Chicago!

What happens when you are married to a Chilean who needs to get her passport renewed? You have to make a trip to cold Chicago in December. Yet, for our first time in the windy city, we had a blast!

Millenium Park. 

City Library. Beautiful!!

Our "Free Walking Tour" of Chicago. Yes, we were the only Americans on it... but... it is our favorite way to get to know cities.

The Bean. 

What do you do on a cold December night? Go see the Christmas lights at the zoo.

Chicago Deep Dish pizza proved my philosophy of life true once again... low expectations leads to high satisfaction... in this case, my expectations were too high.

Our Visit to the St. Louis Zoo

Every few weeks, Daniela and I pass through St. Louis. Usually our trips take us by the St. Louis Zoo and we always make the comment "you know, sometime we should do that." For over a year we have been saying that, yet things never seemed to work out. Then a few weeks ago we actually had time and excellent weather (like most of this past March) so we took advantage of the opportunity to visit the zoo. And luckily, we were wearing comfortable shoes.

For me, the highlight was seeing the elephants. I don't recall ever seeing an elephant in person before. They were impressive! 


I think the second picture is Daniela's hint that she was ready to move on but I just kept watching...

The gorillas were a lot of fun. They were very active: moving around,
swinging on ropes,  and interacting with each other.

I'm sure that some times are better than others for catching the animals out and about. We were there in the late afternoon right before feeding time. To us, it seemed like a good time. All of the animals were pacing around waiting for their dinner. And the zebras, well, they drew a crowd. 

Good activity. Glad we did it. And best of all, it was free.

Cape Weekend...a side note

This picture was taken over the weekend. After cleaning up the bonfire, we went into the garage and the first thing Miss Hannah did was jump on the lawn mower. This reminded me of this...

This was last summer when Hannah was about 13 months. She requested to sit there and that's total genuine happiness you see on her face. She is having a blast! 


Miss Hannah loves big kid toys...

Cape Weekend...continued

So before Mark and I arrived in Cape, there was a big windstorm that created a ruckus... causing a tree to fall on the garage of my sister-in-law Sarah's house and another tree to fall in the pond at her sister Emily's house. Gladly, that's the worst of it - no homes and no individuals were hurt. 


The Illinois crew were able to take care of Sarah's tree, we helped clean up the tree that fell in Emily's pond...after David and Abe cut it up nicely for us. This isn't the first tree I've seen the McMullins and Funks dispose of and I have to say that they are quite good at it.

The nice pile of wood that WAS the tree in the pond...

Last Summer's tree ridding exercise at David's house...I was TOTALLY impressed by Emily and the Kubota

This tree didn't require the heavy machinery, just man-power to use the chainsaws and lots of arms to carry the wood. Even the kids carried logs that were as big as they were. Once the logs were piled up and the sticks cleared away and in their own pile, it meant that it was time for a bonfire! And bonfires, of course require...marshmallows. No starbursts to roast though - that would have been perfect!

Joshua...

Hannah...

Jacob was not happy with the bonfire that Uncle Mark helped make. So off he went to make his own...

Very deep in concentration...

... and soon enough he was roasting his own marshmallow on his own little bonfire. Go Jacob!

The kids had fun and even let me take pictures of them...these two normally rush you to look at their pictures and don't hold still long enough for me to take them, but I got some I liked.

A little cheesy with the sun glare and everything, but she's still pretty darn cute!

After the fire, we went inside and the kids challenged Uncle Mark at the Wii. Jacob was all about that... He knew he could beat Uncle Mark! Check out how excited he is and how intensely he's looking at the screen. Ski jumping is serious stuff!

We love visiting Cape!

Cape Weekend...

This past weekend we went down to Cape to visit Mark's family...we do this on a fairly regular basis for various different reasons. This weekend we went to celebrate my father- and mother-in-law's birthdays - Happy Birthday John and Taffy!! They had their birthdays earlier this month,  lucky them though, they were able to spend their birthdays in Hawaii. We also went because we wanted to hear the scoop about their trip and the scoop was... they had lots of fun and had lots of good things to say: The food, the accommodations, the scenery were all great! Did I expect anything less from Hawaii? No, not really. :)


We arrived late Friday evening, so Saturday was spent playing with the family. David called and asked if we wanted to go on a bike ride with him, Sterling, and Truman along the Cape trail. We of course said yes! David lent his bike to Mark and I cruised along on Tara's bike. David opted to run the trail. 


The day was beautiful and the trail was so nice! While Mark, Sterling, and David raced ahead, Truman and I got to hang out and explore the trail at our own pace. Truman was awesome! He knew which way to go, even when we lost sight of the boys ahead, and he biked his heart out for almost the entire ride! Those little legs were booking it!

Black dot is Mark, White dot is my brother-in-law David, and the Green dot is my nephew Sterling...

