Hanging out in Elk Grove Village, IL

We were supposed to go to Legoland today. When I looked more closely, our coupon was for "after 3 pm" only, and we would have needed to pick Matt up from work by 5, so we didn't end up going. We've been once before and, with as much time as we spend in this part of Chicago, we know we'll get a chance to go again, but I still felt bad about messing up our plans. The kids handled it much better. This morning we hung out in our hotel room drawing, playing Uno, and reading. We walked over to Quiznos for lunch and then went to the pool/exercise rooms. Riley has started the Couch to 5 K running program that I've been doing, so he went ahead and did week1, day 2 on the treadmill. After that, everyone went swimming. Maya loves floating around underwater in her goggles just watching the water moving. She learned, by accident at first, to do underwater front and back flips today and was so excited about that! Seth's learning to swim a bit but still doesn't like water in his face or ears at all!

When Matt gets home from work, we're going to eat and then to the Lego store. Also need to find some crickets to feed Riley's gecko and replace her warming light. The bulb went out as soon as we got here, so we've been keeping our hotel room very warm. Tomorrow afternoon we head to Columbus, OH and the kids & I will be going to COSI there on Thursday. After that, we head to FLORIDA!!!

Maya working on a portrait of me

Morning Snapshot

Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters

Morning Snapshot

Uno

Morning snapshot

Playing & singing

Morning Snapshot

This morning: drawing

Running

Today was day 2 of week 4 for me in the Couch to 5K running plan. My neighborhood is still very snowy, so I went to the local park and arboretum, where the roadways and some of the walking trails were clear. Hoping to take everyone with me to walk there tomorrow morning before we leave for Chicago because it was just beautiful there in the snow!

By day 3 of next week, I'll jog 20-minutes straight with no walking break. I can hardly imagine that, because I'm really ready for that walking break by the end of the 5-minute jog. I'm trying to remind myself that I felt that way about a 60-second jog the first week and trust that it will all flow as I come to it.

Week 4 running playlist

Warm up song: East to the West by Michael Franti

3-minute jog: Lose Yourself by Eminem

90-second walk: Back Against the Wall by Circle Jerks

5-minute jog: Hello Bonjour by Michael Franti

2 1/2-minute walk: Lost Colors by Firehose

3-minute jog: Tubthumping by Chumbawumba

90-second walk: In the Ocean Blue from Charlie the Unicorn

5-minute walk: Hey-Ya by Outkast

Cool Down: I loop back to East to the West, Hello Bonjour, and then the birds singing!

Sweet dreams

Shark's Story Time

Riley's been playing around in his old Halloween costume from a couple of years ago. Mostly they were doing SNL "Candygram" stuff, but here I caught of picture of them trying to placate the shark by reading him board books.

Avatar and Krohn

Last week we went to see the imaginary other-world beauty of Avatar 3D and afterward went to the Krohn Conservatory in Cincinnati to see the real-world beauty growing there.
I love that first step inside the conservatory from the parking lot, especially on a grey winter day: the wet, earthy smell, the warmth, the humidity, and all the beautiful greenness! My camera lens steamed up as soon as we stepped inside.

Maya, perched and hissing like the Na'vi girl in Avatar.

An unexpected connection back to the movie. The 2nd paragraph of the sign says, "Beginning in AD 1492, Native American populations were reduced by warfare, disease, and starvation as invaders from overseas displaced the Indians from their ancestral lands."

In case you can't read that flag, that is Mount "Jason Voorhees" that my young horror movie fan made.

Playing in the jungle

Pretending to fly through the jungle on a butterfly (again inspired by the movie)

Reading about the chocolate tree & the "food of the gods" and thinking about plans for the next movie we want to see about some other gods: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

Breathing in that little bit of paradise one more time before heading back outside to the cold air and the concrete jungle.

Having a girl's day at the zoo with Maya, who wanted to visit the meerkats