Laowai

This is what jet lag looks like – Claire fell asleep while she was sitting on the couch with a pen in her toes.

And these are jets. They put on a show while we were eating dinner on our patio.

But look at all the fun stuff we did with Grandma C.

Picking blueberries. Some people picked more than other people. Hmmm.

Trampolining.

Welcoming Brian back after we hadn’t seen him for about three weeks.

Celebrating Brian’s birthday.

Doing a ropes climbing and zip line course.

Watching hot air balloons.

Bowling (Bea won!)

Eating waffles with lots of whip cream.

Visiting the zoo.

And last of all, I got a tattoo!

Just kidding, I despise tattoos, but we were having a bored moment so Bea drew Homer Simpson and a doughnut on my ankle. 

See ya later Michigan. It’s time to get home.

I read this funny article by Brook J. Sadler called My Ultimate Facebook Post and it hit the nail on the head. I sometimes feel this blog is pointless. As the author points out who cares if my 95 year old grandma has a great garden, who cares if I saw a caterpillar, who cares if my daughter loves a dog and who cares if my other daughter was cute when she fell asleep in a big brown chair. Why do I spend so much time looking at other people’s lives and their two legged cats? I guess that’s why I’m not very tuned into social media. 

And yet I’m ambivalent (like I am about so many things – ahem – living in Switzerland). I think my blog makes me slow down and appreciate the little things of life and that feels healthy. My blog is a good record and it lets me be sentimental. I love looking back at old photos and seeing when my girls were chubby babies. Also I love reading the comments I get.

So without further ado here’s what we’ve been up to:

Brian is back on his bike enjoying himself and (as promised) descending off those mountains carefully.

We went down to the Pine River to think of Dad. We made paper boats and decorated them and wrote messages and then sent them down the river. It was the right spot for Dad and it was a beautiful night to remember him.

We’re back in Midland enjoying the company of Grandma J. and Tucker. We’ve been trying to entertain ourselves by going to the river, getting out Dad’s microscopes, watching the Tour de France and doing lots of snuggling with Tucker.

Oh Tucker!

Jennifer was supposed to sail in the Chicago to Mackinac race for the first time this weekend. Unfortunately the boat’s mast broke in a race the week before so she couldn’t sail. So instead we took the train down to the Chicago and watched the boats leave the harbor. It was a miserable day and we felt for the sailors, but I’m glad we went down to be spectators. 

Here are a couple photos I stole. Love seeing the beautiful boats and the tough sailors!

We took Jennifer and Jenna up to my favorite rock collecting beach. 

And then we had fun painting our rocks.

I guess it must have been Bea who dubbed the Museum of Science and Industry the Museum of Science and Interesting. And now we must call it that forever.

So we went down to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Interesting with Mabel and her mom Danea. It was so fun! The girls are at a great age for seeing the museum and the new Pixar exhibit was amazing! We learned all about the process of animation and Danea (being a math teacher) was super excited that math is a huge part of making a computer animated movie. Who knew???

The chicks! The tradition! And we finally got to see some coming out of eggs!

Then we just had to go to the giant candy store – Dylan’s Candy Bar. 

I love seeing the beautiful buildings of Chicago – makes me feel patriotic an proud.

Thanks for arranging the trip and doing the driving Danea!

There’s this old and neglected house on our street in Wilmette. I was always peered at it as I went by trying to get a better look at it through it’s overgrown landscaping. It was interesting because it’s an old modern style home with an unusual shape and neat details like lots of copper and little scalloped window shades. Well the other day a crew came and removed every shrub and tree on it’s lot and then I discovered that it’s a house from the 1933 World’s Fair. It was an example of modern and progressive architecture, built by The Stran-Steel Company. It’s one of the “Houses of Tomorrow” at the Century of Progress exhibit at the fair. It was moved to Wilmette after the fair and it seems everyone forgot it’s significance.

There are a few articles when I search for Chicago World’s Fair house including this one and this one. Sounds like a builder bought it and is planning to put two new houses on the lot. They were hoping to find a buyer to move the house but I didn’t find that that happened. I don’t think it’s unheard of to move a historical house – I read about a Frank Lloyd Wright house that was moved a couple years ago (here’s the article).

Seeing the house in such bad shape is sad and it just makes me want to keep my house maintained and loved. If I had a million dollars it would be great to preserve that interesting old house.

Here it is today:

And here is an illustration from Good Houskeeping:

And here’s an old photo:

Chicago’s north shore church rummage sales are always fun. I added to my Georges Briard collection.