A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

Our wedding photographer Kira Nelson, has posted some of our photos from the day on her blog. You can see her blog post here and can see the slideshow here.

She has also posted all of the photos from the entire weekend festivities in a private gallery. If you are interested in seeing them please send me an email or comment in this post and I will send you the link and the password. This private gallery is where you can order prints if you wish.

This past weekend Michelle and I tied the knot. As my regular readers know we got engaged last year, and got to planning the event almost right away. Before we knew it the weekend of September 26th, 2009 arrived and the festivities were underway.

Friday night Michelle and I held a welcome event at our home. Since we had so many friends and family travelling from all over the world we thought it would be a good idea to have as many of them over as possible the night before just to catch up. We ended up having a very full house (and backyard) with over 100 people showing up. My mother and relatives were gracious enough to cook dinner for everyone, and I’m pretty sure no one left hungry. We wrapped things up at 11pm and I headed over to Curtis’s place to spend the night.

Saturday morning I woke up with a strange feeling in my gut. The funny thing was that I wasn’t sure if I was nervous or hungry. At around 11am I took my groomsmen out for breakfast. When we finished I deduced that I was in fact nervous since I was full, and still had the strange feeling in my gut. We headed back to Curtis’s condo to chill before the wedding ceremony.

We threw in the Goonies to help settle my nerves and at 2pm our photographer Kira Nelson showed up to take some shots of us getting ready. She didn’t spend too much time with us before heading back to our house to shoot the bridal party getting ready. Before we knew it, it was time to head over to the Broadway Theatre for the ceremony.

We ended up getting their a little early so the boys and I crossed the street for a drink at the Yard & Flagon. We figured it was a good way to kill some time, and to help take the edge off. After we finished up the time had arrived to get married. And married I got. The ceremony went perfectly.

Michelle and I decided a while ago that we didn’t want to take a big chunk of time to do photos. The plan was for the wedding party and Kira to walk from the Broadway Theatre to the Hilton and do photos along the way. Since the ceremony ended at around 4:30 and cocktails wrapped up 6:30, we would have plenty of time to get some great shots.

We arrived at the Hilton at around 6:15 to catch the tail end of cocktails. Dinner was served followed by the program. We kept it short with toasts to the groom and bride, as well as ‘welcome to the families’. I also prepared a slideshow (watch it below) which played just before Michelle and I addressed our guests.  The rest of the evening was spent dancing to a variety of great music.  I’ve always said that you can judge how good a wedding is based on how many people are dancing.  I’m happy to say that the dance floor was more-or-less full for the entire night.

It was great that the wedding went exactly as Michelle and I had envisioned. It meant a lot to have so many family and friends at our wedding. Some traveled from afar, and some from near, but one thing was for certain - the wedding would not have been the same without any of them.  Thank you to all.  Michelle and I will cherish this day for the rest of our lives.

Last Sunday I arrived in Chicago for a software development conference called Agile 2009. It was a week long event that myself and 3 other Point2′ers were attending. Our week was jam-packed with workshops and talks, filling our brains with all sorts of knowledge. I’m not going to get into the details of the conference here, but if you’re interested you can check out my posts at Point2’s Developing Code, Connecting Industry blog.

• Day 1 at Agile 2009
• Burying Agile, The FBI, Harmful ScrumMasters, and More
• Hyperproductivity, Performance Reviews, and Too Much Pizza
• Coaching, Leading, and the Experience Design

Friday morning myself and the Point2 crew took a walk to the John Hancock Center and traveled up to the observation deck. We then spent some time trying to figure out what gifts to take back to our significant others. I failed miserably so hopefully Michelle is not too disappointed. We then headed back to the hotel since the guys had to catch their flight back to Saskatoon. I was staying for the weekend so we said our farewells and I took a walk to Navy Pier.

I decided to do the Skyline Boat Tour since I had already done the Architectural Tour with Michelle. This one took us a few kilometres out into Lake Michigan and described the high profile building making up the Chicago skyline. This was OK, but didn’t even compare to the architectural tour that takes you down the Chicago River into downtown. If you’re ever trying to decide between the two, please take my advice. It also didn’t help that it was pretty cloudy out. You could only see about halfway up some of the really tall buildings.

After grabbing lunch at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company I caught the train out to my sister’s place in St. Charles. Since I was in Chicago I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to hang out with my nephew and two nieces. I spent the weekend visiting with my sister and her family.

