Montana Fourth of July

Summer's fading quickly... but it has been a good one.





Over a month ago now - off to Montana for fireworks and celebrations:

It wouldn't be Montana without a bit of practice with firearms:

And some chillin' in the pool:

Finally, fireworks!

Yay! Great Grandpa is back in Montana!

California, Here We Come

On to June! We spent about 9 days, about half in Anaheim and half in San Diego. Some bits were lovely - we managed to see some friends in Riverside and SA had lots of fun running around with their daughter.

We swam in the hotel pool:

We saw Anaheim play the Blue Jays (note the confused team allegiance):

And we wandered the hallowed sidewalks of Disneyland:

One of SA's favorite bits: as the hotel shuttle bus pulled up to the Disneyland entry, and other kids were excitedly pointing out the Matterhorn, Sleeping Beauty's castle, and the like, SA was delighted to find Green Cones! Yay! for green cones.

The next day we went next door, to Disney's California Adventure - I hear the plan is to change the theme more and more to the various Pixar movies. Which is just fine with us.



Unfortunately, halfway through the day, SA started complaining about a tummyache. We stubbornly made him eat his lunch and took him back to the hotel to nap it off. When he woke up, it became clear that the tummyache was just the beginning - he had the sort of bug that made leaving the hotel for any time at all a bad, bad idea.

We spent the next 4 days in San Diego mostly doing this:



By the day before departure, things were looking better - we made it to the zoo for a good hour before it became clear that we should go back to the hotel. Turtles!


And we had an excellent 10 minutes at a lovely La Jolla beach:







We did manage to find a several-hour interval where SA perked up enough to go visit some friends - but all in all, we'd like to go back and visit CA when we're not rushing back to the bathroom for another change of outfit every half hour.

3 Years Old

SA's Montana grandparents came to visit for his third birthday:

Binoculars were a big hit:

One major outing was a Cubs game:

Spring, Finally

Just some random spring photos...

Winter 2008

Winter in Chicago this year lasted roughly 20 months. You'd never know it from the number of pictures we have, though:




SA adores our tired old cat Wimsey. Wimsey is, generally speaking, not so fond of SA.



A visit to the Museum of Science and Industry - the museum has whole sections devoted to odd things like oil drilling and refining, but we mostly focus on the trains and the space industry:

Oh, and any room with a tractor is a good room:

A winter trip to Ikea:

Miscellaneous music-making:

And Easter egg dying!

Plus, lots of fun in the kitchen. Because we're always cooking around here.





Finally, winter wrapped up and we were free to go outside!