Hello Chicago - Again

Well, I'm back in Chicago. It wasn't that long ago that I was here last. Shimaine and I were here for Thanksgiving last year. The last time I was here, the weather was great, but this week it looks like I'll be experiencing some Chicago rain and maybe snow. Least wise that's what the predictions are for this week.

My sister Rita picked me up from the airport and took my mother and myself to a newly opened "Longhorn" restaurant near my mothers house. This was a special occasion, my mother's 84Th birthday - way to go mom!! The weather is overcast and at night, the winds picked up and it started raining. Not quite cold enough for snow, but definitely lots of rain.

I woke up this morning pretty early. When I went to bed, my cell phone time was set at California time. When I woke up this morning, I looked at the time on my cell and it said 2:30 am. I said great, my normal time for getting up in California. I got up made coffee and sat down to work on my laptop. To my horror, I realized that it was 2:30 Chicago time which would put me at getting up 12:30 California time. Sometime during the night, my phone switched to Central Time. This wouldn't be too bad if I went to bed early, but I wanted to keep my same California routine and went to bed at 8:15 pm California time (10:15 pm Chicago time), so basically, I slept for a little less than 4 hours. Hopefully I'll be able to take a nap today and make up some sleep time.

I didn't take any pictures in Chicago yet, but I do have some more pictures of my little Irelan. Probably not that big of a surprise to most of you who know me. I just can't get enough of her laughter and smiles.







I took this self portrait picture of Irelan and myself of her sleeping. The little princess is just as cute as can be.

Vista

I just purchased Vista, the new operating software for Windows, and installed it on my computer. It installed effortlessly and I was up and running within an hour and half. I really liked what they did with the desktop and how Aero manipulates the open windows on the screen. My free Grisoft antivirus does not work with Vista but Vista comes with very good firewall software. So far, the only annoying action that I can see is when I properly remove a USB memory stick, the screen turns black momentarily and then returns to its normal self. This I will have to look into and see how I can correct. Other than that, so far so good.

Uses for a "playbag"

Irelan's mom carries Irelan's toys in a bag that she has allocated as a toy bag. While watching Irelan play, I noticed that she moved her toys a lot. So, being the enterprising person that I am, I thought I would try putting Irelan in the bag surrounded by her toys. To my amazement, she really liked it. Oh, I happened to have a camera near by, so I thought that I would take some pictures, something I normally don't do.

Clothes washing and babysitting

This last Saturday, I did some babysitting and clothes washing. Also, Maddie stopped by in the afternoon for a visit. Of course I couldn't let this event go by without pictures.
Enjoy..


My little sunshine



Clothes drying outside







Some pictures of Maddie and Irelan






Some funny pictures....

Shhhhh......The Princess is sleeping

This last weekend I found out that little Irelan likes to sleep on my recliner. It seems to fit her like a glove...not. For whatever reason, when I lay her on the recliner, she stays down for a while.







And also a couple of pictures of her awake.

Super Bowl - the good.....the bad.......the ugly

The Good:

My family and I watched the Super Bowl at my siter in laws house with a big screen tv. I thought most of the commercials were great Bud Light really did a good job this year. It was nice seeing the family and just really eating this big feast that everyone prepared.

The Bad:

I was actually excited watching the game - for the first 10 minutes only. After that, my emotions went from "well, we're still in the game" to "oh my God, what is going on with the Bears - someone shoot me". The game isn't too hard to break down.

Defensively we were unable to stop the Colts. Everytime the Colts needed a first down they got one. Everytime the Colts needed to run they got good yards. Everytime they passed the ball it seemed to be a completion. Indeed the Colts passed the ball over forty times which was the way to beat the Bears. The defense was unable to stop the Colts at all. It looked like we were playing "prevent defense" which is not the way to play in the Super Bowl.

Offensively, we were just anemic the entire game. Rex Grossman certainly stands out for his interceptions and fumbles, but the running game didn't get going at all. It seemed like every time Thomas Jones or Cedric Benson got the ball there were about four or five Colts to stop them.


The ugly:

If your name is Grossman, it's not going to be pretty scene in Chicago. Most Chicagoans wanted Grossman out but Lovie had faith in him and kept him in. For whatever reason, I think that was the right move. Rex got you here and it would be suicidal to put someone new in now. Although, I would think that Rex is probably contemplating suicide as a better fate than facing the Bear fans.

There's always that famous saying that Chicago fans are very used to "wait till next year". Hopefully, the Bears retain most of their personnel and maybe next year will be a better year for us. For now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go hibernate.....not. Go Cubbies!!!!


The beautiful:

My little Irelan Rose and me at our Super Bowl party.

Ebony and Ivory

My two munchkins together, it doesn't get any better.