Happy birthday to Michael!

It's my Michael David's 29th birthday today. I'm so lucky to be married to him! He's the best friend and best spouse a person could wish for.

We had a great time celebrating Mike's birthday. And Simone was so helpful in the present opening!

Indy

Yesterday Mike and I finally crossed the state line and made it into Indianapolis (or Indy, as folks around here call it). The whole purpose of our trip was to go to an exhibit at the Indiana State Museum: Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting. Unfortunately, once we got to the museum's parking garage we found out that the museum was closed for the day to repair the cooling system. Since we were already there, we spent a bit of time exploring downtown Indianapolis and we went out to lunch at Buca di Beppo. It was a very hot and humid day (don't look too closely at my hair in the photos -- it began to get really BIG) so we didn't spend too much time outside. Downtown Indy sidewalks were completely empty -- we hardly saw anyone outside at all. Then we walked into a mall and were overwhelmed with the mass of humanity. On our way home we drove past the massive Indy 500 stadium. Yep, it's massive. And that's about all there is to say about Indianapolis.

There's this giant monument/fountain in the middle of Indianapolis. It commemorates all the wars that Indiana's "Silent Victors" have fought in.

And here's Melissa. With the big hair.

The bears on the fountain are in a really goofy position, with their bellies sticking out. I guess they're holding up these posts?We're guessing that's Lady Liberty in her more aggressive mode. OH NO! Mike's falling in!

Here's the ceiling at Buca di Beppo. The walls look like this too -- covered from top to bottom with . . . stuff. We asked a server about the place, and he described the decor, "Well, I call it gaudy." Uhhh, yeah.

An action-packed 4th

Mike and I decided to go all-out this Independence Day to celebrate the 4th of July. We started our day with a 5K race -- in the pictures above you can see us at the Assembly Hall at the beginning of the race. We walked the course in 42 minutes.

We felt pretty festive for the 4th of July, but not compared to the patriotic decorators of this lawn:
There's a bear in red, white, and blue and a Statue of Liberty, and a ton of red/white/blue bunting all crowded in to one little front yard. Nation -- we need more of this brand of patriotism.

After the race, we watched the big Champaign County parade.

There were three or four high school marching bands

Lots of floats (this one is for Urbana's 175th birthday)

A bunch of old guys in funny hats driving antique tractors

And more!

In the afternoon, we made some apple pie and vanilla ice cream to share with our friends, the Whipples, then we went with the Whipples to the big fireworks show in town. It was a really fun holiday!

Kailey Whipple, Melissa & Michael

P.S. As we were riding our bikes to the festivities on Friday morning we saw this yard ornamentation. There are birdhouses for Dick Butkus and Jim Grabowski and a gravestone that says: "Yo Chief Illiniwek 1926-2007." Chief Illiniwek was the long-time mascot of the University of Illinois. He was retired in 2007 at the request (demand?) of the NCAA.


You can read more about Chief Illiniwek and/or watch his last dance: