The Last Walk In The Park

Since the dogs are pretty depressed about the move we indulged them today with a final walk through Lincoln Park. We thought what better area to start with than our first stomping grounds, the Gold Coast.

The dogs started whining as we drove through the Lincoln Park neighborhood... they miss Oz Park. Once we started walking by North Ave we decided that we would walk by the beach if they remembered their trick of darting to the tunnel as we walk past... they remembered.

We love to walk by the lake...

The park is gorgeous this time of year as every thing is green and so many trees are blooming... it is truly one of my favorite times of the year in Chicago.

The dogs were on the prowl for squirrels. Fortunately for Dan {unfortunately for the pups} there were no squirrels to be found for chasing.

It was a gorgeous day for our last walk through Lincoln Park. Ok, so maybe that is a little dramatic... I am sure that we will do walks through the park again but with how busy our summer is it will probably be a while before we bring the dogs in to visit their favorite spot for a while. We felt a little nostalgic as we thought about not living with this as our backyard anymore. Hopefully the suburb parks will be a nice substitute for the pups.

Watching the Immigration March

This morning as Dan and I watched a couple cars get towed from our street, we wondered why both sides of our street were flagged for no parking. Since I was working from home I got to watch as the Chicago PD started lining down our street and helicopters started buzzing around...

Then thousands of people passionately marched down our street for the Immigration March...




Then the ever-efficient city of Chicago crew followed with street cleaning...

I would have loved to have gone down to the street to watch but of course our deck was being painted at the same time... but it was still pretty exciting from our apartment. This is one of the things I love about living in the city... I mean it is not every day that an Immigration March strolls past your home.

Big Night Out

A couple weeks ago Dan had the opportunity to get 2 free tickets to a Bulls Game and jumped on it. I was really excited to go because I have never been to a professional basketball game and even though I wasn't in Chicago during the Bull's glory days I still had been a fan so it was fun to see the United Center in person. Although, I think we both were just really excited to have something to get out of the house for on a 'school night!'

Of course we took the camera with us and had a little fun snapping photos...

I had to take the token close up of Dan:

We got there super early to beat the crowds and apparently succeeded in this mission. We missed the memo that all the cool kids show up during the first quarter. The game was sold out but you would never expect it based on this photo! And yes, we thought the remote control Bull was super cool:

The game was great- it was actually a close one and yes we even cheered. But our favorite part was the dance routine done by the Matadors:

They had some pretty awesome moves:

Of course going to a professional basketball game is all about the entertainment and I have to say we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It got us out of the house on a cold snowy winter evening and we came home laughing so the evening was a success. And that routine by the Matadors must have inspired Dan as you will see in an upcoming post...

Adventures in Walking to Work

Our new thing these days is to walk to and from work each day. And man are we sore. Who knew walking was such great exercise... It ends up being a 2 mile walk each way and it has been really nice to chit chat on the way instead of sitting in a daze on a crowded bus. Of course walking through downtown always means there are interesting things (and people) to see. The past 2 days we have been watching them set up the big Christmas tree in Daley Plaza. It is pretty interesting to see them hoist the trees up there and to see the rows of trees waiting for their turn. I suppose the holiday season is quickly approaching.

Something I found to be quite amusing this morning was the pigeons that were huddled around some kind of fire pit thing. The ones on the edge had their beaks incredibly tight against their chest as it was pretty cool this morning. Dan was a little embarrassed when I took this photo!

Spring Work

flower boxes1
Originally uploaded by tarakay827.

Spring definitely has switched over. Inspired by the magnolia trees and redbuds, we decided to plant a couple of flower boxes for our patio. We have sweet peas and herbs started as seeds and a couple boxes with strawberry plants. It is so nice to have an outside space again- one of the many reasons this apartment trumps our previous ones. I am going to have so much fun planting our container garden and picking out a little bistro table so we can sit outside and enjoy it this summer!

Oh and the dogs love it too. They got to hang outside with us while we planted. Shelby of course got into trouble by find the hole in the fence to get into our neighbor's yard. Eddie just want to play ball and be wild.