Rich and I went to see the Bears play Cleveland. Great seats in the Cadillac Club. Beautiful day. Not a good game. They pulled the starters after the first series - 5 minutes into the first quarter. The second half was the 4th string QB - don't even know his name. The Bears lost to Cleveland, a really bad team. It's a nice evening but Rich warned that the 4th pre-seaon game is the worst one to attend. They don't want to get any of the starters injured.
Sunday was a beautiful day. We drove down to Lori and Keir's 
Went to a Sox game with our friends Roger and Sue. Beautiful day for a game. Fantastic seats. We had a great time even though the White Sox were just awful.
Yesterday was a wild weather day. O'Hare set a new record for the most rain on this date, something like 2.38 inches. But the winds and thunder and lightning were the hallmarks of this gigantic storm. It came in two waves, one about 3-4 o'clock and again after 6. Downtown and the Northern suburbs seemed to get the worst of it - trees down, lots of flooding. There were even tornado warnings for downtown (and lots of other places). At least 1/4 million people without power, lots of flooded or blocked streets. The Eden's expressway was closed due to flooding for at least 4 hours.
On the way back from Saugatuck we stopped for coffee in St. Joseph and ran across all of these little cars.
More at St. Joseph cars
We headed for Saugatuck Saturday morning to meet Keir and Lori. They're spending a week up there; we just went up for a couple of days. Got up there by noon Michigan time and met them all for lunch at the Mermaid Bar and Grill on the water. We had a Bed and Breakfast that was very close to downtown so we parked our car there and walked to the water. We had a first floor room (behind the flag in the picture below).
Slept in the next morning and had breakfast at the B&B and then headed for the kids' place. Still raining so we went down to the gazebo by the water so Lindsey could feed the ducks and run around the gazebo for a while.
Jill and I had dinner at The Butler on the water and then went
Monday morning we all met for breakfast and walked around the town a bit - still raining.
A week after meeting up with Flickr friends from Germany we met up with Kevin and Barb from Toronto. Had a great lunch at the Park Grill in Millennium Park - Chicago and then walked around Millennium Park a bit. Next we gave them a whirlwind auto tour of some of the Chicago highlights so they can plan their vacation week in Chicago.
Must be the right combination of rain and temperature.
Last year the two hibiscus trees kind of petered out. This year they are both doing great
The pond itself is clear and has lots of flowers and the plants around the edge are all thriving
The storm a week or so ago broke a big branch on the tree right by the pond. The tree guys came out today and cut it down. They took a much bigger piece down than I would have thought.
Wow, he died 23 years ago yesterday. How I wish he had lived another 10 or 15 years. Of course he'd still be gone today but we would have been able to share so much more with him.
It was the saddest time of my life. I had a much harder time getting through it than I thought I would. I still think of him often and how I would like to be able to talk to him. He was 73 when he died so my image of him is fixed at an age only 12 years older than I am now. The older I get the more I appreciate what a good Dad he was.
Humid, hot, rainy. No fun to even be outside. Looks like it may even be worse on the east coast. Lots of severe rain and wind but we haven't had many problems. Lost a big branch off a tree over the pond; I hate to see that.
Jill made a couple of centerpieces for a friend's daughter's shower. I thought they turn out spectacularly.
Friday night Rich (brother) and Debbie picked us up and drove out to Ron(brother) and Carol's for dinner. We've been alternating houses and I think next time is our turn. We sat out on their deck for a while and then moved inside for dinner. Had a nice visit and got home a little after midnight.
Saturday morning I was up early to go out and get some pictures of some houses that I'm supposed to shoot for a landscaping company. Finally got some clouds to dampen the harsh hot sun.
By 10:30 Keir and Lori had arrived at our house to drop of Lindsey and Scarlett for the weekend. They needed to move a bunch of stuff and do other things to get their house ready to show.
We had a great time with the kids. Lindsey didn't give us one bit of trouble, smiles and laughs all around. Scarlett was good too once we figured out that one of the bottles didn't work right. Sunday Lindsey and I went out to run some errands and we had a good time.
Sunday night we went up to Wildfire in Schaumburg to meet a couple that was vacationing from Germany. The wife, Christiane is one of my Flickr friends and had written to arrange to meet. We had a wonderful 3 hour dinner. They are a fascinating couple with 5 years experience in California behind them. We thoroughly enjoyed talking to them and hope to see them again either in Chicago or Germany.
Art, Jill, Christiane, Michael
