Pigs in the park

We saw Emerald City Theatre's adaptation of the picture book "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs" at Millenium Park today.

Day 15

We went to Garfield Park Conservatory on the far west side of the city today. Mom and Levynn had been there once on a preschool field trip, but this was the first visit for Dad and Lincoln. It's a neat place and not at all inconvenient despite its distance from us and the bus-to-train commute. The kids didn't want to leave!

Preschool of a different sort

We seriously considered enrolling Lincoln in a preschool program for this fall, getting all the way to the paperwork process at one point, before we finally decided to go another route.

So he's enrolled in a gymnastics class at The Little Gym - the same one Levynn attended - and an art class at Old Town School of Folk Music, where Levynn took ballet earlier this year.

Those alone are a big deal for him because he has not done any socializing without Mom or Dad. But he did great today in his first gymnastics class, following the teacher through the door and jumping right into the activity.





We think this will work out fine.

Back at Millenium Park

We went to Millenium Park today and watched a short performance from the Cirgue Shanghai Cloud 9 cast at the Chicago Sister Cities International Festival, made mobiles at the Family Fun Festival, ate lunch at Park Grill, and shared ice cream from its next-door cafe.

Day 10

We're counting down to the first day of Levynn's school year with our Advent house calendar, filling it with things to do each of the 24 days.

Today is the 10th day - two weeks left! - and we went to the beach, made our own pizzas, and made cookies-and-cream ice cream.

Kaleidoscope... of stuff to do

The other museums in Chicago could learn a thing or two about family programming from The Art Institute, of all places.

Once family unfriendly (or so we've heard), The Art Institute now doesn't settle for just opening its arms. Its family center, which opened with the Modern Wing last year, is free every day, and that's only the starting point. Kids always are admitted free to the museum proper as well. And there are days like this one, Kaleidoscope - A Family Day, when the museum even risks turning off the old art crowds to draw in kids and engage them.

Today, there were five projects for all ages and one for teens, each in separate classrooms in the family center; three storytime sessions in another classroom; and, get this, three more projects for all ages in the (gasp!) art galleries.

No stodgy art museum is this!

Levynn through the lookingglass

Levynn's racking up the big-time staged versions of fairy tales!

To a list that also includes Broadway in Chicago shows of "The Wizard of Oz" and "Beauty and the Beast" and Joffrey Ballet's "Cinderella" now can be added Lookingglass Theatre's "Lookingglass Alice" - an original interpretation of Lewis Carroll's stories.

She and Dad attended the afternoon show today, and it was extraordinary. Levynn was yawning in her seat before it started, but she was wide-eyed or laughing throughout the performance - which is as much circus acrobatics and physical humor as it is traditional drama. So physical, in fact, that the extensive interaction with the audience included the White Knight perching on top of a man's shoulders just a few seats down our row.

A few official photos are here. The set is minimalist - to say the least - and there is little effort made to disguise the actors, with the exception of the Red Queen. The burden is on the actors' very physical performances, and they were great. It couldn't have hurt that we saw the five primary actors (one plays Alice only, the other four play all the other characters), no understudies.

The theater, which none of us had seen until today, is nestled within a signigicant Chicago landmark that we frequent regularly, the Water Tower Water Works building on Michigan Ave. (We go there because it also has a miniature library branch that we've made our pick-up point for books on hold.)

Here's the water works part.

Anyway, the theater seems really small, seating barely 200 people, for such a significant Chicago company (founded by ex-"Friends" star David Schwimmer and others at Northwestern University in 1988). But that also means there is not a bad seat in the house. There are just five rows of stadium-style seating on each side of the "stage," which is at floor-level. And we were right in the middle of the third row.

Oh, did we mention where we got the tickets, valued at $60 apiece? Facebook has its uses, folks! We won the tickets there.

She's doing this, too!

Six must be a magical age. That's her thought on the matter, at least.

And how about Linc's jumps?

It's as easy as this now

And it's so neat to watch!

Fun at - and to and from - Grandy's

On the train...




In Grandy's yard...












With Mammy and Pap...


More fun indoors...




Pumpkins in August!




And back on the train...


Thank you, everyone!