Canada Collage

A few pics from our trip to Toronto and Niagara Falls ...

Dr. Frankencookie

Jason is the Tim Burton of Christmas cookies.

Natural Beauty

A yellow-rumped warbler is hanging out on the ledges of the herbarium windows this morning. He or she has been chirping, pooping, pooping, chirping on them since about 8. It is now 9:30. I got very close to the window and watched her until she flew away; she’s come back a few times since.

In consequence, all the electrons in my body have gone crazy-wild with excitement. My brain is filled with curiosity and awe. What a feeling! And the best part: it’s going to last for hours. One little bird! I guess the things I find most beautiful and special in the world reside in nature….

But there is one exception:

Whenever I’m with Kelly, similar feelings tend to arise in me. She is the first, and only, person to achieve such a distinct level of my admiration. Some people call their significant others angels from heaven. Kelly is not an angel from heaven. She is an angel from God’s green earth, as unique and beautiful as anything Mother Nature has ever come up with.

Brews Brothers

Went to the Two Brothers Microbrew, Warrenville's best kept secret. The place is buried in a weirdly placed office park, no sign out front, only the beer trucks and the grain silo give it away (and the fact that our friends Jamie and Joel called to tell us what to look for). It was a good time. Had a delish lunch followed by a brewery tour where Joel asked weird questions like "Have you ever had a stuck sparge?" and afterwards we tasted. Kelly's favorite was the Avalon, more of a hard apple cider. I think Jason liked the Domaine DuPage best, but he can correct me. The brews mostly had neat local-sounding names. I asked our guide what you need to become a brewmaster, and he said, "A lot of money." Very interesting tour.

Geneva Christmas Walk

We met up with Jamie and Joel for dinner at Old Town then went to the annual Geneva Christmas walk. It was so cold that we saw a polar bear migrating south. All the shops were open late. We tried cinnamon roll and cranberry tea from the new tea shop in town. And we snagged some roasted chestnuts. I had to get an explanation of how to eat them (good thing, because I wouldn't have known you're supposed to peel them). We went and checked out the holiday tree in front of the courthouse and met up with Scott and Kim.

Then we headed directly the Graham's for the highlight -- candy cane pull. We obsessively watched the entire process, which probably for the most part involved staring at a giant lump of molten sugar while it cooled to just the right temperature. We got to try some of the wares, hot off the press. The video below is funny because you can hear people speculating about what the candymen are doing. The dude in the white coat is basically pulling the candy about a zillion times on a humongous hook mounted on the wall. We figure this is what gives candy canes their distintive satiny texture. Then they take this lump, stick green and red stripes on it, and you get this huge candy cane that's the size and thickness of a loaf of bread. Then they stretch it, which looks like the fun part.

We caught the very tale end of the live nativity (basically the cast walking back into the church), but there was in fact a pony. Sweet. And then we hit a few shops, the most fun being the Little Traveler, in which Kelly got lost.

Book Signing, Chalk Drawings, Turkey, Spoons, Dim Sum

The Saturday after Thanksgiving. I went to pick up Jason at his first book signing gig. It was at the Geneva Historical Society. When I arrived I got the most handsome author there to sign a book of his own poetry, gushing the entire time how much I loved his poetry. The author asked me out on a date. Jason did not get jealous, because this was of course him. I arrived a little early and Jason suggested I go for a little walk up and down the main drag of Geneva, to see some interesting chalk drawings on the sidewalk. Apparently during the night someone had come and written anti-commercialism messages on the sidewalks in pink chalk. Many of them had been erased, but they left "Love is Free" and "Save the Planet -- Save Your Money".

From there we drove to my aunt and uncle's house in Lansing where we Thanksgiving-ed with my dad's rather large and boisterous family. The night ended with the family tradition of playing spoons around the super long table in the basement. There were minimal injuries this year, though one person did leap over the table and do a nose-dive to grab a spoon off the floor that had fallen.

Then on Sunday we went to Chicago to meet up with some old/new friends. Kelly got reconnected with an old high school friend using Facebook, and we met up with her and her husband in the city. We got a "This Old House" style tour of their historic home that they are in the process of restoring, met their two sweet cats, and headed to Chinatown. We had Dim Sum for the first time, Sara's husband leading us through the ordering of delicious dumplings and such including the mysterious "shark fin" flavored ones, and then got a taste of Pearl Tea with tapioca pearls, yum. Sara and Brooke also introduced us to their Wii. Jason won boxing Kelly, and she thought the pain of losing would be the end of it, but the next day her arms hurt a heck of a lot. A good time was had by all.

Life is Good

Rascal skascal enjoying his freedom after Kelly had to leave town for work. He just loves having the whole apartment to himself!

P.S. - Come home soon Kelly, we both miss you. :)