Long Grove and Pumpkins

Yesterday turned out to be a beautiful fall day. Perfect for walking around Long Grove and hitting a pumpkin patch in Lincolnshire. As you can see by the pictures. I was a rather sunny day. Almost too bright to not squint while smiling.

Long Grove was a little bit busier than normal due to OktoberFest. We checked it out but did not participate. We just enjoyed lunch at the Village Tavern and checking out a few stores. Even started Christmas shopping. It's never too early to start shopping for presents, especially when you see something and inspiration hits. After enough time walking around Long Grove we piled into the car and headed over to the pumpkin patch.

Man! was it crowed but like i said it was a beautiful day. Ready for a snack we decided first to check out the apple cider donuts. As we got in line the rumor hit us that they were out of donuts but never fear more were being made. About a half hour later we were finally sitting down enjoying hot apple cider and fresh apple cider donuts. yes! they were worth the wait.

Even had a few leftover to take home for dessert and breakfast this morning. Once we were refueled we headed out to check out the new pigs, the corn maze (we didn't do it), the hayrides (didn't do it either), and decided to head to the pumpkins. They were pretty picked through by the time we got there but after careful considerations we found just the right ones for our needs.

All in all a very beautiful fall day to be outside and with good friends.

Labor Day - part one

Steve and I were fortunate enough to not only have an extra long weekend for Labor Day but we both got the rest of the week off from work. So we packed up the car and headed to the northwoods to get away from the city. Of course you couldn't leave Chicago this summer without hitting traffic on the highways so it was a slow start. Once we got up there is was worth the trip. We had the best weather all summer, literally. It was a cool summer up north. We got up Friday in enough time to open the house and pick up pizza before my parents arrived from the city. Saturday my dad and Steve joined a neighbor for a round of golf while the ladies went in town for coffee and shopping. We cruised through Eagle River to St. Germain and stopped at our favorite place for pancakes - Wolf Pack.
Yum! it has the best plate size pancakes in the north woods. Saturday night we ended with sitting around the camp fire. It was a beautiful evening with mostly clear skies and no bugs. We even had a variety of marshmellows to choose from - original, caramel swirl, and toasted coconut. each one had to be sampled s'more style. My favorite was the original. My mom favored the toasted coconut and Steve preferred the caramel swirl. My dad at whatever you put on the end of the stick.



Sunday was another day of relaxing and boat riding. We even rescued a couple of neighbors who went out for a sail and lost their wind.

We did make it over to the farm for a couple of rides on the golf carts. Carol and Rich took us across the road to the old railroad tracks and drove us to Torch Lake. With water levels so low this year you could almost ride the carts all the way around the lake. Our golf cart was running on battery, once it got low we headed back to the farm, switched carts and Steve and I headed out again, after stopping by the apple trees for a sample and the plums trees to see if they were ready... not yet. Had another few weeks to go.

warning - objects may appear smaller than they actually are...

imagine a nice fall day. maybe a little bit cloudy. you decide to go down to the lake for a walk. you put your coat on, grab a camera just in case there is a nice view of the fall colors. You get down to the shore, turn to the left and see....

yes. this is a moose on the shores of Stormy Lake. Moose aren't known for hanging around the east part of Wisconsin. A rare site but maybe he'll hang around for a while. He may not look it but this guy weights several hundred pounds. You would not want to meet him in your car on the road. He would win.

biking and picture taking

I've found a new extreme sport for someone like me... taking pictures while biking riding. I don't mean carrying your camera and stopping to take a picture... i mean snapping pictures while you're peddling or in my case most of the time while i'm coasting. It takes a lot of balance especially if you are on a non-paved surface. It's a lot of fun and some times you get some interesting results. I took pictures on both trails last week. Here's what i got.

:)

These are from the Three Eagles trail which runs between Eagle River and Three Lakes about 8.4 miles long.

These next pictures are from the Land o' Lakes trail which also runs about 8.6 miles.
This is a picture that Steve took. I'm not sure I'm ready to try an over the shoulder shot.