I just wanted to take it easy so the most eventful thing we did was take the kids out to Odyssey Fun World, a giant Ruckers type place. For lunch we went to Sonic. I cannot stress how badly I’ve wanted to hit this place up. I always see the commercials on the American stations, taunting me. I’m happy to say the burger was great, plus it was pretty cool because they are set up like the old A&W drive-ins.

My flight leaves just before 4pm today so I’m just getting the last of my visiting in. Fortunately I will see them all again in less than a month when they come out to Saskatoon for the wedding. Holy smokes! Did I just say less than a month?

About five months ago Michelle and I were visiting the Fenrichs up at their cottage at Turtle Lake. I wasn’t feeling well so I just lazed around, mostly laying on the couch. Zoey and Molly, the Fenrich’s two dogs, must have thought I looked pretty comfortable sleeping there, so they jumped up on me and joined me.

Up until this point I had no real interest in getting a dog, but having those two dogs cuddle with me set something off. I knew Michelle was more of a cat person so I started bugging her that we should get a dog - specifically a Chihuahua. It actually started off as a joke, but a few weeks later I found out that Michelle had been talking with breeders. It seemed my joke actually gained some traction. The next thing I knew we were at a dog show in Saskatoon to meet some Chihuahuas from a breeder in Regina.

We officially made the decision to bring a dog into our house and started dealing with Rosalie Juravle-Clark of Happy Paws Dog Care in Regina. We really liked the integrity and philosophy of her breeding practices and knew that we would get a quality puppy from her.

Two weeks ago Michelle and I made a trip to Regina to meet the puppies. Even though they were only nine weeks along, neither of us could believe how small they were. We spent about an hour playing with the dogs before heading out. After some discussion we decided on a little male from the litter. Rosalie told us we could pick in two weeks.

And today we made a quick trip to Regina to pick up our new puppy. We were a little worried as to how he would behave in the two-and-a-half hour car ride to Saskatoon, but he had a grand ole’ time playing with Michelle the whole way back. He’s been with us for about eight hours now and has been a blast as he awkwardly runs and jumps around the house . So may I take this time to officially introduce you to Dragomir Chirpy Tiberius. That’s actually his registered name, so you can just call him Darwin.

You can see a few more shots of Darwin at my Flickr site by following the links below.

• Thumbnails on Flickr
• Slideshow on Flickr

Michelle’s brother Christopher Parker married the love of his life Dazawray Landrie on Saturday, May 16th, 2009. The wedding ceremony was held at the Forestry Farm in Saskatoon. Things were looking pretty scary weather wise leading up to the wedding. The ceremony was being held outside and it was snowing regularly right up to the big day. As it turned out, the Saturday of the wedding turned out to be a great day.  Whew.

The wedding was short and sweet, followed by some mingling while a few key family photos were fired off. There was a few hours to kill before the reception which was being held out at Langham, SK - about 30 minutes outside of the city. Michelle was co-emcee for the reception so we grabbed a quick lunch and made our way out to Langham to get a few things organized.

The community hall where the reception was held was decorated beautifully. The wedding party, friends, and family did a great job of getting everything in order. Dinner was lasagna and Caesar salad, which was a little unprecedented, but delicious. I seriously believe that may have been the best lasagna I’ve ever had.

The dance followed the reception and a good portion of people stuck around until the end. Michelle and I are happy to say that we shut the thing down…as we do at most wedding we attend.  I didn’t bust out the moonwalk or worm this time around, but we did make use of our recently acquired ballroom dancing skills. We were waltzing like nobody’s business.

I fired off quite a few shots at the ceremony and a handful at the reception. You can check them out at my Flickr site by following the links below.

• Thumbnails on Flickr
• Slideshow on Flickr

Even though our cabinets had been installed our kitchen was still in an unusable state since we were now waiting on the countertops to be built and installed. Because the dimensions can change during the cabinet install, the counters cannot be built until a final measurement is made.

Pristine Countertops showed up a couple days after the cabinet install to take measurements. We were under the understanding that it would be a couple days for them to build and come to install the counters. Michelle decided to call J&H Builders to find out when the install would actually happen and it seemed that we couldn’t get a straight answer. After being redirected to Pristine, we were told it would be late the following week.

