What’s better than a free hug?

A hug forced upon you!!!

Mickey Mouse’s Magical Powers

Saturday, we got to see the Mickey Mouse use powers that I did not know even existed.

Mickey was at the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival, a parade where Mickey Mouse uses his powers to light all the christmas lights on all the trees on the Magnificent Mile.

There were other visitors at the parade too!

And the back side of frosty the magical snowman:

And a man was smiling at Betsy:

Before the magical ceremony, we also went to Navy Pier. We went to the stain glass museum and then rode on the magical Ferris Wheel.

This is us before getting on the Ferris Wheel.

The next few pictures are as the Ferris Wheel went higher and higher:

 

 

Getting a little too high for me…

But the view was great.

We also got to walk around the city and go across the river of Chicago:

And I got to see my favorite painting:

 

It was a magical day!!!

Need a wig?

I just might be able to help you.

This is how much hair I had.

This is how much I have now.

the drama.

A huge thanks to Chelsey!

The end. Sorry for the narcissism folks.

Halloween times.

For some reason I have been super creative as of late. I made roses out of maple leaves…

And for this year’s pumpkin I did Thomas S. Monson.

Our costumes won “Best Couple” award at our ward Halloween party.

We had a lot of fun. Also, this week we went to my new favorite place in Chicago, The Museum of Science and Industry.

They already have some Christmas decorations up! This was a Bolivian themed tree.

A miniature room from the fairy castle!!!

The coal mine!!!

It was a good Halloween. Hope ya’ll had a good one too. Yar.

Pumpkin Patch.

I for one have never been in a pumpkin patch. You might say I missed out on having a childhood. And I’d say you’re right!

A real live pumpkin.

Happy.

Contemplate the worth of a pumpkin.

Even a real tractor ride.

I must say you’d be silly not to love the fall. It was worth a trip down to Indiana to find some of the best pumpkins around for only 25 cents a pound. They also had the most amazing Golden Delicious apples. It’s not very often I get to taste a bit of fruit right off the tree. These are the simple joys in life you cannot do without.

 

Another first: Dinner at Steak & Shake. Some of the best burger I’ve ever had.

The following Sunday I made Ukrainian Borshch.

Twas good.

We are strange people.

Nothing really new going on here…just school school school, work work work. But we keep ourselves entertained.

Micah models my latest knitting project.

 

General conference is a wonderful time to harness artistic abilities:

Good enough for an entry to The Friend, eh? Micah’s depiction of Tad R. Callister.

D. Todd Christopherson

 

Niel L. Anderson

 

Pres. Monson himself!

 

I promise I will have some real artwork up here sometime soon! hehe.

Something amazing you should see.

When I was on my mission in Ukraine, I saw a lot of accordion played in the streets and on subway trains.  I found a video of a kid playing accordion on my cousin’s facebook and was amazed.  When I looked up his channel on YouTube I found out that he is Ukrainian. Boo yeah. His repertoire ranges from Tchaikovsky to Vivaldi to Bach. If you need help translating any of the Russian let me know…he’s got quite a few pieces posted on his site. But here is a sampling.

Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” Summer

 

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto

 

Makes you not hate the accordion so much, eh? I always kind of liked it, but now I’m a little obsessed! 

Favorite Fails from this Week

Here are a few choice fails from failblog.org:

Pricing Fail: Something funny is going on at Walmart…

 

Parenting Fail:

 

Weatherman fail:

 

And my favorite, Animal Identification Fail:

Internet Down

Sorry we haven’t updated our blog the last week. It has been raining here in Chicago and I guess our phone lines don’t like the rain so much!

 

Otherwise it has been a pretty good week. I just finished up my two weeks on the inpatient neurology service. It was a really good experience and I learned a ton. Neurology is actually much more fascinating than I had thought! Tomorrow I start a week  in the Neuro ICU, which should be intense! I will keep you updated.

Borders 40% off coupon

Borders currently has an online coupon for 40% off the list price of any book. Nice!

Click Here to get the coupon.

Expires 10/12/09.

The Past Few Months…

We’ve been pretty busy. Finally here are some pictures to prove it.

In August we traveled to Idaho for Grandma Crofts funeral. Here we are in front of the farmhouse which Micah’s Dad grew up in.

 

Alfalfa fields.

 

Kristen, Emma, and Micah at the funeral.

 

A beautiful Idaho sunset.

 

We cleaned out the fridge and had a little too much fun doing it.

 

REFRIDGERATOR THIRSTY!!!

 

We frequent downtown Chicago for visits to the art museum and other events.  Here is an artistic structure.

 

Micah in front of the Bean.

 

We like the Bean.

 

Micah is a ghost!

 

Since Micah finished his Pediatrics rotation he had a week off of school, so we took advantage of it as much as we could. On September 12 we hit two festivals, a Celtic Festival and a Ukrainian festival. It was so rad. These are real bagpipers.

 

 

Listening to Celtic music with a sweet lobster puppet we got for free.

 

A Ukrainian Catholic church.

 

I’VE MISSED EATING VARENIKY!!! They had the most amazing food at the Ukrainian festival!!!

 

We went to Wal-Mart and bought some fish!

 

Here’s Bryn and Caleb, when we visited them in Indiana.

 

Ann in their lovely house!

 

On a particularly nice day we decided to ride our bikes downtown. I got really tired. It was about 15 miles, so. But it was fun.

 

haha.

 

Not really wanting a picture taken.

 

We went to the Art Institute again with Bryn and Ann when they visited us in Chicago.

 

Micah and the creepy creepy Dorian Gray painting.

 

Grecian Pottery.

 

We made pizza for Bryn and Ann. It was delicious. I’ll post the recipe for ya’ll.

So there you go! I love living in Chicago. We are having a blast.