Babychan's visit to Chicago!

So one would assume, based on my diligence in blogging, that we have had an uneventful summer. On the contrary, we have both been quite busy with school, jobs, the internship, and various other commitments. But we have also had a lot of fun. This last winter, we could not believe how miserable and cold we were. Indeed, we were suffering. I asked myself two questions diurnally:

1) How is it that Chicago is so populous (aka, why would anybody in his or her right mind actually want to LIVE here!)

and

2) Why am I no longer living in Hawaii?!


I have no answer to that second question, but I think that people endure the winters in order to experience the summers here! There is a lot that the city has to offer, including free concerts and movies in the parks, great beach activities, music venues, lots of sports (go Cubs!) and restaurants, parades and cultural festivities...

So it is especially fun that we've had family out to visit us this summer. Right now we'll look into the fun and adventure that we had when Livia's sister, Babychan, came from Hawaii for three weeks.

One of the first activities was to take her to Navy Pier. This snapshot was taken in the arboretum at the pier.


Also at Navy Pier is a series of twisty and distorted mirrors.


On another day--at the Field Museum


Somebody is going to hate me for putting this one up. It was really fun to have days when we could all go to sleep without setting the alarm. Notice how bright the sun is coming through the windows! That's almost as bright as...a noonday sun!


One of the great accomplishments of Babychan's trip was learning how to tie a noose.


We bought a couple of karaoke games for the xbox. Babychan didn't want her picture taken, so this had to be captured through espionage. It interesting to have your vocal abilities being judged and rated based on computer algorithms. If you score well, then you can think "great, the computer thinks that I didn't do too bad." If you get boo-ed off the stage (which CAN happen), then you think "man, not even a machine can tolerate my singing..."


This was our group at the ward bbq and picnic. It was a fun day of softball, horseshoes, soccer, frisbee, eating, saying the pledge of allegence, etc.


And the 4th of July party conitnues into the night over at our house.


Livia was busy talking on the phone, so we enterntained ourselves by having me push Babychan through the store in a shopping cart. We also did swing dancing in the lobby here.


There is a fun play structure that caught our attention. We spent a lot of time climbing on the ropes throughout multiple days.


Here we are balancing on top of the structure


While Livia was out at work one day, Babychan and I went to play at some of the many parks throughout the city. This one is very long (about 2.5 miles), but also very narrow. I snapped this shot right as she was taking off her glasses. She doesn't like people to know that she wears glasses, but she couldn't escape this time!


Here is Babychan stopping to smell the roses


Having grown up in urban Sao Paulo, she had never known the simple joys that coud be had from a blue tire chained to the beam of a playground structure. I showed her the joys of nausea that come from twisting, twirrling, spinning uncontrollably, nearly hitting the sides of the structure... She thought it was great.


We are never to big for certain things...



Actually, yes we are.


Here we are taking pictures of each other.


This is Buckingham fountain in Grant Park. We visited here for the Taste of Chicago, which was fun, but I think that it is blown a little bit out of porportion. Nonetheless, there is plenty of entertainment throughout.


This is a nice cop who let Baby ride his ATV up and down the street in downtown Chicago. He even let her take it off sweet jumps.


And that's a little bit of what we did while Livia's sister was in town.