Chicago Activites, Day 2

Day two of our adventure in Chicago included two primary events: a visit to the highest point in Illinois and an outing for the boys to historic Wrigley field to take in our first Major League Baseball game. The girls went shopping.  Some would consider that another major event, I guess. 

The top of the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower is 2325 feet above sea level, 1730 feet above street level, and visible from almost anywhere in the city.  After passing through security and winding our way through the crowd-control maze in the basement, we took the express elevator to the 103rd floor observation deck.  That's not quite 2000 feet above sea level, but it still feels pretty high.

See the little bumps sticking out of the side of the tower, way up top? Keep those in mind for later.

The Pandemonium Fam, looking east over downtown and Lake Michigan.

The Spambanana crew, looking west out over the 'burbs. And yes, that is a glass floor they are standing on. Remember the bumps on the outside of the building? Those are 'Skyboxes', big Plexiglas boxes that stick right out of the side of the building. Really cool.

Some people are quite nervous about stepping out into apparent thin air and looking straight down to the street below.  Paxton and Anthony have no such fear.

After lunch we grabbed the Red Line subway to the Near North where we shoved the girls and the stroller out of a very crowded train car to begin their shopping spree and then continued on to Wrigley Field. There we negotiated a very crowded street and a very crowded stadium and climbed and climbed to our seats just as ump hollered "Play ball!" Here's what we saw.

Sam was able to get tickets that put us near the top of the upper deck, looking right down the first-base line. We relaxed in the shade with a breeze at our back, the lake in the background, and enjoyed the atmosphere of the classic American sport. That's what I did anyway. Kenrick and Anthony and Cooper were so excited they hardly sat at all. The ladies behind us didn't mind.

The Cubs were playing game two of a four-game, mid-season series with Philadelphia. Not that we really cared - it was just fun to be there. Although Kenrick is showing signs of becoming a die-hard Cubs fan.

Kenrick and Cooper took pictures of almost every pitch, hoping to catch just the right moment. This one's not bad. See the ball between the pitcher and the batter?

Oh yeah, the Cubs won 4 to 3. Go Cubs!

After the game we reconnected with the girls and made our way out of the city, fighting traffic the whole way, tired but happy to be with excellent family at the end of another excellent adventure.

Chicago Activites, Day 1

Last week Sam and Shanna put together an epic road trip that included a week in the Prairie.  Naturally, we had to take them out of the prairie and into the big city for a few days of gawking and walking. Since we took too many pictures to put on one post, I'm going to try to break our adventure up by days. Here's the first.

Or more precisely, the night before the first day, in which the three boys drive Sam and I nuts in the car on the way up downtown by being, well, nuts.

Thursday morning finds us in the "City of Broad Shoulders", surrounded by dizzying tallness.  Kenrick takes a dizzy picture of the second tallest building in America, the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

To get where you are going in Chicago, take the "L". L stands for elevated. As in the CTA's elevated train and subway rapid transit system famous for its noise, crowds, and not being so rapid sometimes. Some of the tracks are raised above the city streets, some of the routes go under the city, some start under and pop up to the surface as they get away from the city, all of them are color coded, and all of them are commonly called the 'L'. Confused?  Let's ask these folks standing on the Red Line platform, they seem to know where they are going.

A quick trip under the city brings us to the south side of downtown and a short walk to our first destination, the Alder Planetarium. We briefly get distracted by a crowd of sculpted walking leg things...

How much further, Anthony?  We should have taken the bus.

Finally! The Pandemonium crew is almost worn out and it isn't even noon yet.

Spambanana looking sharp with the skyline in the background.

The planetarium was really neat.  We watched "Journey To The Stars" in the big sky dome theater, pretended to be astronauts, looked at telescopes and models, and generally twisted or pushed every knob, lever, and button in the place.  Kenrick checks out a small model of the Solar System.

Paxton and I check out a beautiful old telescope.

After the Planetarium, Andrea and I made our way back to the hotel with the littlest ones and Sam and Shanna bravely herded the rest of the crew onto the Blue Line to O'Hare to meet Auntie Sally. Everyone was very happy to see her.

Supper was pizza, of course. It's kind of hard to get a table for ten at one of the most popular pizza joints in the city. We did it. We stuffed ourselves.

How about a walk to let the pizza settle? The route back down Michigan Ave takes us over the Chicago River and one of the many working drawbridges in the city. Kenrick took a picture

Final stop of the day is Millennium Park and its collection of art and culture. You haven't visited Chicago until you've had your picture taken next to "The Bean".

There happened to be a free concert going on while we were there. The band shell? Impressive. The band? Not so much.

We also had to walk on the wiggly bridge, another one of Frank Gehry's creations at the park.

Finally, a walk through the wading pool and the giant face projections that occupy the west edge of the park on our way back to the hotel. The guy looks like I feel.  Whew!

