Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The Livin' is Easy



The Mets finished up their season in the semi-finals, almost (so close!) beating the undefeated Rockies.  In the end, they lost 10-9, but it was still a great season.

And July has been, well, hot.  But as it turns out, we live less than a block from a wonderful little ice cream shop.






On the 4th, I gave the kids a choice: either we could go to the little local parade (in 100+ degree weather) or we could ride the train downtown to see my office.  They opted for the train/office combination.  Actually, I sweetened option b even more: we rode the green line downtown, switching trains to get to the office, and then rode the Metra home.  All very exciting - and we spent a couple hours having a "picnic" in the air conditioned office kitchen, and the kids ran around in circles while I did a bit of work and surfed the internet.

It seems kind of, um, lame.  But dang! it was hot out.  This little heat wave seemed less bad than the summer of 1995, but I think that's because I live in an air conditioned house and work in a freezing office, versus in '95 I was wrapping freezer-packs in towels and sleeping with them because the little fan in my apartment did nothing.

On the way to the train station:




And later, with water balloons and sparklers (note: we need to get out west for the 4th one of these years.  Illinois fireworks are a bit pointless.)







Also this month: a trip out to Morton Arboretum, where we picnicked and played until we all overheated and fled by air conditioned minivan.














Otherwise, the kids have mostly been keeping cool by spraying each other with water...




One note: you can kind of see my tomato plants up above.  I planted 3 tomato plants, and I'm very proud of them (I don't want to imply that I grew them from seeds or anything: the pre-grown containers one acquires at Home Depot are quite sufficiently green-thumby for me.)  They are taking over everything else in the (small) flower bed, and are filled with green tomatoes!  I imagine a huge crop is imminent.

After spraying his brother with a water gun for a while, Teddy crawled up into my lap, and 5 minutes later I realized he was gone.  Giving up naps is rough.