Hi everyone. Today is my last day of meetings in Chicago and things have gone very well. I was a bit worried about getting out the door with the kids here, but the kids and Yuta have been wonderful.We got here around 5:30CT on Monday, and decided to have my absolute favorite pizza delivered for dinner (stuffed spinach, ideally from Carmen's, but ours this week was from Giordano's). On Tuesday everyone woke up around 6:30 (the sun rises earlier here than at home), and ate breakfast together and then I left. The kids protested, but it was pretty ok. Wednesday morning was not so easy. Taipan was very upset, and Taisim woke up right as I was walking out the door, so she was peeved too. As I was leaving I said, "Taipan, I love you!" and he said, "No. Mama doesn't love me." It made me sad.
(Y: Taipan really didn't mean that in the literal sense, he tends to contradict what he thinks he doesn't want to do... "No. Mama doesn't love me." was followed with "Mama wants to stay here." Wednesday ended up being a pretty good adventure, even with the sad start. We did end up going to the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL, and I think we all had a great time! They had at least 10 barns full of cable cars, streetcars, and trains dating back to 1900! Some we could climb in and explore, though most were in some state of restoration. I never realized how HUGE train locomotives can be... some of the steam engines had drive wheels at least 10 ft in diameter!)
First railroad crossing to get to the main grounds
"Look Papa, it's a Chicago Trolley just like ours!"
And of course, he's right.
Just like James Coffey's song says, you gotta Stop, Look, and Listen!
"Papa, it's a Union Pacific!"
"Look Papa! A Santa Fe just like ours!"
In the Engineer's seat of the Santa Fe
The huge diesel engine of the Santa Fe
"It's a handcar Papa!"
"Papa, I think that's a GG-1"... and of course, it is.
"Papa, is that a streamliner?"... impressed I say "No, but it's a close cousin called the Electroliner"
I always wanted to drive a big train!
FYI, Taipan took this picture.
Just to give you an idea of the size of some of these steam locomotives... and this is a medium-sized one.
We got back and had a wonderful time telling Mama all about our adventure. The evening was pretty uneventful, with us playing some games and exlporing the Hyatt's fitness room. FYI, fitness equipment such as treadmills and eliptical machines can make exciting toys... assuming no one else is actually trying to exercise :)
Last night I had a team dinner and got back to the hotel around 10:15, and everyone was awake, so it was a late night for everyone. When I was leaving for dinner the kids waved goodbye to me from our hotel room window, which overlooks the parking lot (quite a view!), and they were excited about that, so this morning when I left Taipan seemed to be ok with it because he got to wave good-bye out the window. I just wish we had thought to do that on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
Tonight we're switching hotels. My mom should have arrived this morning and should be at my Nonna's place. We're hoping to see them tonight. Tomorrow I think we're going to see The Great Train Story at the Museum of Science and Industry.
All in all, a good week so far!
Here's an email Yuta sent to his family yesterday... I'm too lazy to write something too at this point, other than that Yuta and the kids did go to the Railway Museum and had a great time......
Just a quick note letting you know that we're in Chicago until Saturday, and we're having a great time so far! We're staying at the Hyatt Place in Hoffman Estates (right by Schaumburg, IL), and it's quite lovely. Each room has a 42" plasma flat-panel HDTV (and we're enjoying it very much... at least I am). While Karen was working today the kids & I went to Wal-Mart (exciting!)...
and the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, where we got to play with the iPhone!!!! Taipan & Taisim were very impressed with the multi-touch interface, and I was just drooling. It's the 2nd largest mall in America we found out, and there are a LOT more Asians than in Ohio :) They also had a LEGO store, which the kids found fun.
Tomorrow we're planning on going to the Illinois Railway Museum where they have 300 acres of historic trains of various types (electric, steam, diesel) and states of operation (most still run, and they have a depot with train yard and 5 mile loop of track). It's either that or the Navy Pier where the Chicago Children's Museum is. We'll see what choice we make in the morning.
Today is our sixth wedding anniversary. I love thinking about our wedding - it was such a great day: we were surrounded by great friends and family and in Vegas!
