Some poetry, more Vivaldi, a spectacular soprano solo... and then the pastor took to the microphone to deliver the Easter sermon. She spoke with a clear, crisp British accent, and her voice was beautiful. It echoed gently through the room.

"Mommy! Mommy!"
"Yes, honey?"
"Is that God?!"

Grandpa stifled a snort of laughter, and I heard the parishioners behind us giggling.

"No, honey. That's not God."

And with an angelic smile, it was back to coloring again.

Too bad they don't outfit churches with rocks to crawl under.

Happy Easter from DD, RH, and SI

Remember, Remember, the Fifth of July

Photo taken July 1st, 2007 by C. Lemanski

Today is a very important day in our family.

You see, yesterday was Independence Day.  And, just as it was five years ago, it fell on a Wednesday.

Five years ago, yesterday, we woke up late.  We lounged in bed for hours.  We got up and, in our pajamas, I made us an epic brunch of California Benedict.  We ate a dozen eggs.  We went back to bed, laughing and full.  We napped lightly, and then showered and got dressed.

Five years ago yesterday, M and I enjoyed our mid-week day off by heading to a friend's rooftop and backyard barbecue, drinking some Shandy, and sweating and smiling in the absurd Chicago heat.

We walked through Pilsen, where we lived, as though through a different world.  Every other block was blocked off, many illegally, for parties and concerts and fireworks.  There were music and colorful explosions everywhere.

I remember one moment in particular.  We were drinking beers at the party, and I caught M pointing and me and grinning.  His friend Bradley gave him a high five.  I had no idea what they were talking about.

It turns out, M was telling Bradley that he was going to ask me to marry him.

You see, M had this grand master plan.  On Friday, M was going to take the day off, and we were going to go up to Guppy Lake.  We were going to spend an entire week up there, TWO weekends even.  M was going to bring a bottle of champagne and a ring, and take me to my favorite picnic spot, and propose to me.

But on the Fourth of July, five years ago, he couldn't wait.  We walked home from the party just after dusk, completely surrounded by fireworks.  In the air, on the ground, shooting out of windows... everywhere.  We laughed, we held hands, and we went back to our incredibly cool and comfortable basement apartment.

And M asked me to marry him.  No ring, no pretense, just the colorful showers of light filtering through the curtains.

And I said yes.

We had one wonderful night.  We both went to work the next day.  At lunch, we met up and picked out a ring.  And then I went home after work, while M went to play in his company softball game.

I got in my pajamas, and read through an inbox filled with congratulations from friends and family.  And then the phone rang.

It was my future MIL.  She was in a panic.  A coworker of M's had called her, he was being taken to the hospital in an ambulance.  By the time the coworker called me, I already had my shoes on.  With my pajamas.

It took me less than fifteen minutes to take the usual half hour drive to the hospital- at rush hour, during the infamous congestion of the Taste of Chicago.

I cried most of the way.  I got lost for a harrowing moment on lower Wacker Drive.


Filmed on Lower Wacker Drive.  It is one of Dante's circles of Hell.


Horrifically, this song came on in the car:




I nearly crashed the car I was crying so hard.

The first time that, outloud, I called M my fiance was when I was looking for him in the ER.  A very nice, older doctor told me to calm down.  That he would be fine.

I didn't know then that that would be my mantra.

On the Fifth of July, five years ago, M had a gran mal seizure and strokelike symptoms.  He awoke in the ambulance.  He had several CAT scans.

They showed several masses in his brain.

I spent the latter half of the Fifth of July, five years ago, shivering in the hospital in my pajamas, joking with M about the copious amounts of dirt that just kept coming off of him.  He got three sheet changes while he was moved from gurney to gurney.  They were all completely full of ballpark sand.

When we finally left the hospital, there was already a new plan.  We weren't going to Guppy Lake.  We were going to spend the weekend with both sets of our parents, who up until then had never met, getting ready for M's exploratory surgery the following Tuesday- the Tenth of July.

On Tuesday, we went in early in the morning for M's surgery.  My parents, M's parents, my sister, two sets of M's ants and uncles, and M's grandfather and his wife were there.

M was so brave.  He didn't show a moment of hesitation.  We were going to do this brain surgery thing.

I have never experienced a longer day in my life, sitting in that private waiting room, next to the phone that was bolted to the table which might ring with information about the surgery.  Across from the clock that was bolted to the wall.  Cruel room design.

It took all day.

