More James Photos

Day three of Flanagan's Chicago Expedition was spent expanding our minds and stomachs. We traveled to Hyde Park to visit the Museum of Science and Industry where a fully functional "Green" home has been built in the courtyard of the museum. It is the most eco-friendly and efficient home out there and we had a great time exploring it. From the recycled deck, solar paneled roof, Chardonnay glass tiled shower and the dual flush toilets it was interesting to learn about how we can make changes, big and small, to make our homes more safe, efficient and enviro-friendly. If you are in Chicago from now through January 4th (hmmmm.....) be sure to check it out!

After the home tour, we traveled north to show James the Chicago History Museum, which is of course the site for our upcoming reception. We had a little too much fun with our camera on the old time El car.


Um...excuse me while I grope your leg and take your stuff.

After our museum trips we stopped at Chicago Oven and Pizza Grinders, a local haunt specializing in pot pie pizza. In a word: delish. After which we rolled ourselves home and tried to force ourselves back into hunger as we had dinner plans that evening with Ira. A few hours later we succeeded in making a yummy Summer bouillabaisse with smoky rouille. The recipe is forthcoming! Followed by more hoopla and another favorite game, Apples to Apples.

Mr. Flanagan has arrived!

The weekend of July 19th heralded the arrival of the infamous James Flanagan, creator of the word Blürg, and best man for the impending nuptials. Sadly we did not document our first night with James, but we will tell you it was filled with succulent mussels, fantastic beer, a rousing game of mini-golf (which Blair won by the way) and many games of Hoopla on Blair's deck, certainly waking the neighbors. Day two we spent the late afternoon attempting to see Lang Lang, a piano virtuoso at Ravinia only to have our plans thwarted by lack of parking (Blair was not pleased about this). Proving ourselves to be adaptable (well sort of in Blair's case) we instead payed a visit to the Chicago Botanical Gardens, which are actually located in Glencoe but let's not fight with semantics. It ended up being a lovely evening as the gardens are stunning and the weather was cooperative. Here are some photos of the day! More can be found at

http://picasaweb.google.com/jurgenhooper/JamesVisit

Blair calms down when she enters a beautiful garden
James heeds the advice: For your safety please do not climb on the fountain
Blair does not: Rock on!
Not. A. Good. Picture. At. All
Take two, much better!
James and Jürgen take time to "sense" the tree in the sensory garden.
An arty photo through the arches. So deep.
The esplinade. Kinda pretty if you ask me.
Look Ma, a catfish, can I touch it?

After our trip to the gardens, we drove back to Blair's abode and played more hoopla. Everyone needs to know about this game.