Beautiful Nauvoo

After living in Illinois for over a year we finally found a weekend to visit Nauvoo! Despite the 90 degree heat and the bugs, we loved our time there. We traded off watching Ethan so we could each attend the temple there, which was a lovely experience. There's certainly a sweet feeling in that town where so many people sacrificed so much for the Lord they loved.

Sterling with his ancestor, William Clayton's, gun. At the printing press. If I'd lived in Nauvoo, this would have been my job!

The enormous praying mantis on our car the next morning.

At the Land and Records Office searching our ancestors' plots of land. Sterling and I had ancestors who were neighbors!

The riverbank where the wagons were launched when the saints finally had to leave their beautiful home.

"Trail of Hope" leading to the Mississippi River.

Oxen Duke and Dawn honored us with a wagon ride. Ethan did not enjoy it.

Girl's Camp 2010!

Our neighbor, the snake. He spent a lot of time in the bathroom, but at night he and a friend came to join us in our cabin. We had a rat, too. Way to live up the wilderness experience!

I loved the wholesome Wisconsin air so much that I hiked all afternoon my second day there. You gotta love going to Girls Camp as a leader! I got to be bossy at bedtime and irritatingly cheerful in the morning (I belted "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" to wake up the girls--bwah-haha!), help a little here and there with classes, and still hang-out with my adorable girls and enjoy all the odd/funny camp moments first-hand (I even painted my fingernails green in support of our group whose mascot was the Green Giant--not my idea...). It was hot, buggy, snakey, and ratty, but I had a great time!

The News!

Sterling has been offered a position in Atlanta! Much as we love Chicago and have enjoyed living here, this position will be SO much better for us (it's a real actuarial position), and we're looking forward to living close to family. Ethan and I leave on September 1st, (Sterling's driving our stuff down a few days later with his dad) and there's so much to do before then!!!

Biking in Michigan

So as not to live a too sequestered life in boring ol' Chicago (wink), we decided to jump ship for an afternoon in July and do a family bike ride in Michigan. Our bikes weren't exactly ideal for our 8-mile trek, but mine did have a basket (which I placed my camera in because you must have something in your bike basket!) and both came complete with bells! (Plus, the town was proud to boast that it was the home of Prancer the movie. What luck!) We loved it, Ethan hated it, and now I know that southern Michigan looks exactly like Illinois.

103 Stories High!

Our Chicago Bucket List is slowly getting shorter. On Saturday we finally went to the SkyDeck at the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower. We paid $30 dollars to wait in a two-hour line (no one told us it would be so long) where we were herded like cattle in dark, hot rooms, spent a whopping 10 minutes looking down on the city, but did get these pretty cool shots. One part of the floor is glass and actually juts out of the side of the building so you can see straight down from the highest man-made point in the United States. Ethan was fearless! The verdict? Not worth it if you have a toddler, but an interesting experience nonetheless!

This is your brain ; this is your brain on drugs.

I wonder if the brilliant minds who brought us the frying egg PSA in the mid-nineties had any clue how much of an impact they would have. Granted, I'm not sure how much of the non-sober society has been influenced by the snap, crackle, pop of TV's most famous burning yoke, but if I may speak for the sober part of the population, I feel the catch-phrase: "This is your brain," etc. was quite a creation. It, among other things, has kept me off drugs so way to go, yolk people!

Not once, but twice today I had people whose brains were scrambled with cheese approach not me, but Ethan and: 1. Offer him money, and 2. Tell my 15-month-old (there was no eye contact with me--the adult) all about someone she was "really pissed at"...aaaand I could make out no other word after that. The first guy was on the train with waaaay too much alcohol on his breath, among other things, and the woman, much to my chagrin, boarded the very slow-moving elevator with me at the train stop. (Gotta love city elevators. When you're longing for a good, strong whiff of someone else's urine, those things never fail to disappoint!) Basically, there was no getting away from the fried egg weirdos. I love public transportation. I love Chicago...
I want to move.

For Rent

I am constantly on the lookout for someplace to live. I am not homeless, I am not desperate, but I am always looking. My last trimester of pregnancy was filled with hours, and I mean HOURS of online scavenging to find us somewhere to live in Chicago. Seriously, in my mind the words December, January, February, March of 2009 are almost synonymous with words like: gut rehab, updated kitchen, in-building laundry (pay), close to transportation, free credit check, some utilities included, and great location!. To this day these words parade across my brain like some strange song I dreamed up and can't get out of my head in the morning. It doesn't end. I've continued looking since the day we moved here.

Last May we found a beautiful new condo complete with every amenity we had dreamed of: dishwasher, washer/dryer, central air, covered parking, elevator, right beside an 'El' stop (also with an elevator--very important for mommies with strollers), I'm talking the works! The rent per month was at the top of our budget, but it worked for us, and considering we had one afternoon (and I mean ONE afternoon) to ( in person) find a place to live in a city we'd never visited before (Sterling had visited downtown as a kid, but nowhere else, and since we're not: A). Millionaires or B). Willing to live in a cramped studio last renovated in 1975 while still paying $1600/month, real estate downtown was a no-go for us), I'd say we got a superb deal for the money.

But we're itching for a change. The apartment has been great for a year, but there are little things like windows without screens that open out instead of up, and I have terrifying visions of smart Ethan climbing on a chair at 2 years old, opening the easily-opened window and...I don't even want to write the rest. Plus the hall carpets are always stained, the management is very hard to get a hold of, we're on a very busy street with a 15% visibility (thanks to the hoards of cars perpetually parked on the sides), left-hand turn out of the building which sometimes can take several minutes to make...blah, blah, blah, I sound pretty spoiled and fickle. We're just not feeling this place anymore, ok?! The biggest factor, really, is that with a rent like ours it's becoming very difficult to put any substantial amount of money into savings for a house in the future. And even though so many people in this city seem to be perfectly content to rent, rent, rent, rent, rent, rent, DIE---I'd like to BUY before I die, thank you very much.

And so I'm attracted to "For Rent" signs like a moth to a light, like a dog to a hydrant, like a pregnant lady to pickles, like a....you get the idea. Walking towards a rental sign feels frighteningly like an addiction. I tell myself, "This building isn't on a great street, it doesn't have A/C...and yet I have to get a closer look and even write the phone number down. That odd song starts ringing in my head again, the verses becoming longer: one month rent deposit, street parking available, contact Hal for info...actually, would you excuse me? I have to call someone about a rental I saw today. It's "in a great location!"