Finally, M's surgeon came into the room, told us that M's surgery went well and that a few of us could go see him in the recovery room soon.  But first he wanted to talk to "the parents and fiancee."

He took us to a tiny little consultation room.  Tiny.  And in that room he told us what he had found in surgery.

The masses were cancerous.  They were worse than cancerous, they were stage four of an incredibly malignant brain cancer called astrocytoma.

They were inoperable.

He kept using the phrase, "extremely aggressive" to describe the cancer.  Not the treatment, but the cancer itself.

And then, bravely, my future father in law asked about the prognosis.

Sometimes, the doctor said, you see patients surviving five or ten years out.  Sometimes.

Not often.

He told us that we shouldn't expect it.

He told us that, with the advanced stage of the cancer, with its placement... most of the time patients only have about two years.  Maybe less.

But, he added, M was young.  He was healthy, otherwise.  Who knew?

It was like a dream.  I didn't cry.  Well, I cried a little, but mostly because I just didn't know what else to do.  I followed my future in-laws back to our private waiting room, where almost a dozen people were waiting for the news we would have to deliver.

Everyone wept.

M's grandfather, the pastor, prayed.

I did nothing.  I stared at nothing, I thought nothing, I felt nothing.

And as my family, and M's family, began hugging me and weeping, I heard myself telling them that everything was going to be just fine.

I told my future in-laws, M will be just fine.  He's going to beat this.  He's going to be okay.  Everything is going to be fine.


I said it over and over and over again.  I said it and I willed myself to believe it, because believing absolutely anything else was going to destroy my entire world.

Over and over and over.

From our "Save the Date" shoot- M newly hair-free

He's going to be fine.  He's going to be fine.  He's going to be just fine.


And nobody contradicted me.

I saw him in recovery, and he was groggy and in pain and confused.  But he told me to go home.  To sleep.  To come back in the morning.

I wouldn't have, if I had the emotional energy to argue with my parents and in-laws and sister.

I slept on the couch that night.  My future in-laws slept in our guest bed, and my parents slept in our bed, and I pulled out a blanket and curled up on the couch.  As I lay there, too conflicted to rest, my father came up and sat down next to me.  And while he sat there, and hugged me, I wept.

I wept like I have never wept before, or since.

I cried and cried and cried, because I had been happy.  I had been so happy.  I had absolutely all that I wanted from life- I had everything.  And after only sixteen hours... it was gone.  My life was gone.  I wasn't newly engaged and in love and ready to start out... I was preparing for widowhood.

I let myself mourn.

And in the morning, I started telling myself again, he's going to be just fine.


We went to the hospital, where he was slightly less groggy.  And we prepared to introduce him to the news. To tell him that he had terminal brain cancer.

But we didn't.  We couldn't.  Nobody did.  We told him what kind of cancer, what stage, and that it was very aggressive.  But we didn't give him the prognosis.  He said he didn't want to know.

I thought he was so brave.  And I knew I was right- he was going to be just fine.

We spent the next ten days getting him into a clinical trial for an additional treatment.  Banking sperm.  Fighting with his HMO.

And I kept telling everyone, he was going to be just fine.

Three days before our wedding, Ted Kennedy was taken to the hospital by ambulance.  It was big news.  It turned out that he had seizure.

Of course, M kept up on the developments of that news.

...and then the news came that Ted Kennedy had the same kind of cancer that M had.

...and along with that news, the reporters did their job of giving the whole story.  The entire story.  Including the prognosis.

M learned that Ted Kennedy probably had eighteen months to live.

That was three days before our wedding.

Nine months after his diagnosis.

He was halfway there.

And I told him, he was going to be just fine.

M's speech at our wedding,
"Thank you for your thoughts
and prayers.  We heard every one."

Five years ago, today.

Five years ago, and he has had no new growth, no new symptoms.

Five years, and his MRIs are clearer and clearer, less and less frequent.

Five years, and my husband is just fine.  His cholesterol is his biggest health problem.

Five years.

Every Independence Day, we celebrate our engagement.  And we celebrate the one incredibly happy day we shared.  Most years, I make California Benedict for breakfast.  Each fireworks display reminds us of one of the happiest days we will ever have.

I love my husband more than I can possibly say.  The last five years have been more than wonderful, they have been a gift.  While I can't claim to have cherished every day, I can promise you that I have never once gone to bed feeling bad about the course our lives have taken.  No matter how hopeless it seemed during the year of M's unemployment, with two new babies... no matter how exhausting it was with M working insane hours, with both of us in school, with me pregnant and with the girls at home... no matter how frustrating it has been to live our lives together, we have been unfathomably fortunate.

