Chicago Town

I attended a business conference in Chicago and, as is tradition now, my mom came with me! We spent the first few evenings trying fancy restaurants that my coworker, Greg, and his wife, Kris Tina, suggested ..... and we went shopping on the Magnificent Mile. I hit the jackpot at H&M! I just love that store. And I got a beautiful cream-colored, wool coat from United Colors of Benetton too.

Saturday was our day to play, and we packed it full. We took the El out to Oak Park to go on a tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio and to see the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway. It was an adventure just to get on the El. I couldn't figure out how to get the dang ticket into the machine so we could walk through! I tried a million times - I was expecting it to be like London (and I think Washington DC) where the ticket comes up on the other side of the stile so you grab it after you walk through. But it wasn't. We finally got some help from the lady in the booth. Very nice lady.

After we made it to Oak Park, we walked down their darling main street to Pot Belly's and shared a sandwich for lunch. Then we walked to the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio and went on their tour. It was so neat. I really like his style of architecture and design. After we finished the tour, we walked down the street to look at the beautiful homes, and they were beautiful! We liked seeing some of the "bootleg" Frank Lloyd Wright homes. 

Outside of the Frank Lloyd Wright home

The studio side entrance to Frank Lloyd Wright's home

I loved these windows in between the home and studio

Maybe a bootleg Frank Lloyd Wright house?

I liked this house

Another bootleg house?

Mom and I liked these row houses

I liked this house too

The tour at the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway was fascinating too! His mom was quite the diva and had every right to be since she brought home $1,000 a month with her voice and piano lessons costing $8 per lesson - that was in the late 1800's! Can you believe that? It's almost as much as lessons cost today. Whereas, Ernest's dad was a doctor bringing home only $50 a month. Very interesting.

The birthplace of Ernest Hemingway

After the tours, we returned to downtown Chicago and did a little more sightseeing - we saw the Tiffany dome in the old Marshall Field's (now a monstrous Macy's), and we checked out some of the sights at Millenium Park. By the end of the day we walked 17,000 steps according to mom's pedometer. That fact is very important to her! Ha ha! :)

The Tiffany dome in Marshall Field's

Cloud Gate in Millennium Park

Can you see our reflection in the Cloud Gate?

A fountain in Millennium Park

Cascade: The Last Hurrah Before School Starts

School starts up again tomorrow. I'm now a second-year. Woo hoo! So to celebrate, I went to Idaho again to visit my sister, Robyn, and her husband, Doug, up at their cabin in Cascade. Mom got to tag along too.

Robyn and Mom having lunch at the art show

We had a great time! Mom and I got to the cabin about 5:00 Friday night - just in time for a super-delish dutch oven chicken cacciatore dinner with ice cream and cookies for dessert. I think we ate every meal we could out on the deck. We went on walks. We stacked wood. We rode the golf cart and four-wheeler (my dream!). We strolled through and found treasures at an art show in McCall. Visited an old ghost town called Roseberry. And paid a little visit to a waterfall. It was a fabulous weekend!

Thanks for the fun time Robyn, Doug, and Mom!

Mom and me at the art show

The General Store in Roseberry

The little church in Roseberry

On our Sunday walk

Doug and me at the waterfall

Robyn and me on the four-wheeler!

Mom, Robyn, and me on the deck of the cabin

Quintessential Mountain Biking

I finally rode the quintessential Utah mountain biking trail - the Wasatch Crest. It was a little bit of an out-of-body experience for me - not because of the mountain biking but because of the crowd I went with. I went with about 30 people and only 10% of which I felt like I only kind of knew. Everyone else were total strangers. The two of the four people I knew there I hadn't seen in years, one I had never met officially but we were facebook friends, and the fourth I met last year and have seen him only a handful of times since. I kind of rode with the latter two and not at all with the former two. The precedent with this is that I didn't take a wing-man or wing-woman. I totally went on my own! That says how much I wanted to go do this ride. And it wasn't so bad. I made some new friends - one girl that I'm excited to go biking with (Jenn), and a couple of guys that were really cool.