By the time we reached the middle of next week we still hadn’t heard from Pristine so Michelle decided to find out what was up. After getting bounced around a bit we were told that it likely wouldn’t be until the following week. Michelle found this unacceptable and convinced them to reconsider. They agreed to install Friday morning.

The guys showed up early Friday morning and had the counters installed within three hours. We were ecstatic to clean the kitchen and get everything moved out of the living room and back to where it belonged. We could now start putting the final touches on the kitchen.

My first task was to install the over the range microwave. I looked over a installation video on the Panasonic website on how to do this. It made it sound really complicated so I was a little worried as to my ability to do it. I decided to dive in anyway.

As it turned it was way easier than I was anticipating. We hadn’t installed an electrical outlet in the above cabinet yet so we were hoping to just be able to run the cord to an outlet just below. This plan didn’t pan out so we will have to install the outlet sooner rather than later. An extension cord will have to make do for the time being.

Michelle’s uncle Ray showed up at the tail end of the microwave install to see what would be required for the sink install. He put together a shopping list for me so I could make a trip to Home Depot before tackling the plumbing the following morning.

Ray arrived late Saturday morning and we immediately got to work. He mentioned earlier that he was having some painful back issues so he was going to have me do the work as he coached me. I wasn’t sure if he was serious about this, but as it turned out he was. He directed me through 9/10ths of the plumbing work and installation of the sink and faucet. I had no idea how any of this stuff worked prior to this, but with his instruction I now have a pretty solid foundation for future work in this down this path. As the old saying goes,

Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.

The work took a little longer than I was expecting, but that can likely be chalked up to me going slowly as I was taught Kitchen Plumbing 101. We managed to have a working faucet and sink by the end of the day with minimal glitches encountered along the way.  (Hey…that was like a poem).

The kitchen was pretty messy after the day’s work, and even though I was totally wiped I wanted to get everything cleaned up so we could have an actual working kitchen. Under all of the sawdust and ABS pipe shavings Michelle presents what was hiding.

Following admiring our new kitchen, the three weeks of renovations finally overcame me and I made my way to the nearest couch and collapsed. I could cherish the next few weeks of a normal household until we tackled the final step of tiling the backsplash, and fixing the completely out of place light fixture.

You can check out more pictures on my Flickr site by following the links below.

• Microwave Install Thumbnails on Flickr
• Microwave Install Slideshow on Flickr
• Plumbing Thumbnails on Flickr
• Plumbing Slideshow on Flickr
• Final Product Thumbnails on Flickr
• Final Product Install Slideshow on Flickr

I never made another post following the wedding announcement back in September so I thought I would give a quick update. Michelle and I have gotten the major things sorted out including the venue for the reception, the photographer, and the DJ. The bridal party are ready to go with Michelle having found hers and the bridesmaid dresses. As far as I know they are all fitted and ordered. I too have found what the men will be wearing, but I’m pretty sure they have not went and got fitted yet.  I may have to give them a deadline. Michelle being the crafty person she is has been spending a lot of her time creating our invitations and ’save the dates’. We are going to have a lot of people needing to travel a reasonable distance for the wedding, so we figured ’save the dates’ would be a good idea. Michelle finished those up last night and will be mailing them out in the next couple days. Only expect one of these fabulous creations in the mail if you’re a traveler.  If you live close by, consider this your official ’save the date’.

I guess the last major thing Michelle and I keep ignoring is where the actual wedding ceremony will take place. We’ve found that when you’re not getting married in a church, your options become quite limited in Saskatoon - especially when weather could become a factor at the tail end of September. If you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear from you.

This past Tuesday night was very exciting for me.  I asked Michelle to marry me, and she accepted (like there was any doubt).  I’m sure most of you who are reading this have already heard the news, so I’ll just give you the details of the events leading up to the big moment.

A few weeks ago Michelle and her mom spent a few days in Edmonton at a lingerie trade show.  I saw this as my chance to go ring shopping.  I went to GMG Jewellers and explained to a salesperson what I wanted in my ring - a hybrid of my vision and what Michelle had hinted to me over the last few months. After looking at a few different designs, I made my decision and told them to go ahead and build it. I would return in a few weeks to pick it up.

The next day I told Ryan that I had just bought an engagement ring. Since Michelle’s birthday was coming up I thought that I would propose on that day. I wasn’t sure if this was a cheesy idea so I ran it by Ryan. He didn’t think it was, so the plan was set - I would propose on Wednesday, October 8th.

