Dale and I have big plans to see Transformers 3 this weekend! I love me some disaster movies but we’re actually excited because we watched the movie being filmed right outside our office windows all last summer.
Here is a link to the gallery of photos that Dale took from his office; if I can find mine I’ll add them later.
http://dale-murray.com/transformers/
Dale and I joined Chase an his wife Dawn at the big U2 show at Soldier Field last night!
It was a spectacle!
Crazy huge stage and crowd. Sound is horrific so turn your speakers down.
It was an enjoyable show!
Testing phone publishing.
We saw Loretta Lynn at Taste of Chicago on the first of July !
We enjoyed the fireworks in Oak Park again this year! Love it!
One of the reasons we stayed in Flint for so long over the holidays was that Chase got married and had a party on the first weekend of the year. I was actually very sick for most of the week but had perked up for New Year’s!
Dale took a few photos with some of his oldest and dearest friends and I just wanted to make sure we shared them here (for posterity, I guess).
When I met Dale (way back in 1995) he was roommates with Chris (on the right) and Chase (on the left) was a frequent visitor. And here they are with Chris’s son!
Old Friends! Chris, Dale, Chase and Greg.
You know Greg, right? Everybody knows Greg Flowers.
Chase and Chris putting on their serious faces.
The Whole Gang!
Jon, Chris, Mikey, Mike F., Chase (in the middle), Dale (in the back), Mike N., Terri and Greg.
Being silly.
We had a great trip back to Michigan between Christmas and New Year’s but we somehow didn’t take any pictures–ridiculous, right?
Dale snapped a few of Christmas dinner at my Aunt Diane and Uncle Randy’s house…
Aunt Diane, baking biscuits
Aunt Diane’s mom–Grandma still going strong! Love her apron!
Look at the gorgeous table setting!
The ladies fussing over the fabulous meal they’re preparing.
Uncle Randy is always manning the video camera!
The super cute Christmas tree!
Dale liked his feast so much he took a picture of it!
Recently Dale and I checked out the new exhibit on the Science of Storms at the Museum of Science and Industry. It’s a really cool exhibit. Dale took a few pics.
Static electricity! Wheee!
A giant Tesla coil on the ceiling of the exhibit.
Should have taken video of this one. It rotates at different speeds to simulate avalanches or something. It was pretty gigantic and awesome.
The centerpiece of the exhibit is an indoor tornado that you can control with buttons! Neat!
Crowd milling about tornado. Just another day at the Museum of Science!
So we got some snow. You might have heard.
Dale got out of work early on Tuesday and had Wednesday off–as did most of Chicagoland. Even our local Starbucks was closed.
A fella pushes into the wind. With my old building in the background. What a dump that building is!
So we went on a little adventure on Wednesday afternoon once the storm had died down.
Steep snow!
My favorite house on Kennilworth.
Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio
Knee-deep in snow at Austin Gardens…
He took quite a few photos so if you’d like to see the rest click here.
Have we dragged these photos out long enough for you? It’s a bit much, I know. But this is my virtual scrapbook so you’re stuck with it if you visit.
We weren’t expecting to see Grizzly bears, particularly not up close. We pulled over to a rest area because it looked busy and would probably yield an animal sighting. However, since Dale and I are dopey we thought everybody was looking up at two giant birds mating in the sky. We started at them until they flew out of sight and then looked around, realizing that was but a side show to the main attraction.
Located just down a slight slope from up–and quite near an outhouse–was a mother Grizzly and two cubs. To quote Dale, “That’s a motherf*ckin’ Grizzly!”
Indeed! And she was rooting around the ground, looking for food for her cubs. I was pretty transfixed but also quite nervous. Occasionally, the bear would pause and turn to look at the crowd. Not afraid of us but just to be sure we were staying put on the hill. Needless to say, I was staying put.
Frankly, I was calculating the odds. At one point, the bear pushed her paw into the largely frozen ground and dug a huge patch of dirt up with very little effort. I knew enough to know that I could be that patch of grass and I basically turned to Dale and said, “That was cool but I’m out.”
I ducked back into the car, behind the crowd. Dale, for his part, was calculating the odds as well.
He watched the bear closely and opted to stand behind a man who had a leg brace. Surely the bear would take the low hanging fruit first, yes?
At some point, the bear came closer and Dale booked it back to the car. Apparently his calculations had been off. The guy with the brace was safely in his car well before Dale got back to ours.
At any rate, it was amazing to see the bears up close! They were adorable and beautiful and pretty seriously majestic in size and presence.
So as cool as it was to see the giant animals? I was probably more excited about the ground squirrels. I’m a dork, I know this. It’s not news. And ground squirrels are unlikely to kill me. That helps. They are also about as cute as it gets. They are bigger than chipmunks but a little smaller than wild squirrels. We sat near a stream and watched them frolic for about an hour.
They ran and played with the chipmunks–there seemed to be a combination of playfulness and competitiveness among the tiny animal population of Yellowstone. I wanted to bring this guy home in my pocket! Just LOOK at that face!
I had so much fun watching animals that we really missed a lot of random things–like the mud pots. I seriously told Dale to keep driving. What cute animal would hang out near hot mud?.
