Chocolate doughnuts!

Today was the last day of the season for the farmers market and that means Andy was up at midnight to make the chocolate frosting. Frosting the doughnuts is a huge mess, not to mention time-consuming, so the church only does it on the last day of the season. People were already waiting in line before the market opened at 7 a.m., in the rain, to get their once-a-season chocolate frosted doughnuts.

Halloween

Not sure if L's bloody "insane asylym patient" costume will make it past the teachers, but she's giving it a try.

Muffles

Confirmation

I went to help out with L's confirmation class tonight. L and her friend, D, wore cowboy hats and were the drink-serving team for dinner.

Halloween decorations

The addition to my minimal Halloween decorations this year were two hanging, fabric bats I found at the Economy Shop.

Thanking the alumni

Tonight we went to the high school to hear B and all the other students who received travel scholarships from OPRF's Alumni Association give presentations on the summer tripss they took. B teamed up with a girl on his trip who received the same scholarship. He did a great job. The presentations were pretty long, they were supposed to keep them to two minutes each, and we decided to leave at 9 a.m. (after two hours) to go get some dinner.

Full on fall

The trees really started to change color this week. These are just a few of the colorful trees in the neighborhood.

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Homecoming

E was in the U of I Homecoming Parade last night. She rode on this float her sorority and brother engineering fraternity, Sigma Phi Delta, created. The school is playing Wisconsin today in the Homecoming Game so that's Bucky the Badger hanging from the crane. At some point in the parade, E said the badger fell and the float ran over it. At first, she said, they all screamed, but then the crowd started cheering as if that was suppose to happen so they all went along with it.

E's sorority with the float after the parade. Note the missing Bucky.

Here's the float with Bucky intact.

Here is E and some of her sorority sisters posing with a Chief Illiniwek.

Licensed driver

After two trips to the driver's license facility this morning, B left with his newly printed driver's license in hand! It helps to be nice to the guy typing in the information. We wanted B's middle initial on the license instead of his middle name, which was on his permit, and he told us we've have to get all the way to the photo area before they'd send us back to him to "correct" it. Once he corrected it for us, and we were waiting in the cashier's line (for the second time), he asked for B's papers and had them stamped for us, then escorted us back to the photo area. It felt like we were getting concierge service. Pretty sweet.

This is a problem

Muffles' house looks like it was hit by a tornado, but he still found a way to get inside.

Play and pizza

L had another presentation of her school play tonight at Irving. How convenient that her rehearsals all week have been across the street? Andy is in Philadelphia on business so B and I went to see the show. B spent time afterward walking around the school to see how it's changed since he roamed the halls. I think the biggest changes were the wheelchair ramp installed in the cafeteria and a rearrangement of the front office.

Afterward, we drove to Lou Malnati's in town which was having a Julian fundraiser. Twenty percent of the food bill would be donated back to the school. Raising money, not cooking and getting pizza? We're in. We sat in the front of the restaurant and it was such a beautiful night with temps at 70 that they had the front garage-style doors open. You don't get to dine almost al fresco in October too often in Chicago. Nor do you see the Cubs on TV in October too often (they lost their fourth straight game to the Mets to end their season).

I asked E today if she had any homecoming plans this weekend and she said she might walk in the parade. (Her sorority teamed up with their brother fraternity to make a float.) Then she sent me this picture of a mug she received on the quad today for wearing an Illini jacket.

Preschool toys

After the church's game night was officially over Saturday and the adults were cleaning up, the kids got into the storage room and took out the preschool ride-on toys. You'd think they'd be too old to enjoy them, but they still love to ride them around in circles in the church basement.

Engineering humor

E sent me this picture of the Electrical/Computer Engineering lab. She doesn't have a class in there now, but will next semester. The left window says, "Please do not feed the engineers." The right side says, "Here you observe the engineer in their natural habitat. Do not tap glass."

E's a little sister

E's sorority went on a "secret weekend," leaving Urbana Friday afternoon. E told me Saturday they ended up in Arcola and slept on the floor of a community center. The big event of the weekend was matching the potential new members to their big sisters. The weekend before, E made an AOE mug for her big sister (not yet knowing who she was) and a coaster. She said her big sis liked them. Looks like E also received her pledge shirt.

