Little Family in the Big City

Monday, August 29, 2011

2nd Annual Bike Ride to the City

Today Jason and I ride our bikes downtown in what is now officially a tradition.

After dropping the girls at school we hop on our bikes under a crisp late summer sky, ride through our neighborhood to Evanston, and then seamlessly wind through Chicago's Rogers Park until hopping on the Lakeshore Drive bike trail.

University of Blogspot

Next month marks the fourth anniversary since the very first post appeared on "Little Family in the Big City." Four years of blogging the ends and outs, the mundane and the dramatic, have passed. Four years. The time it takes to earn an undergraduate degree. The time it takes to move across the Continental Divide, help plant a church, and move back across the Continental Divide to an entirely different city in an entirely new region of the country.

Since I consider myself the nostalgic type (why not put that History major to use somehow), I thought a moment down memory lane was deserved.

Where were you four years ago? Consider the following to give yourself some perspective...

In September 2007

Facebook had only been available to the public for about a year
The IPhone just hit the market months before in January
Netflix was experimenting with streaming movies instead of just mailing them
The Wii had been on the market less than a year
No major movies had yet been made about a blog (Julie & Julia was released in 2009- I'm not sure how she beat out Little Family in the Big City. Still trying to figure that one.)
George Bush was still in the White House

Back to School

It was back to school on Friday for Rynn and Eleanor. I didn't get any good pictures...everyone was moving too fast with too much excitement, and the coffee cup in my other hand didn't really help either. I've posted a few out of focus shots for you grandparents :).

For the first time ever both girls are in the SAME school at the SAME time. We can walk there in five minutes waving at friends along the way.

No Training Wheels!

Watch out world.

The training wheels are off.

an L ticket and a camera

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. Dozens of them. This fall my exploration begins. With an L ticket in hand and a camera in my pocket I want to discover these neighborhoods and share them with you. Greektown. Chinatown. Little Italy. Little Village (Mexican). Polish. Ukrainian Village. Bucktown. Wicker Park. Gold Coast. Each neighborhood is a culture unto its own with restaurants, bakeries, museums, and architecture unique as the people who settled there.

If you have some suggestions for me...

Central School Garden

This week the girls and I are helping out a little in their school garden. Not much to do, really, as other teachers and PTA parents have worked hard to maintain it all summer. We just get to water the vegetable garden.