I was told the ring would be ready on September 17th. The day came and went without me picking it up. I didn’t want to get it too early fearing that I wouldn’t be able to stick to the plan. Another week passed, and September was coming to an end. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was too excited and picked up the ring on Tuesday, September 30th at lunch time, with the intention of doing it that night.

This was a busy week for us so it didn’t leave me many options. Tuesday nights we have ballroom dancing class and always go out for dinner afterward. We had previously agreed to go to a new Indian restaurant on 8th Street that night. However I had decided that I wanted to propose downtown along the river, and since 8th Street is nowhere near downtown I cleverly said that I was craving sushi and suggested the Samurai (which is right on the river). She agreed and my plan was underway.

While we were eating our sushi I kept mentioning how nice an evening it was and that we should go for a walk along the river, especially since we rarely do this. This is where my plan fell apart. Michelle was completely against a walk, stating that we needed to get home because she had a bunch of tests to mark. I tried to change her mind but was unsuccessful. I didn’t want to be too persistent because that would have been fishy (no pun intended).

As the conversation changed to Michelle’s trek up Mount Fuji while in Japan my mind was racing, desperately trying to concoct a contingency plan. Needless to say I still don’t know anything about her climb. I must have been pretty convincing since she didn’t suspect that I wasn’t listening to her.

After leaving the Samurai, and failing one more time to convince her to go for a walk, we made our way back home. The easy thing to do would have been to postpone the proposal. However I started the day telling myself that I would be engaged by the end of the night, and damn it, I was going to make it happen.

While Michelle was catching up on her email in the kitchen, I placed the ring in the middle of the bed, and dimmed the lights. I went to the kitchen and said that we should practice the dance we learned that evening. As we danced, I led her to the bedroom where her ring awaited her. The rest is now history.

See everyone next October.

Our flight back to Saskatoon was not until three o’clock which was a nice bonus. It’s rare that I don’t have an early morning flight. We were up relatively early and got all of our stuff packed up before heading back out to do some last minute shopping. Michelle wanted to find a dress for one of our many weddings this summer.

As it turned out the shops didn’t open until ten o’clock so we just killed time. Michelle tried on a few dresses at Anne Taylor which I thought looked pretty good. She said they were “mom” dresses and that they were something she would like in her closet about five years from now. After failing at the dress shopping we headed back to an Abercrombie & Fitch store where she picked up nice soft shirt. Their shirts are so soft.

It was getting close to noon so we decided to get back to the hotel and checkout. We jumped in a cab and were on our way to O’Hare International. This was where our trip really took a turn for the worse. Luckily it was at the end of it. After lining up at the Air Canada check-in at Terminal 2, we find out that our flight is being operated by United Airlines out of Terminal 1.

So we book it over to Terminal 1 and use their totally non-intuitive manual check-in system which no one can seem to figure out. We are then told that we are departing from Terminal 2. WTF? So we head back over to Terminal 2. We found our gate which had about five chairs in the waiting area.

We hadn’t eaten yet so we grabbed something at a McDonald’s in the terminal - the first thing that seemed to function efficiently. Our next mission was to find a Duty Free store. We were ready to give up after walking up and down the terminal twice. I then noticed a cart off to the side of a hallway with a sign “Duty Free Store”. Was this actually the Duty Free store in one of the biggest airports in the world? We bought a couple bottles of spirits and went to wait for our flight at a different gate (since ours had no seating).

Boarding time quickly approached so we headed back over to our gate to see a huge line. As it turned out they were loading three separate flights (with slightly different departure times) through the same gate. I’m not sure why United thought it was strange when people were nearly missing their flights as they were stuck at the end of this monstrous three plane queue.

Then we heard an announcement saying that you couldn’t line up until you had your passport checked by a United person. As more confusion filled the gate people started another line for a United lady to look at our passports and circle our name on the boarding passes.  WTF? No one was sure what this was accomplishing as we got back in line to board.

After being reprimanded by the gatekeeper that we were giving her too many documents when getting her to check our boarding pass, we were finally on our way to getting on the plane - or so we thought. We went down some stairs and were now out on the tarmac where we proceeded to walk for about five minutes to our plane which was likely back at Terminal 1.