Try-Athletes

I'm happy to report that our ragtag team successfully completed its first ever Olympic distance triathlon. My brother and sister came to visit last week and, just in case we couldn't find enough to do between a trip up to Chicago, the Balloon Festival and the Pandemonium Family Field Day, we decided to enter the Evergreen Tri as a sibling team. Our name: Fat, Dumb and Happy. Our goal: Finish.

I swam. Slowly. It was the first time I'd attempted a 1500 meter swim in the open water and I had to do it without the extra floatation of my wetsuit/security blanket, but I did the whole distance without stopping and finished in under 45 minutes.  That makes me Happy.

Sam rode 40 km on my bike. His rigorous training schedule consisted of riding no more than ten miles no more than once a week on his mountain bike, so he was pumped and ready to go. But he finished faster than his arbitrarily targeted pace of 18 mph and that made him Happy.

Sally ran. By the time she started her 10 km run the thermometer was flirting with the hottest day of the year and her fellow runners, most of whom had just completed the swim and bike parts of the tri, were slogging along at a not-so-Olympic pace. She slogged along with them and finished with her slowest run of the year. Oh well, she's still Happy.

Here's the crew, happy to be fat, not nearly as smart as we look.

Fade To Pink, Part 2

You might recall a previous post about impending pinkness in the Pandemonium Place that I promised to finish at a later date.  Well, here it finally is.

We left Part 1 with bare walls and an open ceiling with a frigid breeze whistling through the eves.  We got the wallboard and insulation up as soon as possible and that made a huge difference.

Notice the snow on the ground outside the window.

The former closet looks a little better.  Just the right size for a crib, don't you think? I thought so too, even measured twice and carefully cut back the little bench where the stairwell ceiling angles down so the crib would fit. But I forgot to allow for the baseboard. Didn't fit! Oops.

Paxton loves to paint.  He even got some on the walls.

Progress! There's the pink. And some green. Lettuce and Flamingo, to be precise.  All carefully chosen to match the crib sheets, of course. Floor by IKEA.

A little trim work and some custom shelving finishes it off. Oh, and the crib does fit? Only after shortening it an inch and giving it a couple solid kicks to wedge it in. I'm not sure how we'll get it out.

The other half of the room is Andrea's workshop, complete with IKEA table and IKEA shelves and IKEA chair and IKEA rug and IKEA baskets and IKEA...

These windows haven't looked this good for a hundred years!

Girl stuff.

Our little princess, plotting pandemonium, not even dressed in pink! Welcome to the Palace, princess.

Yummy!

Open your mouth Anya, you aren't going to get more by sucking on the spoon!

Now, Where Was I?

So, the lack of posts lately certainly hasn't been because of a lack of activity.  Why is it that the times you most want to record for posterity are precisely the times that you have none to spare?  Or energy.

Anyway, we've been busy.  And my little boys are growing up.  The other evening we were at Cliff and Mary's for some Ultimate Frisbee and Kenrick succeeded in out-sprinting me to the corner of the end zone to haul in a fine pass for a touchdown.  It seemed like every time I turned around he was zipping from one end of the field to the next, half the time with the Frisbee.  Anthony played too.  We had to remind him a couple of times that he's supposed to stand still when he has the Frisbee, but otherwise he did really well.  Ultimate is the kind of game where you can bend the rules a little for the kids, but can still get a pretty good workout running around like a maniac trying to get a hold of that slippery little disk.

On Monday we went to a Fourth of July picnic at Leonard and Rhonda's and got a chance to play some volleyball.  Kenrick played every game. It reminded me of picnics when I was growing up and wanting to play volleyball with the adults.  My older cousins seemed like such good players and everyone was intensely competitive even if they weren't very good players, but it seemed like the kids were always included and I've come to appreciate that over the years.

Part of the reason I haven't been able to sit down at the computer lately is that I'm trying to finish up the upstairs hall remodeling project.  That project is coming along.  Slowly.  I've finally got the first layer of tape and mud on the drywall and hope to be ready for texture in the next couple of days.  I'm still intending to post pictures of Anya's room, but we need one more picture of the finished product and are having a hard time keeping the room cleared of clutter for long enough to take it.

We're looking forward to company next week, but that also means that our triathlon is coming up.  I've been trying to train for the swim part, but (as usual) am falling short of an ideal training schedule.  I have been biking some and running a little (very little), and I have gotten to the pool a few times and the pond once, so I'm confident that I can finish the 1500 meter swim.  But how quickly is the question of the day.

And yes, we did see the Peoria fireworks on Sunday evening. They were awesome.

Now Who Do We Root For?

I don't know about you, but the Pandemonium Household caught a minor case of World Cup Fever.  We had a chance to watch the United States play England a couple of weeks ago and then watched them play Ghana yesterday in the first elimination round.   Alas, even after a furious rally in the second period gained the Americans an 'equalizer' to put them into overtime, the good guys couldn't pull out the win. Now they go home, happy for playing respectably on the world's biggest stage, disappointed for not advancing further, and the newly interested American Public is left wondering; Now who do we root for?

