Saturday, June 19, 2021

Sweet Home Chicago

For our last full day in Chicago, we headed downtown first thing this morning to play tourist. The CTA is running a promo ($5 all-day pass) to encourage people to return to using public transit, so we drove over to the Kimball station, parked the car, and rode the Brown Line to the Loop.
 
Happy to comply with the CTA mask requirement

Friday, June 18, 2021

To Remember

Today we laid R's mom's ashes to rest. She passed away just before Christmas in 2019, and while we were able to hold a memorial service for her a few weeks later in January 2020, the pandemic curtailed our plans for the inurnment last summer. So even though we are a year later than intended, it is especially fitting that my in-laws would have celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary today and that her birthday is tomorrow. Always a perfect time to remember those we love...

Thursday, June 17, 2021

Hot Dog!

J and M made plans to hang out with their cousin D today. So, his mom (R's cousin K) picked up the boys after she finished work at O'Hare, and then brought them back out to their house in the northwest suburbs. D scored some guest passes to his fitness center, so the three of them went to work out and then play pick-up ball. J was definitely prepared - he even packed his basketball shoes for the trip!

Somewhere under all that stuff is a hot dog
While they were out, R and I went over to Dad's place to spend the day with him. For lunch, the three of us ended up going to Byron's on Lawrence for Chicago hot dogs, although I confess that I ordered a cheeseburger (sacrilege!) It's not one of our usual food stops when we come back to Illinois, so it's been ages since we've been here.

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

The Road Less Traveled

Having stuffed ourselves over the past three days, my only regret was that we didn't have another meal (or stomach space) left to squeeze in a pizza from Monical's. Next time. *sigh*

We polished off the leftover bao for breakfast, and then loaded up the car to head back up to Chicago. But we couldn't leave before taking the usual photo of the boys with the grandparents.



Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Stamp-a-palooza

After a year with *zero* visits to any national park unit, I was determined to log at least one in 2021, even if it was a repeat visit. Since March 2020, all buildings within Lincoln Home National Historic Site had been closed to the public due to COVID. But just before we came back to Illinois, the park announced its re-opening! Yay!

And since the visitor center would be open, that also meant that I could collect extra passport cancellations towards my annual National Park Travelers Club award. Woohoo!

Monday, June 14, 2021

Bao Day

Today's activities consisted of stuffing our faces with more of my mom's cooking followed by food comas. 

(Lather, rinse, and repeat.)

If you've never had Chinese "bao", they are basically buns or dumplings, made with an exterior dough or wrapper enclosing some kind of filling. They can be steamed, pan fried, baked, etc. This website has a great compendium describing the wide variety of bao.

Breakfast: steamed char siu bao (Chinese barbeque pork) or vegetable bao (spinach, egg, shiitake mushrooms, glass noodle)

Sunday, June 13, 2021

After the Blip

Everyone in our family is a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so the parallel between the fictional havoc wreaked by Thanos' snap and the global chaos of our real-life COVID pandemic was eerily obvious to us. 

Life imitating art, if you will. 

Now that we are all fully vaccinated and things are opening up, we frequently talk about life after "The Blip". Using this pop culture reference is an intentional way for me to avoid saying "back to normal", because what is "normal" really?! 

Which brings us to the reason for this blog post - traveling to see our extended family for the first time in almost 18 months! Yay!