Traditions

Every year for my dad's birthday party, we gather to make korv. My dad has become quite infamous for his cooking this year. Not only did 14 people want to come to his lutefisk lunch (willingly) but his recipe for korv is being published in a cookbook for WTTW. It's always such a fun gathering. Now that the kids are getting older, they are really getting into it... literally getting in to it. But that's what you have to do to make korv... get into it.

First birthday

December 19th was Axel's first birthday. He's not a baby any more. :(

The Saturday before my sister threw a party of him. It was mostly Ander's friends. Picture 15 kids running around. crazy! but everyone had a great time. Of course aside from opening presents the most fun is eating birthday cake. Axel started off very meticulously. Using his left hand pointer finger picked each of the individual sprinkles off before touching the cake. It did take him a few bites before he shoved the whole cupcake in his mouth destroying it. Before and after pictures.

Traditions

We added a new tradition to our Christmas eve dinner this year. A couple months ago a very good friend of my mom's passed away. My mom and a few other friends got together and decided to carry on a Christmas tradition of her family's in her honor. At the dinner table each person gets a candle. One person starts by taking the candle of the person to the right of them, lighting it, and saying a blessing for the person who the candle belongs. That person in turn takes the candle of the person to their right and repeats this. It goes around the table until all the candles are lite and each person has been blessed. It was a beautiful sight to have all the candles lite and you couldn't help but feel blessed.

counting down...

Traditions

Christmas time is full of traditions in our family. TRADITIONS! thanks Tevye. In 2000 my mom while living in Sweden picked up a new one that we have incorporated into our traditions. One of the kitchen works taught my mom about Caribou moss that they use in their Advent candle wreaths. My mom loved the way it looked. Summer 2001 driving around Eagle River, my mom spotted it - Caribou Moss. She declared she was going to have Caribou Moss in her Advent candle wreath at Christmas. That Thanksgiving weekend in the stealth of night, coming home from seeing a movie in Eagle River, we stopped at the corner of two highways, slipped out of the car, and loaded our plastics bags with the moss. My mom loved it. Not only has the tradition of having it on my parent's Advent wreath, my mom and I have the tradition of finding it every year. After a couple years of digging it out of the snow and frost at Thanksgiving, we discovered it's around all summer long. Now we gather it around labor day and let it dry until Thanksgiving before we bring it back to Chicago. This year we did pick a little bit extra at Thanksgiving. So here's me all bundled up gathering moss for my mom. I also included a close up shot of the moss. After the weekend, I'll have the Advent set-up.





Caribou Moss -
Cladonia rangifernia
Lichens are unusual plants in that they are composed of both algae and fungi cells.
Caribou moss is a light-colored, fruticose lichen that grows in well-drained, open environments. AS the common names suggest, caribou moss and reindeer lichen are important food of that species.

Thanksgiving

Every year we go to my Aunt Dorothy's in Green Bay for Thanksgiving. This short-changes my parents on the turkey leftovers. My mom makes Thanksgiving for us, so she and my dad can eat turkey soup. Here's Anders eating pumpkin pie and Axel eating mashed potatoes.

disappointment

I was already to kick off my holiday season with the family-friendly comedy Fred Claus this past weekend. I did listen to the reviews before work on Friday. they were average. I knew not to expect too much but i was still disappointed. I wanted to laugh. i chuckled a couple of times but it was way to serious. Santa was on edge and shaky almost the whole movie. Fred had some funny moments but they were over shadowed by the seriousness of the main story. Not the best way to start a jolly holly holiday... nor a good way to end a long week. On to the Festival of Lights parade this weekend. Mickey and Minnie will be there, so it should be a bit more up beat than Fred Claus.

"these are a few of my favorite things..."

One of my favorite things about Chicago... on a nice crisp day the wind blowing from the west straight down the river envelopes you lightly in a chocolate fragrance. it comes from the last remaining candy factory in Chicago. it's almost the only thing that makes waiting for the bus enjoyable.

p.s. another favorite thing is the Christmas lights. they are starting to put them on the trees for the Festival of Lights parade on November 17.

one minute of fame

Here's my one minute of fame. I submitted a fall picture to the on-line Tribune yesterday. Today at 4:00 I went on to the main page and low and behold there was my picture. the feature picture of the moment under "Seeing Color?". :) I'm assuming it will continue to be in the gallery for a few days.

The turtle, the witch and the dragon...

The turtle is going after the pumpkins... watch out pumpkins!

The turtle, the witch and the dragon...

ooo! the scary dragon is wearing the witch's hat.

The turtle, the witch and the dragon...

Happy Halloween! Yesterday I was able to slip out of work early to have dinner with my nephews. Aren't they cute? Anders picked out both costumes.

Christmas

The holiday season is fast approaching.
I'm ready for the new holiday movies to kick-off to the season.
:)

The weekend

A few more random pictures from "the weekend." :)

The weekend

talk about someone walking in your footsteps...

The weekend

Earlier this month the Cubs thwarted my weekend plans to go to the Cranberry Fest in Eagle River, then they go and get swept out of the post season too quick. I'm not bitter about this (yah right). I missed taking the days off. The first thought is just take a day off of work. The more I thought about it the more i wanted to get away. I decided to head up north. I looked at my calendar at home, then at work. There really was only one weekend to choose. I took a half day on Friday to drive up. I prefer to drive in the day when I'm by myself. This also gave me time to stop at the outlet malls in Oshkosh. One of my more favorite places to stop along the way. :) I had three full, beautiful, peaceful days all to myself before thinking about packing and driving home on the fourth day. I highly recommend this.

