Sad pumpkins

The girls were pretty excited to buy these pumpkins, but things got busy and they never got around to carving them. Guess we'll put them outside and give the squirrels a treat.

I took L and Mayu out shopping after school yesterday. Mayu needed zombie makeup and L wanted to see if she could find Halloween leggins. We found the makeup, but L struck out on the leggings. I, however, found some clearance Halloween decoration marked 75 percent off the already reduced price. Final price on the pumpkin decoration was $2.69; the cat one was $2.09, originally they were $22 and $17.

Going to Japan!

L got the letter the other day - she's been accepted into the school trip to Japan next summer!

Trevor Noah

Andy, L and I went to the Chicago Theater last night to see Trevor Noah's comedy show. Initially, L wanted to go to Champaign to see him (he was there Friday night) but Andy said he must be performing closer to us - and he was!

We had dinner at Pizzeria Due. (Mayu was having a sleepover at a friend's house in Chicago).

This was my first time in the Chicago Theater.

Interesting selection of shirts ...

... we chose the (only) one that was school appropriate.

Our view of the stage. Our seats were in row J on the floor, off to the side.

Here we are waiting for the show to begin. He was really funny.

Frosted doughnuts

Andy was up early to make the frosting, a chocolate one and an apple/cinnamon one, for the church doughnuts at the last Farmers Market of the season.

The market opened at 7 a.m. and the line was already to Scoville Avenue. The chocolate frosted doughnuts sold out by 8:30 a.m.

Andy brought some home.

Target fun

L had the day off of school yesterday so she convinced me to take her and three of her friends to Yorktown. She wanted me to accompany them on the train into Downtown Chicago. I think I chose the lesser of two evils, lol. The main goal of going shopping was to buy pajama onesies for a sleepover they had that night. They tried on quite a few and had a blast having me take pictures of them.

Here they are ready for the sleepover - L got the pink Care Bear, her friend N is a cat, friend T is a lion and friend A, who had to run home to get her stuff together, bought the unicorn.

Gifts from Japan

A big box from Japan was delivered the other day and it contained some gifts for our family from Mayu's family. These chopsticks are so pretty. L put hers in her holders immediately.

Even this box is pretty ...

... and it's full of delicious cookies.

And there's lots of Japanese foods. I was excited to see the mix that one of our previous exchange students used to make a delicious dinner. I think there's another delicious Japanese dinner in my future.

Favorite pages

I was a busy girl last weekend at Croptoberfest. I completed 24 single pages in our family album, 13 pages in B's album and 12 in L's album. That's 49 pages. That's a lot of trimming and writing and decorating. Because I had to take the train home, I had to leave all my albums and supplies at Cindy's (probably till Christmas) so I took a few pictures of the pages to show Andy and L. These are some of my favorites:

Our Jamaica trip earlier this year.

My birthday weekend/mom's funeral.

A summer outing to the Field Museum, drinks with friends and L's birthday.

I like the background paper I chose for this page of B's album.

And I found this Japan paper at a nearby store. He didn't take many pictures of his trip this summer. At least if he did, he didn't send them to me so I did the best with what I had. The favorite thing I did in his album is the paw print border on his graduation pages.

I finally got around to doing L's eighth-grade graduation page in her album ...

... and her youth group trip to Disney World in 2016.

DNA talk at the Field

Andy came home early from work today so we could make it to the Field Museum (in the rain) in time for a 5:30 talk on DNA sequencing. We had some drinks and a light dinner of bacon cheese quich before the talk started.

The main talk.

Andy in the DNA lab. I'm not sure what he's looking at. It was all pretty much above me.

One of the labs we got to tour.

A scientist put a sample of lichen in liquid nitrogen. Then he added something to it and he'll be able to see the DNA tomorrow. Like I said, it's more biology than I can comprehend.

The scientist trying to explain DNA sequencing to us. At least we met our friends, S and B, from church so we got to talk to them during the dinner time.

Back to Chicago

Cindy got me to the Carlinville Amtrak station in time to grab a cup of coffee at McDonald's before hopping on the train. It left Carlinville at almost 8 a.m.

Fortunately, I had my charger, an outlet and my iPad to keep me busy on the ride. At one point, there was a freight train broken down on the track so we had to go in reverse to get to the last switch and move to the other track.

Quite a change of scenery. We arrived at Union Station about a half hour late.

Andy met me at the station and we had lunch before he directed me to the Blue Line so I could come home.

Croptoberfest Day 3

One of the "free" breakfasts that came with the cost of the weekend.

Darla did a mini-lesson on making a page layout and made this design with the scraps from those pages. Wow.

We took a little break to go to the At Home store, where Darla needed to make a return. We talked Cindy into getting some decorations for a Christmas table centerpiece. Here's Darla in the store showing Cindy how to arrange little ornaments on a wreath that will surround a hurricane lamp. Course, when we got back to the hotel and Cindy transferred the items to her car, she dropped the hurricane lamp and it broke into lots of little pieces. Darla and I encouraged her to take it back, she did, and they replaced it. Yay.

I started the weekend working on the family album, then did B's album yesterday and today I worked on getting L's album caught up.

Crop ended at 4 p.m. I had to get one last picture of me and Darla before we parted ways. Cindy and I did a little shopping before going back to her house, getting a pizza and calling it an early night.

Croptoberfest Day 2

The cropping room early in the morning. We're ready for Day 2.

Darla and I have a high school classmate who's now a professional photographer and regularly posts Facebook pictures of his feet wherever he is. We thought it would be fun to take a similar picture and message him with it. He responded, got a kick out of it and invited me and Darla to Portland next summer. That would be wonderful.

Picture time.

For lunch the three of us went to the Hop House. The portions were huge. Darla had to get a picture of hers to send to the hubby. She thinks she can get three meals out of it. I had a pulled pork sandwich and it was quite tasty.

We couldn't leave without a goofy picture - posing by the rooster at the Hop House.

Happy hour. These are all three of our drinks - not just mine.

Busy working.

Darla took this picture of Cindy in her new Adam Ant shirt ... we realized later that the handle on the cutter probably should have been down. Looks a little inappropriate.

One of the advantages of going to a crop is using the consultant's tools. I used one of hers to make this cute paw print border for B's graduation pages.

As I've said, if it's not in the scrapbook, did it really happen?