My Backpack

My royal blue JanSport backpack and I have been together for a long, long time. In fact, our relationship is one of the longest-term relationships of my life. I got the backpack way back in 1996 (or thereabouts). The bag survived the teenage angst of high school; four years of lugging around literature anthologies in college; three years of graduate school and teaching, carrying gradebooks, freshman essays, and the collected works of May Swenson; and now it's carried me halfway through another degree, this one in Library and Information Science. Alas, the backpack begins to show the wear and tear of its long life and five shiny safety pins hold together a bottom corner. Michael suggests replacing the backpack, but I believe the backpack and I can finish our journey through higher education together. We can make it through just two more semesters . . .

Chicago: August 7-8

For Christmas 2007 I gave Michael two tickets to one of our favorite NPR shows, Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me; the show is taped live in Chicago on Thursday nights. Mike was finally able to cash in his Christmas present last week (talk about delayed gratification!) and we went to the show on Thursday, August 7th. It was all we ever dreamed of -- funny, clever, lots of dirty jokes that they edit out for the radio broadcast . . . etc.

Last week's major joke was the Paris Hilton campaign ad that Funny or Die produced in response to McCain's attack ad against Obama (starting line: "He's the biggest celebrity in the world."). Great stuff.

We spent two days in Chicago, and besides the radio show we also:

• Went to the Museum of Science and Industry.
• Walked around Grant and Millennium Parks.
• Ate some awesome Chicago pizza. Nom nom!
• Went on the Chicago Architecture Foundation's river tour -- a major highlight of the trip.
• And spent time on Chicago's trains and buses finding our way around town. We're smitten with Chicago -- it's such a fun city!

We took way too many photos to post in this little blog, so check out our slideshow of Chicago fun.

Nauvoo, July 25-26

This is Mike blogging about the trip Melissa and I took to Nauvoo, IL last weekend. Going into this trip, we were really excited because, although we've visited Nauvoo a few times since moving to Illinois, we still had not seen the LDS pageant in Nauvoo. Here's a recap of our trip.


On our way to Nauvoo, we crossed the Mississippi River at the Illinois-Iowa border and saw that the flood waters still have not completely receded. In this photo, you can see that the water comes all the way up to the road. Actually, the water covers this road over one stretch. To keep the road open, workers have piled gravel on top of the road to keep the road surface above water.


Once we passed the flood zone, we got into Nauvoo for the festivities. We saw people dancing in costume to bagpipe music. I've been considering wearing a kilt to beat the heat. Melissa tells me that skirts are even cooler than shorts.



This was our view from where we sat for the pageant. The temple is such an inspirational sight! My favorite part of the pageant was the triumphant finale when the temple was lit with floodlights, and we heard President Hinckley's voice over the speakers declaring that the Nauvoo Temple facing west and the Salt Lake City Temple facing east stand as monuments to our pioneer heritage. (That's a very loose paraphrase, by the way.)

One of the major highlights of our trip, for me, was our discovery of the Nauvoo Land and Records Office. This is kind of like a family history research center where you can find information about who rented and owned land in Old Nauvoo and where those land holdings are located. The Land and Records Office also has records about who performed ordinances in the original Nauvoo Temple in 1846. Melissa was very patient with me while I looked up information on some of my ancestors and saved those files onto a CD. This was a very exciting discovery for me!


This is me in front of what was the home of George Laub, one of my ancestors who lived in Old Nauvoo.

Another semester bites the dust

Enacting a little librarian stereotype here on the steps of the library.
(Just so you know, we actually NEVER shush people.)

Besides being Michael's birthday, yesterday was also the end of summer semester! Some of the fabulous people I've worked with for the past year are now moving on -- E to a job in Reno, K back to her life in Oregon, and C to Boston to look for a job there while her boyfriend goes to Harvard Law School. I feel really lucky to have worked with these ladies!

Enjoying lunch at the Y Thai

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: