One Proud Papa

Last weekend Papa escaped the desert heat and spent the weekend with us in Chicago.

Why, how else would Papa begin a vacation than by shopping for wine? Is anyone actually watching Amelia?

We shopped at the Green City Farmer's Market so we could host a dinner party for the Lang family. Georgia and Amelia mastered sitting on bar stools during the dinner party. I'm not sure who emptied the bottle of wine between them. Jackie O even showed up at dinner! I blame Jackie.....

Who is that darling little girl? Oh, yes Amelia loves looking at herself in the mirror so it is no surprise that she loved the Bean! Amelia played in her first fountain. This is proof that she has a little Lambda in her (that is right girls, I said that).
Dad and I as proof we do take pictures without Amelia in them.

Get Well Soon!

Selling and buying a new home were not the only activities we stressed about throughout August. In early August we learned that my mom had a cyst (fortunately benign) on her spine which needed to be surgically removed. Her surgery was last week and we are so fortunate for how well it went. We spent a week in Kansas helping GranAnn recover. At this point all she needs to do is relax and let her body heal. Ha, sitting around and relaxing is much easier said than done for my mom. We all chipped in, Merrill has walked Freddy, I brought her lattes in the hospital and Mark made homemade calzones when she got home. Thank goodness Amelia was there as she chipped in by having photo shoots with Auntie M and reorganizing all of GranAnn's cds, DVDs and travel books.

New Home?

Well we put our condo on the market in July and low and behold it sold a month later. We had a couple of weeks of total panic as we hadn't even started looking for a new home. In one week we looked at 14 places and found one that we think might work. Amelia was such a trooper going from condo to condo and even a bigger help sorting through all the fliers when we got home. I sure hope she is as helpful packing.

These are a few of my favorite things:

scooting around under mom and dad's feet,

bananas (and daddy),

Tupperware, and Cheerios.

"S" is for.....

Saturday swim dates with Cousin Georgia while wearing a stylish swimsuit. Check out Amelia's rocking swimsuit. Yep, it is a hand-me-down from me. Thirty years later and the swimsuit is as stylish as it was in the 70's. Okay it looks a bit like a weight lifting outfit from the 80's but I thought it was cute! You have to trust me on this one but I have a darling picture of my dad and I with me in the swim suit. I really wanted to post it as well however in an effort to clean our condo so we could get it on the market I have misplaced the picture.

GranAnn and Amelia

Amelia got to have a lot of fun with GranAnn when she came to visit last week. They did all kinds of fun stuff:

swinging,

perusing the Anthropologie catalog,

eating (or at least trying to) ,

and lounging on the bedding GranAnn made for Amelia.

Art History 101

It seems only natural that Amelia's first art history lesson would be with GranAnn. We spent a lovely Saturday visiting the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute.

The Modern wing is really beautiful as are the the incredible skyline views from it.

It will be nice when Amelia can talk so she can tell us if it is Elvis or Andy Warhol she doesn't like.

Amelia appreciated the three-dimensionality of this piece. Although she couldn't understand why dad wouldn't let her put it in her mouth. Then again had he let her he would have had a reason to have to leave the museum.....
Here we are with the SOM model of the Inland Steel Building. I worked in the Inland Steel Building for 5 years and although I love HOK's new office I do miss going to work in Inland Steel.

After our museum going we treated ourselves to cocktails and a bottle al fresco. On Chicago's rare beautiful days there is no other way to dine than outside.