It's amazing how much life can change in six years. We've had two kids, lived in one apartment, one house and one townhome, moved from Florida to Ohio, and have grown in so many ways. My perspective on life has changed quite a bit, and is continuing to change. Life is good.I woke up this morning and Taipan brought me a gift from Yuta. It was two wonderful CD collections, both by Harry Chapin. One is The Bottom Line Encore Collection, and the other is a three CD set called The Story of My Life. I used to have the Encore Collection, but haven't seen it in about two years, and have been talking for a while about wanting to replace them. Yuta obviously knew how badly I missed my Harry Chapin music. The real gift is that he's all but signed up to listening to Harry Chapin over and over and over and over. It's not that Yuta dislikes Harry Chapin, but he doesn't love it like I do. My mom used to listen to him when I was a kid, so I've kind of known his music my entire life. It's new to Yuta (though I don't quite understand why anyone wouldn't immediately fall in love with his music). And I love story songs. (Y: The only corollary for me may be Tom Jones, Bobby Vinton, or Englebert Humperdink)We were listening to the CDs this morning and for some reason this line from "Greyhound" has stayed with me all day - "It's got to be the going, not the getting there that's good"Anyhow, it's been six years that we've been married. In some ways it seems like it's been much longer. And of course in some ways the time has flown. I can't wait to see what the next six years have in store for us. I can't imagine my life without Yuta, and I'm so happy to have him in my life; he challenges me to be a better person everyday.(Y: It's been an amazing journey so far, and I've been enlightened and enriched in so many ways. It does seem like we've known each other for a lifetime, and yet it's amazing to me how fast our kids are growing up. Every year I sign the anniversary card the same... "xx years down, forever to go"... and I can hardly wait.)
We'll be spending the weekend getting ready for a trip to Chicago. I have meetings there on Tuesdsay, Wednesday & Thursday of next week, and next Friday happens to be my Nonna's 94th birthday. My mom is flying to Chicago on Thursday to see her mom on her birthday. Because of the timing with my mom being there and it being my grandmother's birthday, we decided to take a family trip so that we could stay until Saturday and spend some time with my mom and Nonna. I'm glad everyone's going, but I'm a bit stressed right now thinking about making sure I'm able to get our the door and to my meetings on time. Since I work from home I have a very flexible schedule in the mornings and never have to be presentable for work. So I think it's going to be a bit hard on the kids (and therefore Yuta), overall it'll be fun. While we're there I think Yuta's going to make a trip to the Apple Store to get a long-awaited taste of the iPhone, and will probably also take the kids to teh Museum of Science and Industry. Unfortunately I don't think this trip will allow us time to see any friends :-(, but we're going back again at Thanksgiving, so hopefully we'll have some time then.
When we got dressed on the 4th we found patriotic shirts for the kids to wear, and Taipan was really tickled that he was dressed "the same as the American flag". We really have my sister to thank for hooking the kids up with their t-shirts.Yuta's sister and her fiance drove to Cleveland from Pittsburgh for the day, and after having a nice BBQ at my in-laws' house around lunchtime, the kids both took a two-hour nap. They woke up around 6:30, which meant that they would be awake late enough to see fireworks. And while they were sleeping I got to go to Target. Alone! Woo-hoo. And just so you know, Target is dead on the fourth of July; a perfect day to shop.We met some friends at the Tri-C campus in Parma around 9:30, and waited for it to get dark. The sun sets pretty late this time of year, and the fireworks didn't start until after 10. While we were waiting the kids ran around the big field and we played a bit of ring around the rosie. It was kind of nerve wracking as it got dark out because it was hard to keep track of the little kids. Next year we're bring glow sticks or necklaces or something.I was curious to see how all of the kids would do - our friends have a 3.5 yo & a 2 yo, and all four of the kids were fine with the fireworks. Taipan & his friend (who happens to have the same exact birthday as him) really liked watching them. For Taisim and the 2 yo it was more or less background.
Yuta took a ton of pictures and video, and Taipan likes to watch the video of the fireworks. We got home around 11:30ish, so it was good that the kids had that nap.
Last night the kids and I went to Target and bought Candy Land, Elefun and Guess Who? (Y: I went and saw Transformers ! Big-frickin robots rule! ) We got home too late to play them, which greatly disappointed Taipan. The first words out of Taipan's mouth this morning were "Mama - do you want to play Candy Land now?". He'd never played before, but I've mentioned the game. I tell him made-up stories sometimes, and one of them involves board games... and when he said "what kind of game?", I said "something like Candy Land", and it stuck. I actually had the game ordered from amazon, but when we took an unexpected trip to Target yesterday I figured we'd get it.Anyway, we opened it up this morning and he seems to really like it. A friend of mine gave me a great piece of advice, which is to draw two cards per turn so that the game doesn't take forever. So, that helps, but Taipan likes to go backwards sometimes. Mostly so that he can go over the Rainbow Trail, and sometimes the Gumdrop Pass. And when we get to the end we talk about all the candy we're going to eat at the Candy Castle.Yuta and Taipan played a round or two of Guess Who? this afternoon, but I'm not sure how it went. I'm looking forward to playing with him when I'm done with work.Oh, and Elefun - I bought that mostly so that we'd have a game that Taisim could participate in. My niece and nephew have it, so I've seen them play, andI think Taisim will get a big kick out of it.