We finally got onto the plane and I thought that this nightmare was over. Nope. As it turned out one baggage cart never arrived. Two people were sent on different occasions to get the cart but never returned. Finally after an hour of us sitting on the stifling hot airplane, the baggage manager found the cart and we were on our way. Brutal.

Despite having to deal with a flight attendant giving us misinformation about going through customs once we got to Winnipeg, the flight was pretty much normal. We touched down in Saskatoon where Jeffrey was waiting to give us a ride home.

As you can guess Michelle and I loved Chicago. I had heard so many people talk so highly of this city and now I know why. The waterfront is so beautifully developed and there is just so much to do. I always remember people saying that Chicago is what Toronto could have been. Now I know what they mean.

As a wrap-up, I just want to thank Yavini and Kevin for being so hospitable to Michelle and I for the few days we spent in St. Charles. It was awesome to spend time with them and the kids.  And now we are really  looking forward to our next trip to Chicago.  Having gotten through a lot of the touristy stuff on this trip we can focus on some of the more obscure gems that the city has to offer.

All of the photos from the trip can be seen in my Flickr account.

• Chicago - Day 2
• Chicago - Day 3
• Chicago - Day 4
• Chicago - Day 5
• Chicago - Day 6
• Chicago - Day 7

Tuesday morning we were up early to catch the train to downtown Chicago.   My sister brought Chiara and Mira along when she drove us to the train station.  It was sad to leave the kids after our stay with them, but it was also exciting to be going to the city.  I’d heard so many good things about Chicago from so many different people that I was genuinely looking forward to our stay.

For some reason, the train showed up on the other side of the platform, so the whole lot of us waiting to go to the city had to race under the tracks and up to the other side.  Luckily we made it in time.  It felt like we were on the Amazing Race.  Once we were on, the rest of the ride went smoothly.  We arrived downtown in just over an hour and caught a taxi to our hotel - The Sofitel.

Even though we arrived much before their posted check-in time, we were able to get our room.  The hotel had a real trendy feel to it which I really liked.  The room was also quite nice, with the bathroom being totally awesome.  The bathroom alone was about the size of the rest of the room.  It had a separate tub, shower, and a toilet with a phone - for those really important calls.

Before leaving Saskatoon, we bought a couple GoChicago cards.  They each cost just under $100 and gave you admission to the majority of tourist attractions in Chicago.  Since we were planning on hitting at least two attractions per day, we would easily get our money’s worth.

We got our game plan together for the day before leaving the hotel.  We decided to focus our attention on Chicago’s Waterfront.  The Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium were the choices for the day.  Since our hotel was in the heart of downtown, and just off of Michigan Avenue, a.k.a. The Magnificent Mile, we decided to just hoof it to the waterfront.

After about an hour we approached the Shedd Aquarium.  With our GoChicago cards we had a special admission line which allowed us to bypass the regular admission line.  That was nice.  The aquarium had your basic stuff found in other aquariums, and we spent our time checking out all of the exotic fish, turtles, etc.  The aquarium also housed a couple Beluga whales, dolphins, penguins, and a large variety of sharks.  Due to some confusion, we didn’t get a chance to see the dolphin show from the presentation area, but we did get to see it from under the tank (which obviously is not as good).  We were going to stick around for the next show, but it was getting to be late in the afternoon, and we wanted to still hit the Adler Planetarium.

Luckily it was just a few hundred metres away so we didn’t waste much time getting there.  It was about four o’clock which would allow us to only see two shows.  Well as it turned out, our GoChicago cards only gave us admission to two of the shows per day anyway, so that worked out quite fine.  We saw The Night Sky Over Chicago and Cosmic Collisions which were both very good.  We ripped through the exhibits between the shows, but I would have liked to have spent a little more time there.  The planetarium was huge and you definitely would need a good chunk of the day to see everything.

It was just after six o’clock by the time we were done so we decided to spend the rest of the evening shopping on the Magnificent Mile.  I managed to buy a few things, but didn’t go overboard which I easily could have.  It was now past nine o’clock and we hadn’t eaten anything since lunch so we figured we’d better do something about that.

We passed tons of restaurants as we moved back towards the hotel.  We’d check out the menus, and even though they sounded good we’d just continue on.  Before we knew it we were back at our hotel and still hadn’t eaten.  We were now starving and the hotel’s menu didn’t do it for us.  We decided to head back to the last restaurant we saw, The Cheesecake Factory.  Michelle had eaten at one somewhere else and she said it was solid.