Taste of Chicago

Steve and I went to the taste of Chicago this year. I haven't been in a few years, the crowd kind of gets to me. It's amazing how many people they pack in to the street. Both of us had July 3rd off. I said if we're going let's go early. it opens at 11:00. We were there by 11:05 and the crowd was already huge. it was a perfect day. warm with partly sunny skies. We started the day by walking the length of the taste. With only so many tickets in our pockets we wanted to know what was offered before we dove in. The thing that the taste has been working on bring back is the "taste portion". This is just a taste portion of the most popular dish for about half the number of tickets. We decided to only order the "taste portion" so we could get more things to eat.
The first thing we tried was onion fried green beans at O'Briens. This is one way to ruin a perfectly healthy vegetable. Cover it in flour with chopped up onion and deep fry it. Come on it's the taste, forget about eating healthy. Boy! were they good. we had to take a picture to help us remember where we bought them so we could visit that restaurant again.
We also tried some glass noodles, ice cream, grilled corn, sweet baby ray's rib sandwich (which i confess I have never had before), and two more things that i forgot because i waited so long to write this down. It was a great day. We had full stomachs and sun-burned noses to prove it.

technology

Technology is so amazing. These pictures were taken under water with a camera. A regular point-and-shoot camera. not one of those plastic covered or disposable ones. A plain old cannon digital camera that said it's water-proof up to 5 feet. of course this had to be tested...

Test site - Stormy Lake Wisconsin. I had my contact lenses in so i couldn't open my eyes, but not bad, huh?

Bike the Drive

This past Sunday was the city of Chicago's Bike the Drive. Lakeshore Drive is shut down to vehicle traffic for 6 hours and open to bicycles. You start at Grant Park and head either north or south. Steve and i entered LSD and headed south for approximately 7.5 miles to the Museum of Science and Industry to the turn around point and headed back to Grant park. The whole south route was just over 15 miles. Since I haven't been on my new bike much we stopped after 15 miles. we could have continued north to Berwyn and back for an additional 15 miles but decided to not push it. It was a perfect day to be out for a bike ride. Nice, bright, and for the trip down it wasn't very windy. We both had long sleeves on and almost didn't need them. It was quite the experience to be riding on LSD on a bike with not a car in sight. It was also an experience to be on the Red line train with 15 other bikes and riders coming into the city. i wish i had taken a picture of that. After the ride we wandered around to the various bike-related vendors to see what they were peddling. Since we started the ride at 5:45 in the morning, we were ready for breakfast. We stopped by a place on Michigan Ave and then headed home. We're already planning on doing the entire 30 miles next year.

Here we are standing in front of the museum taking a mid-ride break. enjoying a banana, mini-granola bars, and a blue energy drink.

A view looking back at the field museum. See how blue the sky was?

We stopped by McCormick Place to blow my nose and take a picture of the city. It was a good thing we stopped, when we went to take off Steve's chain fell off.

BIke

Well here it finally is my new bike.

beautiful, isn't she?

She can be a road bike or a mountain bike.

this weekend is the "Bike the Drive". A 30 or 15 miles ride on LakeShore Drive. don't worry, they kick the cars off. we'll be ok.

i'm sure i'll get some pictures of me actually on the bike.

so far my monkey butt hasn't been too bad.

Easter

A couple more Easter pictures.

Searching for Easter treats.

A couple of boys entertaining us before lunch.

Easter

It's always good to start preparing for Easter with the coloring of Easter eggs. I gave my camera to Axel to capture our coloring of the eggs.

He needs a little bit of work but not a bad photographer.

After the church service it's time to collect the eggs. It was a great day to be outside for the egg trees.

Did i take a picture of the table? Did i take a picture of the inside egg hunt? Did i take a picture of the lamb cake? actually i did but on my other camera. I just have to remember to bring in the pictures.

Happy Easter!

Shedd

A few weeks ago Steve and I went to the aquarium. We originally went the week before but the line was way too long and the weather was too nice. We ended up just walking around the museums and Navy Pier that day. The next week we tried again, this time getting their bright and early when the aquarium opened. That was the way to do it. We were almost first in line and it filled up fast. We had a great day. Watching two different feedings. Experienced a 4-D movie. Fought the crowds. It was a perfect day to be inside.

Piranha

Northern Pike

Steve fishing for lunch.

Swordfish

The main tank.

He's looking right at me. Thank Goodness for six inches of glass.

of course a few birds.
Definitely a good day to be inside.

our 3-D glasses for the 4-D movie experience.