Saturday - did not set the alarm clock. It didn't matter when I got up. It was a beautiful day. Started out with breakfast, like most days but most days I do not sit at a table with this view.

After breakfast, I went down to the lake. Beautiful and peaceful. Read my book for most of the morning before heading into town. I was on a mission. I had a few places to go. One important place was the Brew Moon for lunch. I wanted to order the chicken-craisin-walnut salad wrap. It's so good and I want write the ingrediants down to try to re-create the salad. When i got into town I stopped by two other shops first and just made it. I was the last person they served lunch to that day. Yum! just as good as I remembered. A few more stops on the way back to the lake. I spent the evening knitting and watching the extended version of the Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring.

Sunday - I went nowhere and saw pretty much no one. it's very nice to not have to be any where or do anything. I went for a walk. This was the only human contact I had, the people in the vehicles passing me on the road. There were five of them. Sat by the lake and ate my lunch. Wasn't quite as nice as the day before but it didn't matter to me. It was so peaceful. The only sounds were the fish jumping and an occasional car driving down a road unseen from the lake.

The evening was more knitting and watching the extended version of the Lord of the Rings - Two Towers... and a couple episodes of the Young Riders over dinner and a fire in the fire place.

Monday - I didn't get to all the stores I wanted to on Saturday so after a morning walk, I drove into town. I did stop for a cup of coffee at the Eagle River Roasters. My favorite coffee place. A hot non-fat raspberry mocha. yum! Back to the lake for reading time at the lake. Again it was cool but didn't matter to me. It was so peaceful. Since I had my camera I thought it would be fun to try to take a picture of me relaxing. This was not easy. Between trying to focus and timing the shot it was far from relaxing. This was the best I could do.

Looks relaxing, doesn't it? If you look real close you'll see how fuzzy I am. I'm sure if there was someone around to see me, they would have gotten a good laugh. The day ended similar to the previous, a few episodes of Young Riders and the final extended version of the Lord of the Rings - Return of the King. In-between my tv watching, I did run out and snap a few pictures of the beautiful evening. The last peaceful one I would have.

To the west the sun was setting. To the east the moon was raising over the lake. nice. :)

Tuesday - Not really worth mentioning. Sleeping-in, packing, and driving. The get-away was over. how sad.

Why did i come back?

Since i didn't make it north last weekend like planned, here are a few pictures from last year. By the time i get up there in a few weeks all the leaves will be gone. These are pictures from the farm. The really old chicken coop, before my time. The corn planter which was from my time but doesn't look like it from this picture. When I was little it was my job to open and close the seed container as we went up and down the rows and as we turned the corners.

HH

It's October. Happy Halloween!

Cubs

This was taken on my phone just hours after the Cubs clinched the division title.

cell phones

Cell phones are truly amazing. Here's a picture of Nancy and me taken with Nancy's cell phone a while back in the bleacher seats at Wrigley Field. I'm not going to tell you the date of the game because it took us a while to figure out how to send the file and format it properly. :)

Not bad for a cell phone camera?

Is this the year?

My favorite thing said to me this week about the Cubs making the playoffs.
"Laurie, I heard this is the year for the Cubs. you know why?... The goat was spotted hanging out in Solider Field."

Brett

Before I get carried away with the Cubs, I must send props out to Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers. Need there be more proof he's the best quarterback ever?

Rally Monday

In 2004 MLB declared the Monday after the regular season as "Rally Day". this gives the winning teams a day for a rally. Sounds like fun. So what do you do when your team has already arrived at their playoff city. Well I'll tell you what they do... you invited all the old players, the Mayor, the Governor, and have video clips of a few players saying hi with Wayne Messmer leading the way. The best part is a few thousand people in the middle of the city singing the National Anthem, Take me out to the ball game and Go Cubs Go! Definitely lots of fun. I can't wait for the next rally, the day after the Cubs win the NLCS.

Central Division

Believe or not the Cubs did it. Central Division Champs of 2007.

There will be baseball in Chicago in October.

GO Cubs GO!

Sunday's Cubs game

As a cubs fan over the years you come to hate, even loath the Atlanta Braves tomahawk chop. However it was a beautiful site sunday at the game. The Milwaukee Brewers were playing the Braves. The Braves kicked butt. As the scoreboard was updated with the score eruptions of cheering and tomahawking broke out in the stands. A quote from a Cub captures it nicely, "I hate the tomahawk chop," Cubs reliever Scott Eyre said, "but it was pretty cool to see it in our stadium." I tried to capture it on film. Not as easy.

September 22

This is the final weekend of home games for the Cubs. Can't ask for better weather or a better game. Cubs - 9 and Pirates - 5.

golf carting...

My dad's cousins who own the farm have a wacky idea of fun. They have purchased two golf carts and made trails all around the farm and through the woods. The trails are super bumpy and you need to watch out for branches. They zip along faster than i knew a golf cart could go. It's insane, hysterical and loads of fun. My dad prefers a smoother ride on his ATV to the bumpy golf cart.

The barn

My grandparent's barn in Northern Wisconsin. My dad and his cousin have slowly been re-storing it to what it originally looked like. It's almost done. New windows, even added the one in the peak, which was covered years ago. New paint job. New roof. Isn't it beautiful?

Before and after shots of felting

My new knitting projects. Felting bowls and purses.

being a Cubs fan...

The great Chicago Tribune writer Mike Royko once said:
"I always believed that being a Cubs fan built strong character. It taught a person that if you try hard enough and long enough, you'll still lose. And that's the story of life."

can u canoe?

Talk about last minute.

2:45 on Friday i was coming home from Target. 3:45 on Friday i was in a Ann-Marie's car on my way to Wisconsin for the weekend. How fun! it was a great relaxing weekend.