Laowai

What have we been up to? Well since it’s July we’ve been faithfully following The Tour de France. I love watching it for several reasons. First, the scenery is just gorgeous. If I didn’t care at all about the cycling I could watch it just for the views of France’s mountains and beautiful little towns. Second, it’s fascinating to watch the amazing determination that the riders have. They do some serious suffering to just finish the race let alone win it. Third, commentators Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett are very entertaining. I like to listen to them every morning as I get things done around the house. And fourth, I like to watch it for the competition – there is a lot of strategy involved and there are so many interesting characters. It’s really very exciting.

We celebrated Brian’s 32nd birthday over the weekend. Birthday Pie:

Bea and I went to the Chicago Botanic Garden for a carillon concert on Monday. Unfortunately it poured during the concert, but later the rain stopped and we went for a nice evening walk. All the bold flowers are out at this time of year:

Bea has started eating food – wow – what a mess. And I know this is just the beginning of the mess that I have ahead of me. She is slowly getting the hang of eating from a spoon. When she catches sight of the spoon her arms go up in excitement and she opens her mouth wide like a little bird. The only problem is she gets impatient between bites and she doesn’t want to take the spoon out of her mouth. I think she thinks she can suck the food out of the spoon. It’s pretty amusing.