Saturday, September 19, 2009

Bee-utiful Day in the Park

With summer starting to wind down, Amber and I decided to capitalize on the nice weather in Chicago today and head down to one of the larger parks nearby, Humboldt Park.


We packed up a small picnic lunch and retired to the grassy knoll.



While Amber took a little nap in the sun, I had difficulty resisting taking tons of pictures of all the flowers.



The bees were also eager to log some final summertime hours. This one seemed especially concentrated on his work.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The Call of the Wild

I just returned from a six-day trip to the Boundary Waters (BWCAW, for those of you who love acronyms). And I think the pictures do a pretty good job of sharing the experience, so I'll just give a brief explanation for these shots.


Loading up the packs before we depart. That's Peter on the left, Liz in the background, and Sergio on the right.



It rained the first day.


But after that the weather was great.


We saw a snake...


...and an inquisitive owl...


...and a fish getting a suntan...


...and a ninja loon...


...and two bald eagles, who watched us while we were swimming.


We stood on rocks and pointed.


We walked through a part of the forest that burned a few years ago.


This is Long Island Lake, where we stayed for two days. Our campsite is on the point jutting into the lake from the left.


A nice sunset.


Same sunset, just a little while later.


We built fires from dryer lint and used flint and steel to light them.


And we roasted acorn squash on one of those fires.


We did a lot of standing around...


...and practiced looking tough and growing our beards.


We saw a lot of beautiful lakeshore...


...and a couple misty mornings on the lakes.


Oh, yeah, and we paddled our canoes a lot. Altogether we canoed and portaged (where you carry the canoe on your shoulders from one lake to the next) 30 miles in five and a half days. It was pretty idyllic and relaxing.

Monday, September 07, 2009

Fun at Green and Yellow Park w/Aunt Janell!

First Aunt Janell is the Leader...





Now it's Ella's turn!




What fun!


Pizza to Make Your Mouths Water!





Get a load of these beauties! We would be proud to claim we put them together, but they are the creation of Loading Zone II, in Lake Linden, a little town north and west of Hancock. The first pizza is Bacon Cheeseburger, swirled with yellow mustard, and topped with dill pickle slices (does the inclusion of dill give any clue as to who ordered this one?) The second pizza is Hawaiian, complete with onion and green pepper. Both were very good! They look homemade...does that count?