As for the ride - it was beautiful! BEAUTIFUL!! At least what little of it that I saw. In a way I felt like Goldilocks on this ride, get this: At the very beginning, I was riding with some really new/slow folks, then I hooked with the three really fast riders which took everything I had just to keep up with them. Then I bagged them and rode with one of the guys I kind of know and that was just right!! Cuz I could go slow and look at the scenery, enjoy the biking, get a little rest, and look at some more scenery while I waited for him to catch up to me. He even took this picture of me while we rode together. The trail definitely had some pretty technical spots, but it was amazing and wonderful the whole 24 miles of it. And the pine forest parts of it (like the one in the pic) are my favorites because they smell soooooo good!! I love the smell of pine. I can hardly go on a hike or bike ride without exclaiming how much I love the smell.

The Great Fish Adventure

I actually caught a fish! All by myself. No help. And luckily I watched a youtube video to learn how to clean it. So I first tried fishing with salmon eggs since they said that was the bait of choice last time, but that didn't even get me a bite. So then I tried a night crawler, and that didn't get a bite either. So I went back to the power bait that we (Deb and I) used unsuccessfully last time, and that was the ticket! Wouldn't you know it. So I got a bite or two and tried to snag the fish but didn't get it - but it got away with my power bait. So I baited up again and cast out. This time I got another couple of bites and then all of a sudden my line took off in one direction and then another and I knew I had that fish. So I reeled him in. And I'll be darned! It was a big trout!! Rainbow maybe? or Lake? Not really sure. I got the hook off of him and then the chain in through his mouth and put back in the lake with a big wood stump securing the chain to the beach. I thought I would cast again until Deb was just about ready to go, but when I lost my bait on the cast and then saw how dark it had gotten, I decided to get on with cleaning the fish. That's when I realized I would have to kill it! That was the traumatic part for me. I hit it over the head with a small rock (I couldn't find anything bigger!) and watched it suffer. Oh the agony. When it finally died, I went to town trying to clean it. I got it done but it was pretty difficult until I realized I hadn't cut deep enough from the anus up and so after I fixed that, it was much easier. :) And I just ate it tonight! It wasn't pink meat, but it was pretty tasty nonetheless. That was a smart fish and I was happy to put him out of his misery because he had another hook with some fishing line attached in him when I caught him.

Momma Came to Town!

Mom coming to town was my excuse for doing some things I've always wanted to do around here.

First, we went to This is the Place Heritage Park. We toured Brigham Young's forest house which was on his experimental farm. They said that Brigham Young hosted President Ulysses S. Grant and Mark Twain in this home. It was quite the place. We toured Heber C. Kimball's home, several small cabins (that held up to 13 people in the family!!), and visited many other shops. We also ate some yummy Farr ice cream at a shop there that took Mom back down memory lane to Ogden where she remembers going to an ice cream parlor shop to eat Farr ice cream. We looked at many other historical buildings there and watched some of the Civil War activities/re-enactments they had going on. Then we visited the gift shop and I helped mom resist buying any more nick-knacks. Afterwards we went a little shoe shopping - I had some luck, but mom didn't. :(

This is the Place Park - in front of the social hall

The famous statue at This is the Place Park

Second, we went to Sundance's Sound of Music production in their outdoor amphitheater. We also took advantage of their BBQ before the production. It was so fun to eat our BBQ on picnic tables among the pine trees and by a little brook. Their BBQ was in serious want of some dessert, but it was very good otherwise. The production was wonderful! I loved Maria's personality - kind of more so than Julie Andrew's in the movie. We got rained on ... quite a bit actually, but the cast carried on with the show. The funny part is that the rain came exactly when the thunderstorm comes in the play - when all the kids come running up to Maria's room. The audience and the cast were all kind of laughing at the coincidence. I highly recommend fleece jackets and blankets! It totally kept us warm and dry even though the outer sides of our blank and jackets were soaking wet but it didn't soak down to our clothes. Nice.

Mom at the Sundance BBQ

Me at the Sundance BBQ

Sunday was truly our day of rest after our very full Saturday. Mom then left Monday morning to go visit Teri.

Thanks for the fun weekend, Mom!

A Little Family Reunion

I went up to Boise to go to a little family reunion for my mom's side of the family. Teri rode up with me to Boise and we indulged ourselves in a long bike ride Saturday morning. Then we went to lunch with mom and Robyn and kidnapped a not very happy Jill to go with us - something about being gross and not showered. Oh well. She looked fine to us. :) Since Teri and I had missed the store hours for The Gathering Place quilt shop in Rupert, we were on a mission to find a decent or even open quilt shop in Boise. The first two we tried were out of business. We went all over Boise looking for these shops. We finally found one that was pretty nice actually, and I didn't buy a single thing whereas Teri bought two purse patterns for Amy.