I don't have any pictures of Sterling on his bike, so I'm adding this one from last Summer to show you what he looks like up close and in person - cutie, right?

My riding buddy - Truman!!

We got to the end of the trail, which had a nice little hill and Truman rode to the top and coasted down a few times. I took a picture and when he caught me with the camera, he jumped down from his bike, had me show him the pictures and told me to make sure and get him again. He pedaled up the hill again and coasted down again making sure that I was snapping away.

This is Truman checking that I'm taking pictures as he rides along...

Zoom! 

We did eventually get started again to meet up with the boys, which by this point were no longer dots ahead of us but totally out of our sights. Truman and I kept going at our pace, but my little riding buddy must have reached his limit because this...

turned into this...

I thought it was adorable! I sped up ahead of him to catch it from the other angle...

Tuckered out or not, Truman was the best riding buddy! From seeing his little legs pedaling as fast as they could go, to going through - not around - every puddle on the trail, or riding slowly arms and head over the handlebars, and his great fashion sense - it definitely put a smile on my face. I love having nieces and nephews!

Showing off the John Deere boots...Thanks Truman!

It's starting to look like a table!

So when I was working at BYU, my boss had lots of different responsibility hats that he wore. One of them was "moving crew," especially in the spring and summer terms. When we needed to make room for new faculty or student labs, he'd take apart the desk/cabinet furniture and put it back together in its new office or space or in the arrangement the faculty member requested, etc. When I began working there, I asked him to teach me how to do all of that. So pretty soon, we would have jean days and I would help him take apart and put together Steelcase Series 9000 furniture. I got to be pretty handy with the drill and he'd even ask me to take on projects solo. I know it's silly, but I was quite proud that I could do it. I liked being more than just a nerd behind the desk. Making this table has brought back a lot of those good memories...so I have to say: THANKS SO MUCH AL!!!  This is just ONE of the small ways I owe you!

Me and a drill...lots of fun!

This last week, I spent a few hours here and there, not much progress. Then on Saturday I spent all morning and some of the afternoon on it. And now, I'm VERY proud to say...It's looks like a table! The next parts will be finishing the drawer box with the drawer guides and one final drawer and attaching the top of the table and shelf on the bottom. Granted that seems to be small in comparison to what comes after that... filling, sanding and painting.

This is the front of the table...

The table is much bigger than it seems in the pictures - it'll end up being 5' across, so there will be lots and LOTS of sanding and painting to come. But I'm hopeful that in the end, we'll end up with something that will go with the furniture we have in our bedroom. We're thinking a Target Ebony finish with a little distressing...a very little. Our furniture has it, but you can't tell from the picture on the site.

...and the back

Anyways, it's definitely not perfect - as Mark told his brother, "It's pretty level," which is true...But it's been a fun project and I can't wait until it's all done! Check out Ana's website for lots of plans and ideas and lots of help for those of you who might not know how to get started. This is the first project that I've done that's like this and Ana's site was very helpful. I pored over the different comments, posts, and even spent time recreating the table plans on Google SketchUp so that I knew for sure what went where and how the steps progressed. Over the top, probably, but it helped me feel confident enough to try it out in real life. 


My fingers are still crossed that it all turns out ok!

Update with Pictures

After a four month hiatus, it's time to update the blog. Here's a quick look at what we are up to...

First, we continue to live in Katy Place Apartments. For the two of us, it has worked out well. We have plenty of space, it is fairly close to campus, and located in a good part of town. It has been a good place for us to begin our life together and we plan to stay for another year. One very nice perk of the apartment complex is that it connects to the Katy Trail which is a great place for a walk or a run. Below are pictures from our morning walk. Just a few hundred meters from our apartment the city just completed a wetlands project. 

Lots and lots of geese. I think they are pretty however Daniela warns me that they are mean and will attack it I get too close.

This weekend marked the beginning of a project Daniela has been planning for a couple of weeks. She is a big fan of Pinterest and found this console table that she wants to build. As a bonus, I was able to go to an auction this weekend and pick up a circular saw for $15. And yes I did have to watch a couple of YouTube videos to make sure I knew how to use it.

The cut sheet that Daniela created. On a side note, we took a Strengths Finder test, Daniela's top strength: Responsibility. It really is true. If you want to understand Daniela - that is the key. She is displaying it during this project. 

We'll keep you posted on our project's (mostly Daniela's -- I'm her not so skilled helper) progress. Finally as most you know this is my second semester teaching an undergraduate finance class (Finance 2000) in Mizzou's business school. This past week my students took their first exam. The following is an actual exam answer. It demonstrates that despite my best intentions, I am not getting through to all of my students. Kudos to the student for at least trying...

"To value a company means to really care about a company and to put your trust and loyalty into it. This is important because if no one ever valued a company it would have not character or essence..." - Despite being responsible for making me smile and laugh, it received 0 points.