Home Soon Home

I have been offline for several days now as we made our way from Chicago to rural Virginia. Our apartment was packed up on Monday, the truck arrived Tuesday and took away all our 'stuff'. We drove out of Chicago on Tuesday afternoon.

We felt very sad to say goodbye to Chicago and all our lovely friends and neighbors - but were buoyed by a nervous excitement.

We stayed with some good friends in NOVA (Northern Virginia) and made it to Fredericksburg on Thursday in time to close on our new house. Of course there were a few frayed nerves and tense moments - despite the absolute joy of packing up a house and moving across the country with three young children in tow ;-)

We used Mayflower movers for several reasons: a glowing report from Design Mom during her recent move, an impeccably good reputation, a number of add-on benefits, and most importantly - the fastest promised delivery time. You will therefore sense our frustration when we were able to track our truck passing through Fredericksburg this evening... but are not to expect our items to arrive until Tuesday! Fingers crossed that the driver finishes his other deliveries quickly and we can have our things this weekend.

Drawing Summer to a close...

Summer activities are drawing to an end as the beginning of the school year looms. Our impending move seems to make the end of Summer appear more defined or final. This is not a good thing in Chicago as the Summer is impinged upon at either end by that domineering Winter. To finish it any sooner is sacrilegious!

Master 5 finished his Kung Fu classes today. He has been doing Kung Fu for a couple of months and has, on the whole, enjoyed the experience. He takes classes at Healthkick and adores his teacher Sifu Paula who seems to have a masterful way with kids. Last weekend, we attended a performance his school put on in Chinatown. Demonstrations were made at all skill levels. Four performers playing the parts of two dragons were particularly impressive.

The last soccer class will be next week. I enrolled the boys over the summer in Soccer classes with Chitown football - part of the Lil Kickers group. This was to give ourselves some sort of structure over the long gap in the school year - as well as provide an excuse to exercise and meet some new friends.

Our intention is to take the boys along to Soccer next Tuesday, have some lunch, then drive to Virginia! (well, part of the way at least).

Bye bye Sue

The boys were keen to visit the Field Museum before we leave Chicago, so we made a visit today. The Field Museum is a brilliant 'old school' museum of curios, artifacts and animals, with something to appeal to almost everyone. We have barely scratched the surface of what this museum has to offer. Possibly something to do with being trapped in the dinosaur section too many times.

We said hello (as we do when we arrive at the museum) and then goodbye to 'Sue', the 'largest, most complete and best preserved' example of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton ever found. With some speed-viewing, we even managed to fit in a couple of more exhibits than we usually do, including the Underground Adventure exhibit, the Real Pirates, The Ancient Americas and Water. The Pirate exhibit was extremely popular but required too much reading for this young family, making it a very slow moving experience, compounded by a couple of bottlenecks (where a number of patrons were beginning to lose their patience). This was a shame as 'pirates' appeal to all ages, and there would have been great scope to provide some more kid-friendly exhibits, or at least a fast route through.

We are going to miss the Field Museum, but are also very excited at the prospect of being able to explore all the Smithsonian has to offer.

Molly's Cupcakes

There are several establishments - just around the corner - that we are going to miss BIG TIME! We just LOVE our neighborhood and the fact that we can live without a car (we did for 18 months) as so much of what we need is within walking distance. Living on acreage in a more suburban - less city-like environment is going to be a big adjustment for us.

We visited one of those establishments yesterday. Molly's Cupcakes. Although we are not super-regular visitors, we do visit from time to time - particulary during our very brief Chicago-Winter-walks, when it is just TOO cold to walk any distance, but we need to get outdoors before we succumb to cabin fever.

A selection of games including Jenga and Connect 4, keeps the boys occupied while I have a warming cup of coffee. The success of the lattes served here totally depends upon the barrista, but they do use the local Intelligentsia blend, so it bound to be better then the chain stores... and they use ceramic cups. YAY.

I love the ethos behind the cupcakes baked here: using a recipe from a favorite grade-school teacher, with a portion of profits benefiting local schools. The photo shows Master 3 eyeing our selection: Cookies-n-cream, Coconut Cream and Lemon Meringue cupcakes.

What else we will miss about Chicago

Today the boys had their last art classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music. This has been an excellent venue for us over the past three years with the kids attending various art classes, Wiggleworms French classes and piano (although this last one wasn't as successful!)

The wonderful Laura Reyes has seen both boys for art. I love the way Laura begins each class with a physical exercise to get the kids in tune with their bodies, this is followed by a story, then a multi-media artwork representing a theme from the story. Artworks are assembled using a variety of media with quick changes between each media type to ensure the children do not become bored. Artworks might consist of modeling dough, beaded pipe-cleaners, sparkle paint, crayon, markers, paints using a variety of brushes, found objects, etc. All children are given the same materials and I love the way artworks are expressed in many different ways depending upon the child's predilection. No child is ever told what to do or guided towards completing their artwork in a defined manner. The class ends with a clean-up. Children immerse their hands in a tub of soapy water, filled with toys and objects relating the the theme used in class. This is a fantastic ploy as the children get cleaned without even knowing it! Classes were super motivating for Master 5 (who wants to be an artist when he grows up) but just a really fun opportunity to eat play-dough, drink paint and be reckless with a paintbrush for Master 3.

Something else I will miss from Chicago is Argo Tea. For someone schooled in the world of independent coffee shops and who really does not like Starbucks coffee (and only goes there in an emergency), Argo Tea has been a very welcome alternative. Originating in Chicago, there were only three Argo Tea stores when we arrived in 2006. This has recently grown to 15. Argo serves a good cup of coffee as well as their substantial range of tea drinks (using white, green, black, red and herbal tea varieties). I particularly like their Mojitea iced tea on a hot day. I dislike drinking coffee from paper cups unless it is to-go. I give full marks to any business that serves coffee in a ceramic cup - this seems to be a rarity in the States. Whenever we attended classes at Old Town School of Folk Music, we would patronize Argo Tea's flagship store at Armitage and Sheffield for a coffee and snack.

What we will miss about Chicago

We trekked along to Chicago's Green City Markets this morning - for our last family visit. I love being able to walk to these markets, grab some wonderful produce and have picnic snack with the kids (mostly a croissant or danish, perhaps a berry smoothie, some sorbet, fruit, tomatoes, crunchy cucumbers or anything that catches our collective eye). We then have a lunch using our finds when we return home.

The kids are really going to miss their 'hot cheese' from the Brunkow cheese stand. I am going to miss their delightful horseradish raw milk cheddar - so creamy and tasty on a crusty Bennisons baguette*. The Brunkow man is going to miss the boys asking for 'hot cheese'. He always makes them repeat their request as he likes to hear their accent! We always have a block of this 'baked' cheese in our fridge (plain, jalapeno, garlic or the new tomato and basil flavor). Served warm, I fry it in a pan for a 'bits and pieces' dinner, throw it on a warm chicken salad or thread it on vegetable kebabs (marinated with fresh herbs).

As we are attempting to empty our fridge before our move, I had to make some prudent purchases today. We walked away with two quarts of peaches, a punnet of super sweet tomatoes, two punnets of blueberries, an epi loaf, 'hot cheese', curd cheese and fresh mozzarella, a bunch of basil, a bunch of coriander (cilantro) and a couple of cherry scones (devoured on site).

*I had to have a quick break after writing this - to have said snack - as I was salivating rather severely.