Laowai

I have to decide on the stain color soon – like today. I think I was dreaming about stain color last night. It’s such a big irreversible decision. Yikes. My next post about floor will show finished floor!

Brian left for Vietnam on Saturday and he won’t be back for a few days yet. The girls and I decided to go down to the city and do some touristy things. First we hit the Sears/Willis Tower observation deck. 103 floors up – a good thing to do without Brian because he doesn’t like heights. 

They have a glass box that sticks out from the building. Bea remembers being there with her cousin Ryan about four years ago. 

Next we went over to the Art Institute.

The art was nice, but I kept looking at the floors. I have floors and stain colors on my mind. Ha.

The girls wanted their pictures taken in front of some of their favorite paintings. Claire is in front of a Degas painting of ballerinas… of course.

 

They had a table set up for kids to make collages in the modern wing. That was fun, but then Claire was getting tired and whiney so it was time to go. Bea and I decided we’d like to go back to the museum on our own sometime.

On the way home Lake Shore Drive was shut down because of a police showdown with some crazed murderer. I didn’t know that at the time – all I knew was that it took twice as long to get home as it should have – uhg. I sound rather grumpy don’t I?

Hope you had a good weekend.

Not much happening here other than the floor being worked on and lots of wishing for Spring. Here are some photos from the weekend. Brian is removing the tack strip in the picture below. We let the girls color on some of the old carpet before we chucked it. And I uncovered that checkered linoleum in our front closet.

Here are a few photos of the floor work today. They have the plywood under layer all put down. The guys said our concrete was much harder than what they usually see. I think they had to get some special nails. The drilling has been crazy loud, but I can’t complain – it seems to be going quickly. That’s our wood all stacked and ready to be put down tomorrow.

The guys that are doing the work speak a foreign language – some brand of Eastern European I think. I have this irrational feeling that because they are from Europe they are better craftsmen. Silly but I guess they seem like hard workers and they pay attention to the details.

I heard a Scott Joplin song on the radio today. Whenever that happens I think immediately of my dad. He would play Scott Joplin non-stop all the way out west for our vacations and then all the way back. It makes me smile the think of those memories.

I realized today that I am still not adjusted completely to living here. I think of the way my life was in Switzerland almost everyday. Usually I think about it while I’m driving around in the car or going grocery shopping – I guess I preferred no car and the smaller grocery stores. There was less choice in grocery shopping but somehow it seemed completely sufficient and a lot simpler. 

I got out a couple Springy Easter decorations today. This bunny has been in storage since before we moved to Switzerland. It’s a cake or chocolate mold and I added the flowers. I’m going to ignore the weather forcast that includes snow and just gaze at my happy Spring bunny.

Well, the work on our floor upstairs is done. We are just waiting for the finish to dry and then we can move all the furniture back up there. I can only peek from the stairs, but I think it looks really nice. Just having everything clean and even througout all the rooms is great. Here are a couple photos that I took without being able to walk up there.

Of course the baseboards look terrible now so I’m sure I will be itching to start some painting soon. The house smells like a paint factory with all the polyurethane fumes so we’ve been trying to stay out of the house as much as we can. I took the girls to the playground and we pretended it was nicer out than it really was. Yesterday it was nearly 50 degrees but today it was back to below freezing. Spring is going to be so very appreciated when it finally gets here!

We found out on Saturday morning that our floor guy could get started on the refinishing and installing of our wood floors on Monday. Today! So our weekend was unexpectadely filled with shifting furniture and removing the last of the carpet from upstairs. By Sunday night I was pooped. We’ll be camping out downstairs until the refinishing is done and then the new wood will probably be installed in the living room next week. Everything is jammed into the living room and dining room at the moment and it feels like that chaos that comes with moving – again.

But, I am so excited to have our floors fresh and clean! I think the walls are going to end up seeming dingy so I’m going to want to start painting soon.

Here are some photos of the progress so far:

We were in the car talking about names. I said “Claire do you remember what your middle name is?”

“Illinois” she yelled from the back seat

“No honey,  your middle name is Eleanor. Just like Great Grandma Dice”

 

Here’s some of her recent artwork:

I’ve been feeling like starting another quilt and Bea has been asking for one ever since I made Claire’s. So I bought lots of prints in Bea’s favorite color (blue) and I finally started the piecing today. I always find it funny that we buy yards of fabric, cut it into pieces and then sew it back togehter – what a silly thing to do. But spending time on that sillieness keeps me sane.

And one more photo (in the same color pallette is seems). I got my new couch today. Yeah! Yes, it’s green and I’m very pleased.

Here are some photos from Bea’s Birthday party. We just sent the kids down to the basement and let them jump around and act silly with a ton of balloons. Such a sweet bunch of girls that Bea invited.

Those big balloons were a hit. Brian blew them up with his healthy lungs.

Here’s the non-messy craft I came up with – bobble head balloons. I made little bodies and feet out of cardboard, added a little weight with some rice inside the cardboard tubes and found face sickers on Amazon. The girls just put stickers on to make the faces and glued on some arms that I had pre-cut.

Here’s the dinning room all decorated.

Another penguin cake and you can just see the blue jello decorated with plastic penguins on a plate beside the cake.

Here’s the only game we had – they had to guess how many gumballs in the jar – the closest guess got a prize.

I think Bea had lots of fun, but she’s also a bit bummed that it’s all over… until next year.

The important thing about these pancakes is that
Grandpa and Grandma C. picked those blueberries last summer.