I ordered a hamburger and this thing was HUGE.  There’s no way I could have eaten this thing on a normal day, but since my stomach was now eating itself I was able to completely destroy the burger.  It also helped that it was delicious.  This burger has now moved to the number one spot on my Burger Delicious Metre.  I was even able to pack some delicious cheesecake into my gut for dessert.  By the time we got back to the hotel, my stomach was about to explode so it seemed best to go to call it a night.

On another note, the Apple Store is right on the Magnificent Mile and it was lined up every time we passed it.

I just don’t understand lining up to get into a store when there is no special release going on.

You can see more pictures from the day by following the links below.

• Thumbnails on Flickr
• Slideshow on Flickr

Monday my sister was back to work and the nanny was in to watch the kids, so Michelle and I thought that this would be a good opportunity to do some shopping while in St. Charles.  My sister works from home so she took a few minutes out of her day to drive us to an outdoor shopping mall called Geneva Commons.

Before we hit the stores we realized it was just after noon so we figured we’d better grab a bite to eat.  We went to a restaurant in the area and ordered from the lunch menu.  Wow.  I had forgotten how big meal sizes are in U.S. restaurants.  Neither of us were even close to finishing our meals.

There were a lot of great stores in the mall and we found a bunch of great prices on clothing, but we held off on buying anything since we were planning on shopping while in downtown Chicago.  With the U.S. and Canadian dollars being even right now, the considerably lower price of clothing in the States is really hard to pass by.

I was feeling quite parched since It was a super hot day again so we found a place to get a nice refreshing drink.  Many of you may know of Michelle’s great disdain for Starbucks.  She has vowed to never support this establishment.

She was not impressed that I took this picture.

On Sunday we decided to take the kids to the Kane County Fair.  It was raining in the morning, but by noon it had cleared up and the sun came out.  Once we got out to the fairgrounds we realized just how hot of a day it was.  It was in the mid 30s during the few hours we were out there, with almost no breeze.

We started off by taking the kids to the animal petting areas.  We saw a huge Flemish rabbit that looked more like a dog with floppy ears.  We also saw delicious steaks, bacon, veal, and chicken wings.  The kids really liked petting and feeding the animals.  I really liked the thought of eating them.  Mira got a bit of a scare when she was pushed down by a couple of goats who then proceeded to steal the feed we bought for her.  The look of shock on her face remained for about five minutes, but she regained her courage and started mingling with the animals again.

We spent the remainder of the time taking the kids on the rides.  I only went on one, and since I’m not really a “ride” type of person, that was enough for me.  I can’t remember what it was called, but I think it is called the “Himalaya” at the Saskatoon Ex.  I’m pretty sure I have bruised ribs from it…maybe broken.

After we got back to the house we took it pretty easy.  We spent a little time playing with the kids outside, so it seemed like a good opportunity to pull out my big camera and take some pictures.  I was firing them off left and right.  Boy, these shots were going to be fabulous.  After about twenty minutes I realized I didn’t have a memory card in the camera.  Brutal.  At this moment I put a card in and started taking pictures again - treating my previous blunder as a practice session.

By the end of the day everyone was pretty tired and found comfort in their own way.

You can see more pictures from the day by following the links below.

• Thumbnails
• Slideshow

We were up bright and early Saturday morning so we could make our way to downtown Chicago and visit the Museum of Science and Industry. Before heading out, Yavini informed me that Saturdays were reserved for McDonald’s breakfasts. Sounded pretty good to me and I put my order in for a Bacon McMuffin. When they got back, I witnessed a display of utter absurdity.

Her and Kevin made an order for their Egg McMuffins without butter, cheese, or the ham. They then removed the egg portion of the sandwiches, cut out the yokes, and re-fried them. They then fried up some of their own ham for the “McMuffin”, and added some low fat cheese, but not before re-toasting the English Muffin for a more crispy texture. This is all fine and dandy to be health conscious, but I was so confused as to why we didn’t just make the McMuffins at home? To each his own, I guess.

We waited for their nanny Ms. Anna to arrive before we took off. She was going to stay home with young Liam while the rest of us went to the museum. We all piled into the SUV and headed for downtown Chicago. Since the drive was about an hour, we spent the time reading some books we bought for Chiara and Mira.