I'm A Happy Daddy

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them
 
 - Psalms 127:4-5
 
This year my Father's Day present was a kiss from my wife and hugs from the kids. Kenrick helped me make lunch and I did the dishes afterwards while Andrea attended to Anya. But I didn't mind, on the way home from meeting this afternoon I could look in my rear-view mirror and see four little heads and hear four happy voices from the four little reasons I'm a father, and I could say that I've got all that a man could ever ask for.

Paxton Pandemonium

Today Paxton squirted a toad with weed killer, pooped on the floor, and tried to flush a library book down the toilet. Ah, the life of a two year old!
(Andrea washed off the weed killer and cleaned up the poop; the status of the library book and the toad is unknown.)

Bloomers

The flowers in our yard are in brilliant bloom this time of year...

...and this little flower is blooming brilliantly!

Bare Foots

Today I ran two miles.  Barefoot.

Andrea and I both took a few laps around the high school track this afternoon, sans shoes, while the kids played in the puddles.  It was Andrea's third time out, my first; we stuck to the grass infield because the tootsies are a bit tender yet.

Okay, so... why?  I've got a perfectly good pair of running shoes, I'm not generally known as an dirt-between-the-toes,  Mother-Earth-loving, tree-hugger, so what's up with the barefoot nature-boy act?  Here's the story.

A few weeks ago Andrea checked out a book called "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" by Christopher McDougall, on the second-hand advice from her second cousin's brother-in-law.  It was a good read, but more importantly it got her thinking about a better way to run.  She hates to run, but she started to do some research into some of the things that are talked about in this book, specifically about barefoot running.  She found lots of information, including accounts of track coaches who see fewer injuries when they have their athletes practice barefoot, and research into the bio mechanics of your foot and what happens when you give it support that it doesn't need and then go out and run like a spastic jackhammer.

So she decided to try it.  The barefoot thing I mean, not the jackhammer.  She ran a few laps on the grass.  She ran out of breath because she's in terrible shape, but her joints didn't hurt afterward!  And she felt like she wanted to do it again.  So she did.  And she felt like there was hope after all.

Then she told me I should try.  So I did.  It felt good.  But I can tell I've exercised a whole different set of muscles.  Like all of the ones below my knees.

  

Of course, you can't really just go barefoot everywhere, so Andrea also did a little shopping and found something cool to cover the tender tootsies.  Check them out, genuine Vibram FiveFingers Classics!

I actually saw somebody running in these last summer during one of my off-road triathlons.  They'll make you look twice, but they seem to work - the guy finished ahead of me!  I'm not sold yet on the footwear, but I'll definitely try a few more laps with the grass between my toes.  Come out and join us!

Owwwwwwch!

So, when you are stubborn enough to ride through a crippling double-calf cramp for the last 5 km of the 20 km bike leg of a Saturday sprint triathlon, "Ouch" is what you say on Monday.

For the record, here's the short and sweet of my first tri of the year, the 2010 TriShark Classic:
Swim - started too fast, finished too slow, stopped too many times to catch my breath, and bumped into too many people in between.
Bike - see the above-mentioned cramps. Almost fell off my bike trying to get into my shoes at the start, and had a hard time keeping a race pace ("Boy, a lot of people are passing me.  Maybe I should try to pedal harder.")
Run - calves still a little tight, so started slow, but warmed up enough to run the last mile at a decent pace.

On Sunday I wasn't feeling too bad.  Today I can hardly walk.

Joining in on the fun this weekend were Don and Leann (yes, Leann) and Don's cousin Eric, as well as some guys that Don works with. Don blew us all away with a very impressive showing (7th in his age group!), Leann toughed out her first open-water swim and finished the race, and Eric and I demonstrated the effects of the ever-popular have-a-new-baby-in-the-house training program.

Actually, when I got a chance to compare my times with previous years it looks like I did improve a little, even though I felt slow - so that's encouraging.  My first transition got fouled up a bit because I accidentally pinned by race number through the front and the back of my shirt, but that's another story.  Now, it's time to get ready for the next big event, the Evergreen Tri on July 17 - this time with my siblings as team Fat, Dumb, and Happy!

Wait, I have to swim how far???  Ouch.

Fun in the Sun

Never mind that summer doesn't start until June, it's blazing hot and we're ready to get out the swimming pools!
Okay, so the big pool has a hole (two holes) in it - way to just wad it up and thrown it in the shed, Dad - so I guess the little one will have to work for now. The calm before the chaos; three happy boys and a little princess.

"Hold on, Kenrick, this isn't exactly bath water. All right, everyone stop splashing! Hey, don't get my hair wet! Does this suit make me look pudgy?"

Notice the water is still relatively clean. Notice that Paxton didn't stay clean for long. The water didn't stay clean for long either. Does this look familiar?

Classic Anthony