Jill and I and our friends Bill and Alice went down to the lakefront for a picnic. We sat about halfway between Buckingham Fountain and the Yacht Club (Monroe Street). Beautiful summer evening in Chicago with a nice breeze.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Christening, Anniversary and Birthday
It was a pretty busy week to put it mildly. On Wednesday Jill and I celebrated our 37th anniversary. Lori dropped off Scarlett and Lindsey in the morning. We took them back around 5:30 and then went to Geja's Cafe for a wonderful fondue dinner. Keir and Lori had given us a gift certificate for Geja's as a Christmas present and we had been saving it for our anniversary.
Friday was Braden's first birthday. We all met at Yorktown and had lunch at Egg Harbor. Jill had some little cupcakes at home for the kids. Braden didn't seem to interested in the cupcakes. His birthday party is today at the Lincoln Park Zoo. We'll see how he does with the cake.
Braden's First Birthday Party
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Christening, Anniversary and Birthday
It was a pretty busy week to put it mildly. On Wednesday Jill and I celebrated our 37th anniversary. Lori dropped off Scarlett and Lindsey in the morning. We took them back around 5:30 and then went to Geja's Cafe for a wonderful fondue dinner. Keir and Lori had given us a gift certificate for Geja's as a Christmas present and we had been saving it for our anniversary.
Friday was Braden's first birthday. We all met at Yorktown and had lunch at Egg Harbor. Jill had some little cupcakes at home for the kids. Braden didn't seem too interested in the cupcakes. His birthday party is today at the Lincoln Park Zoo. We'll see how he does with the cake.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Scarlett's Christening
The whole weekend was just glorious. I mowed Friday night and we sat out on the deck half the evening. Worked on the yard Saturday - cleaned up the deck and chairs - stuff like that. We borrowed a picnic table from Jim Battle and put it out by the pond. We put some more chairs out in the lawn and put the kids' picnic table on the flagstone.
Sunday was beautiful; the church service was at 10:15 and Scarlett was just fine until the very end when they played the organ way too loud.
Everyone came back to our house. Amy and Dan and the boys, Steve and Dolly and both grandmas, Steve's brother Keith and his daughter Heather with her husband and baby. Everybody enjoyed sitting out in the yard and we had a nice brunch/lunch from Tommy R's.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Jill and Art at Buckingham Fountain
Sunday was such a nice day we stopped at Buckingham Fountain and walked around for a while on the way home from Keir and Lori's.
On to Milwaukee
After lunch we headed straight for Milwaukee and two nights at the landmark Pfister Hotel
It's a grand old hotel; we had a room in the tower on the 20th floor with a view of Lake Michigan 
We walked around the Riverwalk and stopped for a drink at Rock Bottom right on the river. Later we had dinner at the Safe House, a spy themed restaurant that has been there since 1966. We were probably last there in the late 60's or early 70's 
More Safe House pictures
Saturday we walked over by the lakefront and also visited the Milwaukee Art Museum
Saturday night we had a wonderful dinner up on the North side of the city at the Lake Park Bistro 
Little Norway
As we headed back to the freeway from Mt. Horeb we saw a sign advertising Little Norway a couple of miles down the road so we decided to investigate. Described as an "outdoor museum", it's a farm established in the 1800's which has been devoted to all things Norwegian.
Nestled in a beautiful valley hidden in the foothills of Blue Mounds, WI Little Norway has another more romantic name, the name chosen by its founder, Isak Dahle, which suggests more vividly the sense of magic that pervades this lovely valley: Nissedahle, or valley of the Elves. The buildings are authentic Norse architecture, simple and durable. One has a growing sod roof; another, the spring house, is peaked by three cupolas and most of them are trimmed with warm, fresh blue that is typically Norwegian.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Mustard Museum
Friday we left House on the Rock and headed for Milwaukee. Along the way we stopped in Mt. Horeb for gas and ran across the Mustard Museum. It's amazing how many different kinds of mustard there are.
Monday, July 09, 2007
The House on the Rock
We left Thursday morning (July 5th) for The House on the Rock in Spring Green Wisconsin. http://www.houseontherock.com/ It's 45 miles or so West of Madison. The place almost defies description. Originally it was a "house", an odd one with low ceilings and strangely shaped rooms but today is it a massive collection of buildings containing an astonishing variety of collections. Alex Jordan, the founder, seems to have collected everything. Old cameras, toys, circus miniatures, organs, carousel horses, elaborate musical instruments, Titanic memorabilia, war stuff, guns, doll houses, dolls, royal crowns and jewels. All of this stuff is housed in a series of "rooms" that you visit on three self guided tours. It's overwhelming - really too much to take in.
