Icy Cold Fun

A few weeks ago, while it was still brutally cold, we took a trip to Lake Michigan to see how it was holding up. We had no idea how much, if any, of it would freeze. What we found was a frozen beach, with ice jutting out into the water, and large chunks of ice floating in the lake.

All the white specks you can see in the distance are chunks of ice.

The cute, shivering girl in this picture is my wife:

The stoic, wind-blown guy in this picture is yours truly:

The frozen, wind-blown beach in this picture is, well, the frozen, wind-blown beach:

While we were there, it was 15°, with a wind chill of 0. Honestly, though, it felt colder.

PictureFest

Like much of the country, we were hit with heavy snow last week. Here's the view we had from our kitchen window after the snow stopped:


We were curious as to how much snow we received, so Wendy bravely went forth with measuring tape in hand.


We measured 9" on the railing, and up to a foot on the deck. Later that day, I performed my own act of bravery by shoveling the driveway (with the snow shovel we cleverly bought the night before the storm hit).


It's been a week, and there's still plenty of snow left on the ground. The highs the past few days have been in the teens, but thankfully we're due for a warm-up this weekend, with temperatures returning to the mid-40's.

Turning from the outside to the inside, here are the highly anticipated photos of our dining room and living room.


The living room still has some work left to be done (note the lack of a coffee table, end table, and pictures).


And, finally, our snazzy red bathroom, which Wendy painted just before Thanksgiving.


I hope you enjoyed the tour. Please come again soon!

A Rich, Colorful, and Multi-Textured Post

Due to a power outage in part of the city yesterday, I wound up with the afternoon off. So I decided to enjoy the extra sunshine by going for a hike at a trail near the McHenry dam. While I was there, I took a picture of a frog.


It turned out a little blurry, which is too bad. But he was such a friendly guy, and he held his pose so perfectly still, that I thought he deserved his own picture.

Also while I was there, I happened to run into some of our neighbors, who were just finishing their walk. They're an older couple, and have lived in the neighborhood for many years, even before our house was built. The conversation naturally shifted to annexation, which is still a hot topic here. The city has proposed to annex our neighborhood, with the promise of improving our water system, but also of raising taxes to help offset the costs. The city is currently deciding whether to put the deal to a vote, or just drop the proposal altogether, since a fair number of people in the community have raised objections. If it goes to a vote, Wendy and I are in favor of the deal. The couple I talked to are opposed to it, though, since they're retired and are on a fixed income. Despite our difference of opinion, the couple is very friendly, and we're pleased to have them as neighbors.

On the house front, we now have a freshly painted living room and dining room, a new light fixture in the dining room, new living room furniture, and a new shower in the master bath. The shower looks fantastic compared to what we had in there, and we had a great experience with the installer (we went so far as to write the company a letter telling them how much we appreciated his efforts).

Of all those things, painting definitely took the most work. It wasn't the act of painting, though, it was mainly deciding what color to pick. We wound up getting samples of several colors, and by the time the final decision was made, we had created this:


The winner? Grand Stand Tan. The verdict? We dig it. And apparently other people do, as well. When we were buying the paint at Ye Olde Home Improvement Mega-Store, the clerk mentioned it was a very popular color.

So, there you have it.

Squirrel Shenanigans

As we were sitting down to eat dinner Saturday evening, we happened to notice not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six squirrels in our yard, two of which were locked in an epic, no-holds-barred brawl. We sat at the table, calmly eating dinner while watching the melee unfold.

"I bet it's some kind of Saturday night fight club," Wendy remarked.

Eventually the two squirrels settled down and the crowd dispersed among the various nearby trees. We can only guess as to what they were really fighting about. (girls)

And in other rodent news, it appears that a family of chipmunks has taken up residence underneath our front porch. Wendy happened to see one darting underneath it as she went to check the mail earlier this week.

While writing this post, I learned, thanks to the magic of wikipedia, that squirrels and chipmunks belong to the Sciuridae family of rodents, and that black squirrels (which I saw several times growing up in northeastern Oklahoma) have been spotted in the Fox Lake area of Illinois, a mere ten minutes away from our house.

Hopefully Sciuridae will be our only exposure to Rodentia, and we won't have to deal with the Muroidea superfamily.

Photo Extravaganza

Well, we've been keeping busy the past few weeks with cleaning the house, painting the family room, mowing the lawn, and getting all of our utilities and services switched over. I'm fairly certain I've been to Home Depot more times the past two weeks than the past ten years combined. Life is different when you're a homeowner.

Wendy is currently in Kansas, attending her sister's graduation. Since she left, the weather has turned cold and rainy -- we've gotten just over 2 inches of rain in recent days -- and the forecast is calling for even more.

So, to pass the time on a rainy weekend in May, here are photos of our new house:

The Whole Thing (front)

Lots o' grass to mow

A pond in the distance

Ye Ol' Dining Room

A mighty white kitchen

Family room, pre-painting

Family room, post-painting

"Clean me!" cries the deck

El Backyard Gazebo

The Whole Thing (back)

Purple and White Flowery Things

Up close

And personal


Our first visitor

We have a house!!

Weekend Recap

Today we made it to the Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford. It was a very pleasant experience, and was made even more so thanks to the fall colors. The Gardens turned out to be a fairly popular place to be this afternoon; there were several employees out directing the flow of pedestrians.