The lineup to buy tickets into the museum was hilarious. There was probably around a bazzilion people buying tickets, but I will give them credit - the line moved really fast.

The museum had everything from farm equipment to a Boeing 737. One of the cooler things was a captured Nazi U-Boat - the U-505. I’m not sure if this was the submarine that the movie U-571 was based on. The tour of the sub was sold out for the day, so we weren’t able to actually go inside of it.

There was also a live insect display which was pretty freaky. I’m not a huge fan of bugs, so I kept my distance, but Kevin was pretty brave and let an eight inch millipede crawl on him. How would you like to find this thing in your house?

We bought tickets for a 3D show called African Adventure. As I was watching it I was having a really hard time getting anything to look right. As a matter of fact, I was actually starting to feel a little nauseous. I figured there had to be something up with the 3D glasses I was wearing. I finally decided to flip them around and everything came into focus and took their 3D form. Literally, 2 seconds later the show ended. It seems Michelle had the same problem, but she didn’t get her gasses flipped around in time.

We left the museum following the show, and Kevin drove us around downtown, giving us a quick tour of some of the big sites. Before we left their place, he looked up Barack Obama’s address so he could show us “Democrats” his house. I thought the Secret Service were going to stop us for sure when we drove by the house once, turned the SUV around in the street and slowly drove by again - this time with the window rolled down and me (a brown guy with a beard) taking pictures with a big camera and zoom lens.

As far as I know, we weren’t tailed. But I do think a Predator was was in hot pursuit. I managed to capture his thermal imaging of us.

Once we got back to St. Charles, Michelle and I had a quick nap before we headed out for dinner with just Kevin and Yavini. This was a good time for the four of us to just get some visiting in without having to give all of our attention to the three little ones. When we got back to their house, the children greeted us as though we had been gone for three weeks. Everyone was in bed before ten o’clock, but Michelle and I were up real “late” - 11:30pm.

You can see more pictures from the day by following the links below.

• Thumbnails
• Slideshow

Beep.  Beep.  Beep.  That’s the noise that greeted me at 3:30 Friday morning as the alaram went off.  We both put the final touches on our packing, got showered up, and were in a taxi by 5am to catch our 6:30 flight to Chicago.  We were greeted by a rude Air Canada Jazz check-in attendant who was speaking so softly that I’m not entirely convinced that he wasn’t just moving his lips.   He managed to feed us much dis-information about our trip.

I had no issues in security despite my backpack full of every type of electronics device you can imagine.  Michelle wasn’t so lucky and was “randomly selected” for a full search.  Apparently the security woman doing the search was really throrough.  The flight went well, but we had less than an hour to pick up our baggage and get through customs in Calgary.  We cut it pretty close, but we did manage to get to the gate as they were boarding the plane.

The new Air Canada planes have in-seat entertainment.  Not satellite TV like WestJet, but an on-demand system which is pretty good.  I watched a couple of HBO comedian acts - David Attel and Bill Maher.  Attel was super-crude, and mediocre.  Bill Maher had me literally laughing my head off with his American political jokes.  People must have thought I was crazy.

The flight was fairly short, and we arrived in Chicago before we knew it. My sister, Chiara, and Mira greeted us at the airport, and we were on our way to their house in St. Charles. We spent the rest of the day just visiting, playing with the children, and eating. Michelle and I were quite exhausted so we had a quick nap before dinner, once we were able to trick the kids into leaving our bedroom. Before calling it a night, Michelle, Yavini, Kevin, and I decided on our plans for Saturday - The Museum of Science and Industry.

Michelle and I fly out to Chicago early Friday morning for our first summer vacation together.  The plan is to visit my sister and her family out in the suburbs for four nights.  I haven’t seen them since last summer when they came out here, so I look forward to seeing them all.  Plus they have never met Michelle so I look forward to that as well.

Once we wrap up our visit, Michelle and I will head downtown where we will stay for the remaining three nights.   We’re staying at   The Sofitel Chicago Water Tower which is right on The Magnificent Mile.  Our time downtown is going to be very busy as we play the tourist role since neither of us have been to Chicago.

I’m going to try and blog each day we’re there, so make sure to keep your eye on A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year.  And as usual, I will be Twittering frequently throughout the day.   You can follow all of my Tweets on my Twitter page.