SJ on the Move

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Beach Class Trip

The day after we got back from Chicago, S had her Kindergarten class field trip to Wingaersheek Beach in Glocester. It was fun to go as a chaperone and see all the kids have fun exploring the numerous tide pools. We saw sea worms, crabs of various types, a sea star, sand dollars, little shrimps, snails, bivalves, barnacles, and a dead stingray.


Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Chicago Highlights

Three years ago S and I accompanied Nathan to Chicago for a conference. It turned out that Chicago was S's favorite place on earth and she talked about all the fun she had for a whole year afterward! We were very excited when the opportunity arose for all of us to again go back! (Surprisingly, S had very little recollection of anything!) Here are some of our highlights:

The kids at Crown Fountain

Buckingham Fountain

Outside the Children's Museum at Navy Pier

Inside the Children's Museum

On the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier

Deep Dish Pizza! yummy!

The Children's Room at the Chicago Public Library

Picnic on the grass at Millennium Park

On the River/Lake Boat Cruise

Time to head back home! A fun time had by all!

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Ask This Old House

Nathan is a fan of the t.v. show This Old House and since they are local he's contacted them a few times about some outdoor projects we needed help on. In the end they weren't interested in those projects, but were interested in helping us with our kitchen tile back splash. It's been 3 years since our kitchen was mostly finished. Three years we've been disagreeing on what the back splash should look like. Three years we've been dealing with the absence of the finishing touch. Needless to say we were delighted to hear that Ask This Old House wanted to do a tile project and ours fit the bill! After rushing back to the tile store to pick a tile we were ready to go.



The filming crew arrived at 7:15 am and starting bringing all the supplies to turn our kitchen into a filming-worthy work space -lots of lights, film for the windows to control the sunlight, cameras, computers, buckets, ladders, tools, water bottles, and coffee cups. Nathan got on his mic and went to work. He "helped" the pro, Tom Silva, do the tiling and had to comment several times at how easy it was. (They didn't let him say that it was only easy b/c he was just following Tom's directions and wasn't trying to figure it out all by himself!) Eight hours later we had a finished back splash!!


The tile lined up and ready to be applied.


Nathan "working" on the tile.


Look for Nathan to be on Ask This Old House sometime in early fall when their new season starts! We'll also get a copy of the DVD for keepsake! Overall it was a neat experience to see how a t.v. show gets filmed and I'm really glad we waited 3 years for our cool back splash!

J the Pack Mule


S discovered a new way to get her backpack to school. Unfortunately he's a bit slow and his limit is about 5 pounds.