One interesting sight we came across was a tree growing horizontally off of a hill. It was still growing strong thanks to a very tall log that had been put in to prop it up.

There were also several paths blocked off with "Private Property" signs; they all appeared to lead to a house at the top of a hill. We overheard a group of people in front of us say that the gardens were basically someone's back yard, open to the public. What a very cool back yard that would be. (Incidentally, we also overhead those same people discussing various creative ways that an ostrich could kill a lion.)

Most of the trips we take during the fall tend to be on Sunday, since Saturday is, of course, college football. Thanks to the magic of digital cable and ESPN Gameplan, there were 29 football games available for us to watch yesterday. When your team of choice is being trounced by their arch-rival, it's nice to be able to switch to any number of other (more competitive) games to take your mind off the resounding defeat.

On a happier note, Friday night Wendy and I went to see Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. It was incredibly funny, with moments of absolute genius. We both highly recommend it.

Finally, a sunset from late August. If you look closely to the left, you can just make out the beginnings of townhouses that are being built across the pond. (Fortunately all of the trees are staying.)

Scenes from McHenry County

It's been a while since we've posted pictures, so here are some things in the area that have caught our attention.



We find the logo on our trash can quite amusing. Wendy and I, of course, produce only the finest garbage.



We first noticed this rusty, beaten-up car in the Meijer parking lot when we came here for our house hunting trip in March. It hasn't moved since.



A live bait vending machine! This is located at a gas station in Harvard. It sells red worms, nightcrawlers, and leeches. In case you're interested, the leeches cost $3.50 per dozen.



The water level in the pond next to our townhouse has been dropping considerably the past few months. Illinois was recently declared a disaster area due to a severe drought this summer.





Finally, a couple of pictures from Moraine Hills State Park. I decided to go exploring one Saturday evening, while Wendy was immersed in the just-released Harry Potter book.

Abby and the Aquarium

Abby's gone home now, and it's once again very quiet here during the day. It was great to have her visit. While she was here, we played Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and the Sorcerer's Stone for Gamecube, and beat them both. (We actually started with Prisoner of Azkaban, then CoS, and then SS. No sense doing things in order, we always say.) We watched all of Buffy season one and two and about a third of the third season (in about 5 days). We went to the library and checked out a bunch of books, approximately 3 of which we read. We did some shopping. And of course we did some sightseeing.

This past weekend, we went down to Shedd Aquarium, which was good fun. It's big, and right along the shore of Lake Michigan. We saw a dolphin show and saw belugas and sharks and penguins. And lots of fish. Then we walked along Lake Michigan for a while, but headed back to our car when it started sprinkling a bit. Also, it was cold and I left my jacket in the car. Oops.

Abby's plane left at 8 a.m. this past Wednesday, which meant we had to be at the airport at 7, which meant we had to leave our house at 5:30 a.m. Just for the record, that's really early. There was a little confusion regarding which terminal her flight actually left from, but we got it all sorted out and she made it home fine.

Here's Abby with her new boyfriend. He's a punk.



Randy and me on the scenic shores of Lake Michigan. That's the Chicago downtown skyline behind us (obviously).



Abby and me. I think we were discussing how nice the cloudy sky was. Also how surprisingly chilly it was for May.



Also, I know many of you are waiting on pins and needles, so I won't keep you in suspense any longer: I went with T-Mobile.

Yummy Yummy! Right Here!

We had a great weekend. Abby's here, and we decided to begin exploring our new habitat.

Saturday we took a picnic down to the McHenry Dam and then hiked the 2-mile trail around the nature preservation area nearby. It was both woodsy and wetland-y and we saw a bunch of birds. There was a deck for observing black terns about halfway around that we enjoyed, although we're not really sure if we saw any black terns as none of us are quite sure what they look like. Canada geese, though - those we recognized. Also something that we're pretty sure was a crane. Or a stork. Anyway, it was really pleasant.

Sunday we ventured down to the heart of Chicago. We rode the Metra, which is a commuter train that offers $5 weekend fares to ride as much as you want on any of the lines. It was fun, and a neat way to see the scenery. Which, okay, was mostly trees (in the suburbs) and buildings (in the city), but still nice. We got off the train at Union Station, where that one scene in The Untouchables was filmed. It's a pretty busy station, with restaurants and souvenir shops. One restaurant, in a stunningly clever marketing ploy, was trying to attract patrons by having its (surely underpaid) employees yell, "Yummy yummy! Right here! Yummy yummy!" We decided not to eat there.

Instead, we walked to Sears Tower, which is only a few minutes from the train station. We had to wait in line, but not for too long, and then after a mere 60-second elevator ride, we were at the observation deck on the 103rd floor. The view is impressive, as you would expect. Kind of like going up in the Arch, only much more so.

Then we headed to lunch, where we ate real Chicago-style deep dish pizza. "It takes 30 minutes to cook, but it's well worth the wait," our waiter told us, and we agreed that he was right. After that we walked around downtown some, took a few pictures of St. Patrick's, Chicago's oldest church (it pre-dates the fire), and then decided it was time to head home. All in all, a very pleasant day!

Finally, a picture of our living room sans boxes!



This gnome came with the house. I think he's pretty saucy.



Sears Tower, from the ground up (tallest building in the US, second-tallest in the world)



The view from the Sears Tower, facing north



Downtown Chicago, near Union Station



St. Patrick's Church. The two different spires represent East and West.