L to the rescue

I spent yesterday afternoon whipping up some Rice Krispie treats for the church's game night tonight. I decided to get all fancy and use cookie cutters to make them into bats and ghosts. B came home from school, took one look at the "bats" I made and decided they looked like ... poop. Well, I can't take those to church.

Fortunately, L came home and agreed to fix them up for me. She used candy melts to outline the bats and give them eyes, and put eyes on the ghosts as well.

These look church-worthy. Thanks, L.

L's play

Andy and I went to see the first of two evening performances for the school play L is in, "Matahei the Stutterer." It was about a Japanese artist who stutters and since he can't express himself in words has a difficult time convincing the art master he would make a good student. In the photo above, L is on the left with the sword. Below, she's with the rest of the cast( third from left), acknowledging the work of their directors. L brought three girls from the play home with her and two are going to sleep over.

Lord Stanley

I logged on to the museum's web site this morning and found our photo with the Stanley Cup. I am very surprised I have my eyes open and am looking at the camera.

High school?

L walked with her fellow eighth-graders to the high school (!) this morning for orientation. How is it possible she's going into high school next year? Of course, she wore her OPRF shirt and blue leggings. Go, Huskies! And not only did she see B at the school, he came over and gave her a hug.

The Cup and a talk

Andy and I went downtown to the Field Museum tonight for a "behind the scenes" presentation of the museum's Pacific Anthropology Collection and reception. We even got free parking in the museum's west lot, a nice perk of being an Annual Fund donor. After the presentation, they took our group (about 40 people) up to the third floor where all the offices are to see the artifacts and hear how they're being cataloged digitally. None of the museum's 10,000 Pacific pieces are on display so they're hoping to create a searchable website.

Here's the part of the museum visitors don't usually get to see - the dreary hallways of the third floor. We walked quite a ways with our employee guide before she was able to find an elevator. It's kind of a maze up there.

We had reservations for the behind the scenes presentation long before the museum learned that the Stanley Cup would be coming to the museum that same night. We were given tickets for the 8 p.m. viewing. The museum was open to the public after hours for the viewing from 7 to 10 p.m. It was a sea of Hawks jerseys.

We initially got in this line to see the Cup. The line went down that corridor and wound all around the main entrance area. According to the museum, this was one of the last public displays of the Cup before it returns to its home in Toronto. The Blackhawks chairman, Rocky Wirtz, is a Field Museum trustee so that's how the Cup ended up at the museum. One guy we talked to in line said when the Cup was at the museum before the line was out the door, but this year they had timed tickets so when those tickets were gone, you were out of luck to pose with the Cup.

But because we were there for the earlier event, a museum employee flagged us out of line and put us in a "fast pass" line. We probably didn't wait more than five minutes in line to get our chance to pose with Lord Stanley. The museum's photographer was taking all the "official" pictures and will have them available online in a day or so. We got up to the Cup and it was "one, two, three, click." If my eyes are open and I'm looking at the camera, I'll be shocked. It was so fast. Makes me glad we didn't have to wait in the long line.

The people who got to see the Cup before us put their baby in it. Too cute!

And if that wasn't enough sports excitement for one night, outside the museum had a dinosaur dressed in a Cubs jersey.

Cubs win

The Cubs beating the Cardinals tonight in the playoffs was so unbelievable August couldn't turn away from the TV.

Working?

Andy was on a business trip to Portland from Wednesday to Friday last week, then he left Sunday afternoon for Los Angeles. He sent me this picture of himself enjoying wine on a patio overlooking a beautiful golf course that he played earlier in the day. Rough life for an attorney.

Retreat over

After breakfast this morning, we gathered for our Sunday worship service. B was an usher. He looks thrilled, doesn't he? I had to get a picture of the communion table because we used two leftover hotdog buns for the bread, just like Jesus used bread leftover from the Last Supper for his first communion, right?

This is L being silly, rolling around in a large sweatshirt. She put her legs in the arms of the sweatshirt and tried to walk around, ending up all over the floor. She tried this after breakfast in the dining hall, but her sweatshirt wasn't large enough. One of the dads offered his Bears sweatshirt once we were done with church to see what this fabulous trick was all about.

Then we took L, her friend, T, and J, the niece of our church organist, to Dinges' Farm. They posed for a nice picture by Charlotte, the straw bale spider ...

and a silly picture.

A bin full of gourds.

Andy looked at the pumpkins but we didn't bring any home. We had to leave right after lunch since Andy had to catch an afternoon flight to Los Angeles.