it was a girls’ day out yesterday. we had lunch at the bongo room in the wicker park area.

shopping is hard work. our feet hurt.

free popsicles on an extremely hot day is the best!

we celebrated our second year anniversary yesterday. it kind of crept up on us and it’s hard to believe how quickly time has passed. onwards to year number three…

we’ve been very busy lately. among other things, joe is taking an intensive introductory arabic course, and i wrote my US family practice board exam today, which kind of put things on hold while studying for it. i’m hoping it will be my last exam for the forseeable future, assuming i pass. happily, my mom and sister flew in to visit a couple of days earlier, which has been a treat. mom has been busy cooking (and cleaning etc) and i can already feel the extra pounds creeping on. i wonder how many years of practice it will take before i’ll be able to do everything my mom manages to do…with ease! right now i am really looking forward to my day off from work tomorrow, sleeping in, and then doing some retail therapy with my mom and sister. oh yeah.

Ravinia Festival is an annual concert series that is held in the summer, just north of Chicago. it features many different artists and you can either buy a more expensive concert ticket, or cheaper lawn tickets where you can sit back and picnic while listening to the music. we had lawn tickets to go see Feist yesterday.

we initially tried to take the train, as it was “highly recommended”, but after arriving at the station early and then waiting for an hour with hundreds of other ravinia-goers, it was clear we were not going to be able to cram onto train, and ended up driving. eventually after a stressful hour of traffic, road construction, parking two miles away from the festival, and a shuttle, we finally made it to ravinia!

despite arriving later than we had planned, we still found the perfect little spot to settle down for our picnic.

after a pre-show, Feist finally started… her live show (3.61Mb, .wmv) was really good. sounded just like the CD! she did most of her more popular songs and some from her new album. we managed to sneak a peek and watch her perform a bit from the back. pretty good for $15 !

at the end of the evening, we packed up just in time to avoid the massive exiting crowds. and i didn’t even get a single mosquito bite!

this july 4th weekend was asher’s 3rd birthday. sadly it was also a goodbye party for asher and his parents as they leave chicago. we had a good time with hotdogs, icecream and cake, as well as playing with bubbles and the sandbox.

the kids quickly found multiple ways of enjoying the birthday hats; unicorns, vikings, and stegasauruses. good thing there were plenty of hats to go around!