Summer Kick-Off

We kicked-off summer with a visit from GranAnn and a picnic dinner at Lake Michigan. Although we live within walking distance of the lake and I have now lived here for over seven years this was my mom's first trip to the Chicago beaches.

Our little princess apparently wasn't interested in eating on a picnic blanket and insisted on eating in her little red wagon.

All done! Chocolate cupcakes make a well rounded dinner.

The royal treatment continued with a ride home across the sand from Dada.

Oh wait, since Miss. Amelia sits still for all of about 15 seconds getting a lift from Dada got old very quickly. Type "A" Amelia had to take over (hm, I wonder where she gets that from).

The cops were out in full force over the holiday weekend. Amelia had to put on a straight face and explain to the Cop that all she had was milk and chocolate cupcakes. He let her go.

All Work No Play

Now that Amelia has turned 18-months and summer has arrived we decided she needed a little more direction in her life. She has been very busy with:

forced family photos at the Botanical Garden,

dance parties with G

grocery shopping for the family,

cooking her own meals,
cleaning up trash along Lake Michigan,
getting her morning exercise and
making sure daddy gets his exercise.

House Guests

Apparently if you tell enough people that you really do love having house guests someone is bound to finally give in. In May two people gave in so we were treated to weekends with both Auntie M and Carla. Hm, they both gave Amelia all kinds of attention and left Mark and I with empty wine bottles....

Just in case anyone is wondering Auntie M kind of likes her namesake and so far it looks like the feelings are mutual. The pictures of Auntie M's visit look like the weather was nice but it was really freaking cold so we spent a lot of QT with take out and our pajamas. The girls have to wait until the 4th of July to be together again. Boo hoo. I miss you sister!

Carla is homeless so we took her in last weekend. As she prepares to make her move west she is living out of her suitcase thus we were happy to provide her a comfy floor to spend her weekend on.

It is hard to imagine more fun than Auntie M and Carla but they might get a run for their money. Next weekend brings us GranAnn, rumor has it that Mrs. Duffy is making an appearance in early June AND Father's Day weekend will bring us Papa! Between Grandma and Grandpa Lang being back in Chicago for the summer and our doting (over Amelia at least) house guests I don't think Amelia will be deprived of attention..... In all seriousness we LOVE house guests and bought a larger place for a reason so bring it on.

My First Architecture Baby

The College of DuPage Health and Science's Center aka COD was my first architecture baby. Once at a luncheon one of the speakers explained how watching your first building go up brings you the same joy as your first baby. Well I don't agree with her as a building could NEVER be more rewarding than Ms. Amelia but COD still holds a pretty special place in my life.

I began working on COD when there was nothing more than room square footages on paper and worked on it full time for three years until there was a building to move into. In a way I/we grew up with COD as during my COD tenure Mark graduated law school, passed the bar, clerked for a judge and then moved onto a "real" job and then onto another "real" job. During the time I took my licensing exams and became a legitimate architect. Personally we got engaged, planned a wedding and got married. And finally I continued to make site visits until the Thursday before I had Amelia.

A day does not go by in my professional career in which I don't pull from my COD experience. In summary we have a building the client loves and did some cool sustainable/environmental things with the building which I am proud of. I won't bore you with examples of these lessons as well frankly I realize very few of you actually care to hear architect talk.

As for personal lessons I learned that I am not cut out for suburban Chicago car commutes. Boy was I grumpy when I got home on Thursdays after my 2-hour bumper to bumper commute. Mark as a rule of thumb didn't talk to me until I had had a healthy serving of red wine. I also learned that hard hats on women will NEVER be cute, cool or stylish. Why do they make us wear them? Ms. Hughey Quinn told me once that as long as I didn't wear my phone on a clip on my belt she thought I could still be stylish in the "field". I'm also proud to report that I have never or will never wear my cell phone clipped to my pants.

I am well into my next architecture baby but just got around to saving pictures onto our home computer so I thought I would share.