Then it was off to the family reunion. We had a divine dinner of pulled pork sandwiches, pasta salad, watermelon, cookies, veggie trays.... mmmm. Jill and Penny (from what I hear) organized the games: vegetable derby (which was a hit!!), skittle-straw-sucking (totally makes you light-headed), bocce ball, and volleyball. It was a lot of fun! Here are some pics to document it.

Jill and Robyn with their veggie car

Spencer getting serious with his car

Parker's crazy car

Doug's winning car - but I don't remember any of the many names he gave it.

Teri making her car a work of art

The old folks (Uncle Doyle, Aunt Jackie, Mom, and Uncle Keith) chatting

Spencer and Doug racing their cars on the track

Penny making her very cool race-car-looking car

Jill, Kim, and Teri racing their cars

Spencer, Chandler, Mom, Chantell, Brent, Jane, and Andrew(?) sucking skittles

Robyn, Jill, Spender, Andrew and Alex sucking more skittles

A's, D's, and Hearts

I've been fairly concerned about my heart lately . . . when it comes to riding bikes. It seems like my heart rate is significantly higher than anyone I'm riding with. I've been wearing a heart rate monitor for a couple years now, and I've watched my heart consistently beat at about 180 to 190 every time I go mountain biking and whenever I'm climbing a decent, long hill on my road bike. One of my mountain bike racing teammates has been getting after me to have it checked out. I finally visited the doctor for a routine physical and asked her about it. She took my blood and ordered a stress test for me to see if my heart was normal.

I'm happy to report that the stress test went well. They hooked me up to a bunch of electrodes and put me on a treadmill. While I was waiting for the doctor to come in, I watched my heart rate drop down as low as 54 beats per minute! Then I watched it get as high as 185 while on the treadmill. The doctor said that wasn't bad. My EKG was normal and everything looked fine. He just said that some people have higher heart rates than others and max out earlier than others. Not everyone can be a super-athlete just because they are limited by their bodies, and in my case, my heart (I think). So at least I can rest well, now that I know my heart is normal and healthy.

However, my blood work discovered something interesting: I'm quite low on Vitamin D! I didn't know what that meant when she told me, all I knew is that it must be somewhat serious since they were wanting to put me on a prescription-strength Vitamin D supplement. The doctor's office said the deficiency could cause low energy and fatigue. As soon as she said that, I felt tired and I've felt tired the rest of the day! (Kind of funny how that works - ignorance truly is bliss.) I googled it and also found that Vitamin D deficiency can be a contributing factor for a weakened immune system (hello! how sick have I been over the past year?) and that it can inhibit weight-loss (dang! I don't need any more inhibitors). And those are just the ones I honed in on. So I'm taking this prescription Vitamin D supplement for eight weeks that has 50,000 IUs of Vitamin D in it. 50,000!!! (Of course, I only take one pill per week.) And then after that she wants me to take a 2,000-IU Vitamin D supplement daily . . . forever preferably.

While I was at Walgreen's picking up my prescription, I looked into their multivitamins. I might finally start consistently taking a multivitamin after all this business. I had been taking a generic version of One-a-Day Women's multivitamin, but I didn't notice any difference, it looked like a horse-pill, and tasted terrible. So . . . I discovered something fabulous: gummy multivitamins for ADULTS!!! It's VitaFusion's MultiVites. I've already taken the daily dose tonight and they are super good!! They taste just like fruit snacks. And I noticed that they have a pre-natal version too . . . oh yeah! I already scoped that out for the future . . . :)

And then lastly, I finally know my blood type! I've never known it for all these years. Ever since my traumatic first and only attempt at donating blood, I've never tried again even though I've been dying to know what my blood type is. So when my doctor took my blood, I asked if she could test for my blood type and tell me what it is. I'm A+. So cool!

P.S. I had Martha Stewart's No-Bake Summer Lasagna for dinner tonight. Quite delicious. I used cottage cheese instead of ricotta, whole wheat lasagna, and added a pinch of mozzarella on top.