We left around 11am to drive to Niagara. We got there around 4, checked into our hotel, and my dad arrived shortly afterward. From the moment we left the house on Wednesday morning Taipan was talking about going to Lego City (the official name is Brick City). We told him that we might have to wait until Thursday to go, but he started mentioned it again while we were waiting to cross the border, and was so excited that we figured we might as well visit as soon as possible.
That was the first of three visits to Lego City. We spent about two hours there on Wednesday, and first thing on Thursday morning he wanted to go back, and of course we went again on Friday before heading home. While it feels like all we did was visit Lego City, we actually did quite a few other things too.
(Y: Taipan wanted to take some pictures...)
us
overly paranoid woman
employee's legsOn Wednesday night we all went on the Sky Wheel, and I learned that my dad doesn't enjoy heights or any kinds of thrill rides or spinning rides. I'm not fond of them either, but because the Sky Wheel is fully enclosed I felt okay on it.... until we rode again on Thursday night when there was a pretty strong wind, and the gondola rocked back and forth while we stopped to get passengers, and our doors didn't seal all the way so there was a whistling that I didn't like. And on top of that Taisim kept trying to push on the doors, and that made me very nervous, especially given that the seal wasn't complete. So I pushed the emergency call button and they got us out quickly. The neat thing is that when we rode with my dad we got a picture of me and him.... this is the only picture I think I have of just the two of us since I've been an adult (other than him walking me down the aisle at my wedding), and I don't even mind that he's looking a bit queasy.
On Thursday Taisim wasn't her usual easy-going, happy self - I think she might have been teething or something, and she ended up taking a 2.5 hour nap in the hotel room, but not before having some fun at the playground.
While she and I were resting, Taipan asked to go to the pool. Mind you, this is the kid that hates water. I guess he doesn't mind it so much any more (we actually went to the pool again at home on Saturday). I'm sorry that I missed what looks like a lot of fun; we're going to Daytona in August, and I can't wait to do more playing at the beach and at the slides and play area they'll have at our condo.
Let's see.... we also played mini-golf - not fun with a 3.5 year old and 16 month old - they didn't quite get the waiting for our turn at certain holes, and that we had to move on to let other people do them. It was high stress for me. And we spent a little bit of time in an arcade, and went to the Rainforest Cafe, and got DQ blizzards & shakes. Grandma, Grandpa, Elyse & Jason rode on the Maid of the Mist, which I think they enjoyed.Overall it was a nice trip to Niagara. Taisim's not feeling well was hard; Taipan wanting to spend so much time at Lego City meant that we had to revise our expectations, though I'm not sure why we expected not to spend that much time there - he just loves seeing model trains. I think once my dad got past how touristy it was they had a good time too.
Next time we go, Yuta and I are riding the dang boat though (we'd planned to go the day that Taisim wasn't feeling well and didn't feel good not staying with her).
We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, how about you, you you? (Raffi)So, our plan for Monday was to go to the Cleveland Zoo, but first Mercedes and I were going to get pedicures. Mercedes and I headed out around 10 only to find that our appointments were scheduled for the wrong day, so we ended up at a nail place in the mall. I had a nice time - it had been a long long time since Mercedes and I spent any time alone together, and it was nice just to chat and hang out with her. While we were at the mall Dad & Yuta went to the zoo with the kids. It turns out that Elyse wasn't feeling well, so soon after Mercedes & I met up with them, Mercedes and Elyse left to go back to their hotel. The rest of us stayed at the zoo until around 5 and had a great time.
Taipan was anxious to ride the train at the zoo, which he got to do twice.
Jason was excited to touch the stingrays and see the bamboo shark at the Touch! exhibit. Taipan was also into touching the rays, which kind of surprised me.
After we rode the train, touched the rays and saw a few other animals we headed into the Rainforest to find the snakes - Jason remembered seeing the snakes when they were here in January and was looking forward to seeing them again. We got the kids rubber snakes for souvenirs, and Jason and Taipan had a great time having the skaes attack Grandpa.
We had planned to all go out to dinner, but Elyse started feeling really bad again around dinner time, so we called it a day so that Elyse could rest, and Yuta, the kids and I went to get sushi at Sakura. It was weird having sushi without Ama and Akon :-)