My husband is alive and well.  He is just fine.  Five years later.

His medical team doesn't talk about his prognosis.  They talk about the weather, our children, their children, even politics.

M?  He's just fine.  We're just old friends with the neuro-oncology department now.  Bitter enemies of our old pharmacy technicians.

The Fifth of July is always an odd day for us.  On the one hand, it is full of bad memories.  Memories of fear and confusion and pain.  On the other hand, it is a victory.  It's another Fifth of July that we can spend together.

Five years.  And no sign that there is an end in sight.

Shortly before our wedding, M told me it was his goal to have spent more of his life married to me than not.

Five years down, twenty to go.

I am so glad to spend every minute of them with my husband.  I am so grateful to have him with me, not folding laundry and forgetting to take out the trash.

There is nobody on this earth I would rather spend the next twenty years with.

Or the twenty after that.

Or the twenty after that.

Five years is a long time.  But not nearly long enough.

Here's to the rest of our lives- the long and open-ended ideal we all mean when we say "for the rest of our lives."  Not "eighteen to twenty four months."  Not, "for as long as we have."  Not for, "as long as you're mine."

Forever.  Until we are old and gray, and our children and grandchildren are grown, and death comes to us as the natural end to a life well and thoroughly lived.

Here's to every five years.

Here's to the Fifth of July.

...and to the Twenty Third of May

Here's to every single day.

Our family, nearly five years later.

Here's to M.  The love of my life.

...Life is But A Dream

Rolling down the river...

Well, we didn't "Row, row, row" the boat, but it was an amazing time nonetheless.

To celebrate M's victory over his Master's program, I got him a little graduation gift.  Thanks to the modern marvel that is Groupon (and all the other group-based discount companies- this one might have actually been Living Social) I was able to rent us an electric yacht (with a Captain!) for a leisurely architecture tour and dinner cruising down the Chicago River.

...I don't think he realized he was going to be carting around a bunch of art, architecture, construction, engineering, and urban planning nerds.  That certainly changes the tenor of any conversation about, well, buildings.

It's amazing... when you live in a world class city, there's sort of a stigma to "tourist-y" activities.  You don't need to go to the top of the Sear's (sorry, Willis) Tower- you're a LOCAL.  You don't need to dedicate days to museum hopping, you're a LOCAL.  You certainly don't need to go around downtown looking straight up at the buildings' dizzying heights- what are you, some sort of country bumpkin?

No.  You're a local, dammit, and that means you are officially too cool for those sorts of activities.

Which is utter nonsense.

Fun is fun, cool is cool, and the things that get relegated to the sphere of "tourist activities" aren't by default lame or uninteresting simply because they're a great way to enjoy the Chicago-ness of Chicago.

We had never taken a river tour.  And this was an amazing way to do it.

We picked up Five Guys for dinner (don't worry about my gall bladder- I had some fruit and veggie rolls from Whole Foods- YUM), and met up with some of M's best friends from college for the boat ride.

The day could not have been nicer.  Around eighty and sunny, with barely a breeze, we started off about half an hour before the sun started to set.  It was absolutely gorgeous.

The girls had a BLAST.  I think their favorite part was the other boats, they loved waving to people on the water taxis!  My favorite was when a little speed boat was going by- the driver topless- and SI shouted out over and over again, "That daddy is naked!"

That was freakin' great.

So without further ado- the photo spam!  (And many thanks to Aunt Texas, who's photographs are way better than mine!)

Before taking off (or even getting her life jacket on)- SI with Grandpa

DD was nervous at first- but the presence of french fries quickly calmed her down.  Just as the sweet tea vodka did for Grandma.

We love Aunt Texas!  Which makes it all the sadder that she and Uncle Texas are moving... back to Texas.

Uncle Texas, Max (one day you'll get your own blog name), and M

Our fair city

On for ten minutes every day (weather permitting), the Centennial Fountain commemorates the reversal of the Chicago River.  Which is a fascinating story that I won't tell you now.

My kind of town...

DD, SI, Uncle Texas, and Aunt Texas 

Mini-cupcakes in M's new school colors

DD enjoying the sights

I might be pointing out ducks, I'm not sure.

Warming up to Max- who they don't see very often

Seems like Max is okay...

Yeah, he's cool.

Congratulations M!  And hooray for boats!