What we’ve been up to

I know the content around here has been pretty light recently. Marcella and I were away on vacation for all of last week, and I just haven’t gotten around to talking about it, but we had a great time, and I think it was good to take an extended break like that. Neither of us has had a long vacation in a while.

We spent the first several days in Chicago. Marcella found this wonderful hotel called The Dana and somehow got us a fantastic rate. So for about three days we walked, and I mean how! We walked all around downtown…from Michigan Avenue in the vicinity of the Water Tower to across the river and south. We walked all through The Art Institute including the newly opened Modern Wing. I can’t even begin to list all the fine things we saw there, but I think one of my favorite exhibitions was the Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper.

One day we took the El to the old neighborhoods that Marcella lived in back when she was a student and she showed me her old residences and the restaurants she used to eat at and so forth, and that was really nice. We had a great breakfast that day too at a place called Ann Sather where the cinammon roll was like the size of your head and delicious.

Later in the evening we took the Architecture Cruise on the Chicago River. I’ve posted a bunch of photos over at Flickr about this. I didn’t go through and name all of the buildings in the photos, but the most obvious ones are named, the rest, well…they are there just to complete the picture. I plan on posting some other photos soon from the beach portion of our trip which came a few days later.

There was lots of fine dining. I’m not going to list all of the restaurants, but there was plenty of good food, you can be sure.

About mid-week we drove out of Chicago and over to South Bend, Indiana to visit Marcella’s Grandma who has a really lovely view of the St. Joseph river. We spent a little family time there visiting with her Grandma and Uncle.

Then we traveled over to Miller Beach, Indiana where we had a little cottage with a gazebo and a path over the dunes and to the beach. This was the more relaxing part of the trip. We sat in the gazebo in the evening and watched the sun setting across Lake Michigan, and in the morning we would enjoy the nice breezes while drinking our coffee before the heat of the day moved in. I’ve got lots of photos from this part of the trip that I haven’t yet posted. Keep your eye out, maybe I can have some up later today, or certainly by the end of the weekend.

This is also the portion of the trip where we visited with Marcella’s sister and her nephews. I think Marcella was very happy to be able to visit with them. We were actually staying in the same neighborhood just a few blocks away and the boys were able to ride their bikes over and hang out with us on the patio one afternoon/evening and just have a good time catching up.

Marcella also had lots of nostalgic moments because Miller Beach is where she grew up, so this was a trip home for her.

Anyway, that sums up the main points of our vacation. Like I say, I hope to have some more pictures up over at Flickr soon.

The drive back wasn’t too bad, and we had our iPods loaded with lots of good music for driving. We were home by early Sunday evening, and then it was back to work on Monday.

Christmas Eve happenings

It’s Christmas Eve, and Marcella and I have been watching It’s a Wonderful Life on DVD. We’ve had a fairly quiet day. We each ran a few very quick errands, but for the most part we stayed at home, listened to Christmas music all morning, took a nice walk around the neighborhood, grabbed a couple lattes at Starbucks, and stayed relaxed and just enjoyed the time away from the office and the frenzy.

I think a little later tonight we will likely watch Little Women (1994), which is our own little Christmas tradition. I know it isn’t strictly a Christmas movie, but it somehow seems to capture the same sort of spirit of the season that makes it a favorite for me at this time of year.

I hope all of our friends and family out there are having a wonderful evening and are preparing for a great Christmas tomorrow.

House in Castine

My dad tells me they’ve had their first snow in Maine. He sent me a few pictures.

It looks very different there from Florida. I’m wearing a short sleeve knit shirt right now and the disconnect in weather is very apparent to me at the moment.

Home Again!

I think the news has gotten out sufficiently now that I can post something about it. The short story is that I am moving back to North Carolina. I have accepted a job in the Greensboro area and will be returning there before Christmas.

Needless to say Marcella and I are both very happy about this, and we are very much looking forward to spending Christmas with each other without the looming thought of my having to return here shortly thereafter.

Yay, very exciting!

Marcella comes to visit tomorrow for the weekend. …

Marcella comes to visit tomorrow for the weekend. We are going to go to Key West for a day!