mark and kat

we’ve decided to start a new blog with blogger.  all future posts can be found at  http://citizensofnewsalem.blogspot.com/.  we feel like we may have committed to wordpress too soon so now we are going to play the field.  if our new relationship with blogger doesn’t work out, we’ll be back here to our reliable, but not very customizable, wordpress blog.  hasta luego

We went to see a Tilly and the Wall concert with Kelli and Tyson on Wednesday night.  They were a fun band.  We might have liked it a little more if we hadn’t had to wait until almost midnight for them to take the stage.  I think the best part was the girl that tap danced on stage the entire concert.  

I’m still not quite sure what was going on, but there was a camera set up at the concert and people were jumping around getting action shots.  I was a little hesitant at first, but it was free and jumping into weird poses for the cameral turned out to be a lot of fun.  If you want to see more of these silly shots and some of the most horrible faces I think I may have ever made caught by camera, click here.

For the first time since moving and leaving our vehicles parked in Utah I thought, “Man I’m glad I don’t have a car here.”… so I don’t have to worry about this happening to it during wild thunder storms with tornado warnings. 

After hours of explosive thunder, wild wind, and heavy rain last night, our neighborhood was a little beat up.  This is what we found just around the corner on the way to work.  I couldn’t even walk on the side walk in a some places because there were so many tree branches and debris on the path.  I feel so bad for the owners of the minivan.  I hope their insurance will help them out.

My cousin Sarah , her husband Chris, and their dog Ruby are living in Michigan this summer and they were nice enough to pick us up in Chicago and take us on a weekend trip to Nauvoo.  We went to the temple and the pageant and took a drive around Historic Nauvoo.  We had a great time and we want to thank Chris and Sarah again for making the trip possible! 

Mark and me in front of the beautiful Nauvoo temple

Sarah, me, and Ruby’s backside right before the pageant began (you can also see a really cute little girl dressed up like a pioneer with a little white bonnet on the left)

i thought everyone might enjoy taking this test. 

i don’t see anything but a circle. what about you?

i’ve been made fun of enough at jobs, shopping trips, and other times in my life for discerning color, so i guess this at least makes it official: i am colorblind.

It seems like it always rains on the weekends here, but we took a gamble and bought our tickets for the architecture river boat tour a week in advance, and we definitely lost that bet.  We have been looking forward to doing this tour since we moved to Chicago, so we didn’t let the rain discourage us from sitting on the top level of the boat so we could get the best view of all the incredible buildings found here. 

As you can see from all the empty seats, not many people wanted to brave the weather for the view, although we did have some other people join us up top a little while into the cruise.  I learned a lot about Chicago and saw the city from a different perspective that I loved.  Chicago is world-famous for it’s architecture and I’m glad we’ve been able to see some of it even though I was distracted a bit by the docent that was narrating our tour.  He was an older man with sagging cheeks wearing a big hooded rain jacket and he totally reminded me of the Emperor from Star Wars. 

Here’s a shot Mark got of the River City complex by Goldberg

After 90 minutes on the top of that boat everything except our head and shoulders was soaking wet and we were cold, but then we found an unexpected treasure in the middle of July.  

Duncin Donuts Milky Way hot chocolate.  It was so delicious that I might even drink it when it’s 90 degrees, sunny, and humid.

we have really enjoyed living in chicago for a number of reasons. one of them is the variety and diversity that we see everyday. within a ten mile radius of our place we can find such great things as:

1. large groups of police busting people (i apologize for the bad photo, but i was looking out our front window and didn’t exactly want to draw attention to myself).

2. a random restaurant full of one of my favorite chairs (chair one by grcic)

3. one of the best gummy candies ever

4. and endless beautiful barcelona chairs in nameless downtown buildings for everyone to enjoy. 

so, we find life pretty interesting here. and we haven’t even gotten to the unbelievable architecture and other great things to see.

…go to some tiny tourist town most people have never heard of somewhere on the west coast.  (this year it was Solvang, a Danish town about 20 miles away from Santa Barbara, Ca.)…

…usually around the 4th of July (hence, the I love America shirt in these two photos)… 

…and constantly proclaim about the utter cuteness of these guys…

…spend hours at the pool with me getting sunburned since I can’t seem to put sunscreen on evenly and it’s about my first time in the sun since last year’s vacation…

…hang out at the beach and play pickle ball…

…seek some sort of wheeled thrill (I won’t subject you to the video of going downhill in this thing because my shrieks and Will’s laughter might pierce your ear drums)…

…and follow Daddy D on a pretty nature hike.

Sounds like a pretty great formula for fun, relaxation, and good old family togetherness time.  I wish we could have stayed for the whole vacation, but we enjoyed the time we were able to spend there.  I love my family!

although we were repeatedly warned against attending the ‘taste of chicago,’ we made it downtown in search of some tasty local food. the crowds were thick, but they kept things interesting (think ’state fair’ caliber, but more alcohol and a lot of food). we had a great time with friends, and i think our favorite was the frozen cheesecake on a stick. 

it may not have been the best decision, but tyson and i just couldn’t turn down the turkey legs. 

if you want to look like you’re wearing white gloves all the time . . . 

you should probably get something similar to this . . . 

then put some gloves on and ride in the sun for about 9 hours. worked for me.