Amelia and GranAnn's Weekend

For those of you who read our blog, not because you are interested in how Mark and I spend our time but because you want to see our cute little girl here is how she spent our Mexican weekend. Well she was spoiled rotten. My mom came to Chicago to spend the time with Amelia. This was the first time we had "left" Amelia for more than one night (which we have only done twice). I knew I would miss her like crazy which of course we both did. I also knew that my mom would take great care of her. In fact my only worry was that my mom who isn't always the most technologically advanced would get frustrated with our TV and not be able to watch her shows. I'm happy to report that my mom managed our daughter, TV AND computer all without any problems.

Amelia loves going on walks so her and GranAnn went on lots! I am pretty sure my mom changed her outfits at least three times a day just for the fun of it.

They checked out the Lincoln Park Zoo where Amelia was more entertained by running around than looking at animals.

The girl loves her sock monkey!

Does this smile say, "oh how I miss Mama and Dada?" Yeah, I know the answer.

Amelia and GranAnn visited Clara (and her parents) where they enjoyed swinging and

dining on cupcakes

My mom did a lot with Amelia but one thing she didn't do was teach her eating manners. She insists on having a spoon with her when she eats but needs some practice on how to actually use a spoon.

Finally Mama and Dada came home! She loved the maracas we brought back for her. In fact she loved the pink one so much she had it broken within 24 hours. Thank you mom for taking such great care of Amelia so Mark and I could enjoy our trip to Mexico!

Here is to Carla & Jay!!!!

Last weekend Mark and I spent an amazing long weekend in Guanajuato, Mexico. Our weekend was full of peaceful flights reading books instead of corralling a toddler, adult conversations, warm weather, good friends and most importantly sharing in Carla & Jay's wedding ceremony and celebration. The experience of visiting Guanajuato a town very special to Carla, meeting her family who lives in the area and enjoying a basilica wedding in Mexico left us feeling very special to have been included in their wedding. We are so sad that Carla & Jay's lives are taking them away from Chicago to Colorado but if they have to move at least they will be 30 minutes away from the cabin so we will get to see them this summer in the Rockies. Here are the newlyweds!!!!

Mark enjoying the cobblestone streets of Guanajuato. the view from our room
here I am on our outing to reach the rehearsal dinner venue

Mark and Carla rehearsal dinner-ing
The big event! If only I spoke Spanish I could have actually understood the wedding and mass. I wish I would have known before the wedding that in this basilica (and maybe in all basilicas for all I know) weddings are conducted during the standard mass times. So Carla and Jay had a choice of 8am, noon or 7pm. Had I known this before the wedding I would have been expecting a basilica with all kinds of other folks in attendance other than Carla and Jay's guests. Instead I was sitting there thinking hm, "that is kind of neat that folks just come in from off the street to share in the celebration. I wonder if Carla and Jay are cool with this?" Now I know.

The BEAUTIFUL brideMark and I dressed in our wedding day bestsome of the guys strutting their stuff between the wedding and party
I don't even know where to start with this one. All I can say is it involved the matron-of-honor's husband singing EVERY single word to Getting Jiggy With It and three of Carla's favorite guys (my lovely husband included) performing as his back up dancers. What? What's up 90's? I can't even imagine what the hotel workers were thinking when this chaos was going on. There is a video out there which if I get my hands on will have to post.

Spring has Arrived!

The warm weather leaves us making a trip to our neighborhood park every free moment we have. She grinned the whole way to the park this afternoon while riding on Dada's shoulders. Why is this picture so special? Well Ms. Amelia did not stop moving all weekend except to to look at her big book of "100 first words" for approximately 5 minutes. From chasing around her feline friends Bruce and Gus Klein, taking mouthwash off the shelves at Target, demanding to eat a banana at Trader Joe's and walking her way around Chicago (she doesn't get along with her stroller) she was way too busy for relaxing.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider is sung in house about 30 times a day. Here is Amelia showing, "out came the sun and dried up all the rain."

Amelia continues to excel in the arts. She is getting close to actually getting paint on the paper.

Well of course Amelia is way too young to dye Easter eggs but we don't always make the smartest parenting choices. She took the first egg we gave her and plopped it in the blue dye. Things were going along smoothly. Then she proceeded to look at the egg dripping in blue dye and yell, "ball" as she threw it across the room.

This is what happened with the second and last egg........