In the beginning of April, Aaron and I took a short vacation to Chicago to visit our friends David and Emily, who are both professors at Northwestern University. We also had a brief visit with Bonney and Patrick, who met us out there. AND, completely by coincidence, Molly was in Chicago for a performance with her singing group – so we were lucky enough to spend an evening with her as well.

We had a great time and managed to do a lot in a few days. Weather wise we lucked out and were able to spend a lot of time outside exploring the city on foot. We visited Northwestern, walked around Millennium Park (saw Cloud Gate or “The Bean” and the Pritzker Pavilion), shopped on Michigan Avenue, took an architectural tour of the city by boat on the Chicago River and saw the Hopper exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition to all of this we did some fabulous eating: Chicago style pizza, an old school steak house (Gene & Georgetti’s Restaurant), Latin American food at De La Costa, sushi, etc, etc. We had a great time and hope to go back again soon. Click on the photo above of Molly and Aaron to see the album of photos from our trip.

Back in March the family headed down to Connecticut to spend Easter weekend with my grandmother. We spent most of Saturday outside, readying her house for spring – putting up screens, sweeping, moving patio furniture. Peter, James and Joe were particularly proud of the repair job they did on the front fence, which was damaged when a tree limb fell on it. We enjoyed several big meals together and of course got Easter baskets, before heading home on Sunday afternoon. Click on the photo above of Dad playing his banjo for Justin and Amy to see the small album of photos from the weekend.

When we became homeowners, everyone told us to consider the house a permanent ongoing project. They were right – not too long after we moved in we discovered that two of the house’s skylights leaked. It wasn’t so bad in the winter when things were frozen, but when things got a little warmer and started to melt – replacing the skylights became a priority. So, in March we had them replaced. For the first month we had them, I would check beneath them every time it rained to make sure there were no leaks. I took these photos one afternoon after the rain had stopped. The skylights were covered with tiny pools of water, which had a cool effect on the view above and finally convinced me their seal was tight.