The Mouse Family Blog

While we were in NYC, we took a minute to stop in and see our friend Donald Trump. We were really only going to be there a few minutes, so we debated wether we'd try to see him or not. But like a gentlemen, Donald came down stairs just as we arrived and lingered for just a minute before leaving the building with us.

Seriously -- we were just going to pop in to take a look at the building. We were turning to leave when I spotted "the hair" a floor beneath us in the atrium. I watched him walk briskly into the restraunt lobby. It took me a minute to convince Liz what I'd seen. And then as we were on our way out, out he came into the lobby. We followed behind him as he walked out to get in his limo. From there, Liz and I continued our stroll to Central Park.

Stumbled upon this online, but haven't read through the postings.

http://genforum.genealogy.com/mouse/

Liz and I are back from camp. We had a fun time getting to know all the kids in our "family."

Born Thursday, July 20 at 5:27 p.m. 10 lbs., 5 oz. and is 21 ¾ inches. Congrats Boyd and Kristi!

I don't know if you saw the news, but Liz and I weren't affected by the derailment and fire on the blue line train today.

We spent this weekend canoeing and camping with a couple from our small group.

The canoe rental place drove us about 25 miles upstream and dropped us off. We paddled about half way before making camp on an uninhabited island. We had to bushwhack our way in to find a campsite -- very rustic of us. But since we had our canoes, it was a lot more like car camping in terms of the gear we could bring along -- we had our tents and plenty of food for supper. We made hobo dinners using a technique Saundra once tried at home when I was growing up. It works great over the campfire -- peppers, onions, potatoes, and beef for about 20 minutes.

We got a little bit of rain overnight that cut our campfire chatter a bit short as we retreated to our tents. But overall, it was a great time with great weather.

The remaining trip the next morning was a little longer than we bargained for -- a moderate headwind stifled our efforts. But we persevered and rewarded ourselves to a trip to Cracker Barrel afterwards.

This past weekend, Liz agreed to make me a "breakfast skillet" like you get at a Denny's or a diner -- potatoes, ham, eggs, cheese. Yum....

To top it off, she used fresh herbs from our little kitchen herb garden. A few months ago, the grocery store was selling herb seedlings. We bought some, and used the vases from our wedding reception to plan them in. The kitchen window is just about the prefect location -- some good daily sun, but not too hot. After a few months of patience, they've all established themselves nicely and have really grown! We now have fresh mint, rosemary, basil, oregano, sage, and parsley whenever we want it.

And we thought it was a treat to be able to see the weekly Navy Pier fireworks from our roof... That is nothing compared to what we saw tonight!

A few weeks ago, we started hearing that our neighborhood was THE place to be on the 4th. As it turns out, our neighborhood is known for non-stop fireworks from 9pm till about 2am.

What amazed us -- fireworks are illegal in Chicago and you can't buy them in Illinois. Where does everyone get all these fireworks?!

The sound in real life is almost deafening. The hardest part about the whole scene is choosing where in the 360-degree scene to choose to focus. ...And just when you get a 15-second lull and you think everyone has exhausted their supply, they all start up again.

Check-out this video of the action! Tip: You can save the file to your computer by right-clicking and choosing "Save Link As..."

The lead photo from last year -- when Liz and I went out to the museum campus to capture the fireworks from Navy Pier.