Lighting wasn't very good, most rooms are way too dark. For more pictures of the stuff I was able to shoot visit
http://arthill.smugmug.com/gallery/3106861#169949617 There's a tongue-in-cheek description of the place at http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/WISPRhouse.html
We stayed at House on the Rock Inn, a very nice, relatively new place about 7 miles from the House on the Rock in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.
After we toured the House on the Rock we had a nice dinner at the River Terrace Cafe just up the road. It is in the "gatehouse" for the nearby Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin home.
View from the cafe
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Catching up
Celebrated my birthday with the kids and grandkids on July 1st, Sunday. We went down to Maxwell Street to a sushi place. Had a wonderful time. They brought an elaborately carved fruit creation instead of a birthday cake. When Amy asked Kyle if he wanted some fruit, his response was "I like cake". This boy obviously knows what's what for birthdays. I got a nice carry-on suitcase from Jill and a really nifty digital photo frame from the kids.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Drove up to Long Grove today
It was raining all morning so we could get out in the yard. Thought if we drove North maybe we'd get away from the rain. We were right. As we got there we discovered that the Strawberrry Festival was going on so you couldn't drive through town. We found a close parking space and headed in. Really busy with all kinds of outdoor booths, food, beer, bands. They had lots of live music and it was pretty good.
Grabbed a hamburger then went to a chocolate fondue booth and got a strawberry, marshmallow, rice crispy treat, pound cake thing on a stick dipped in dark chocolate. We looked at some old cars, went in some shops, listened to a band, got some coffee and headed back.
Stopped in Elmhurst and had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. We had never been there before. Food was good but MILD was too spicy for us :-)
Elmhurst is shwoing turtles around town this year; I just grabbed a few
Friday, June 22, 2007
Shedd Aquarium
Had lunch at the Soundings Restaurant there yesterday with Amy and Lori and the grandkids. Basic admission was free so the aquarium itself was badly overcrowded and we had to park over at Soldier Field. The restaurant wasn't crowded though so we had a nice lunch. Kyle and Lindsey had a real nice time. The views from there are great.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Father's Day
Had a great Father's Day. We went to Millennium Park so the kids could run around in the Crown fountain. It was a pretty hot day but not unbearable by the fountain. There was a nice shade tree for Scarlett.
Went across the street for lunch/brunch at a relatively new place we hadn't hear of before called The Gage. We thought the food was pretty good. It's sort of an Irish Pub kind of place. I got a nice pair of shorts and shirt from the kids. Jerry and Carol were there and Steve, Dollie and Chris too.
After we got home Jill and I went out to Oak Brook and I got a few shots of the old cars.
Cicadas in the news
Every 17 years we get an “invasion” of cicadas around Chicago. They came by the millions and millions last month and are still here.
I took a few pictures and put them on Flickr at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthill/sets/72157600264887716/
A reporter from Yahoo emailed me asking to use some of my cicada pictures. She then interviewed me by phone. I thought she was going to run a web article but to my surprise they are running this slideshow with my voice as the narrator. Many of the pictures are mine - some are from others. You can watch the names up in the top left of this video. The voice over is all me.
Check it out
Monday, September 11, 2006
Five Years after 911
What an incredible day that was! Hard to grapple with the idea that it has been five years since that happened. Jill and I were scheduled to fly to New Orleans at the end of that week. Of course all flights were cancelled.
Seeing the second plane hit the second tower was an undescribeable moment. I called both of my kids and told them to get out of downtown Chicago. Lori worked only a few blocks from the Sears Tower in a 60 story bank building. Amy worked in the shadow of Lake Point Tower, the worlds tallest apartment building at 70 stories.
Jill and I first went to Ground Zero 6 months after that. It was a sobering experience to put it mildly.
ground zero ashes
Today on the anniversary of 911, I went through some pictures of the our visit to Ground Zero in March of 2002. This picture always hit home with me. It just shows what so much of the site turned into - dust.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Braden Christopher Tausk and his grandpa
July 27th was a wonderful day. Our third grandchild, Braden was born at 1:09 PM.
Anniversary dinner
Jill and I had a wonderful dinner at Roy's in Chicago to celebrate our 36th anniversary.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Millennium Park
We all met down at Millennium Park for Father's Day and had lunch at the Park Grill. It was a great day and the weather cooperated. It didn't start to rain until we were leaving.
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