September 9, 2003

Summer has been a lot of fun for Evan. We've discovered many public parks around Palatine, including the Palatine Aquatic Center, where Evan can run around in the shallow pool and play with fountains, water slides, or the nearby sand pit. We now know the best parks for slides, for swings, and for shade on hot sunny days. We've also had lots of time in the back yard at our own house with the sandbox, the water table, the wading pool, and the swing.

We've done plenty of visiting this summer also. In mid-July we were surprised to hear that Aunt Jodi's baby (Kristin's sister's) had arrived a month ahead of schedule! We cancelled a trip to the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin with Grandma and Grandpa Schultz and instead used some frequent flyer tickets to go to Albuquerque to visit Aunt Jodi, Uncle James, and Cousin Silas.

We stayed at Grandma and Grandpa Schultz's house, and Evan had a lot of fun helping Grandpa water the vegetable garden and playing with a tub of water on their back patio. He also thought his new cousin was very interesting, and he even spent some time lying down near baby Silas as he napped in the sunlight.

We spent a lot of time with Aunt Jodi, Uncle James, and Silas, but Evan also spent a morning at the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa. He got to see the zookeepers feed the seals, and the elephant painting, which was rare even at the zoo! We also spent one day driving up to the Jemez mountains and picnicking with Grandma and Grandpa. We took a short hike to a waterfall before lunch, and then Evan played with a dump truck and a bulldozer at the picnic table while Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa relaxed under the trees.

Evan has been greatly enjoying the warm summer days, especially when he gets to play outdoors with water. He loves to fill cups with water and sand, move water from place to place, pour water from one cup to another, and mix water and sand to make mud.

Evan's also started to say more words. His favorite one by far is, "Uh-oh!" He says it hundreds of times each day, for all sorts of things, from a book that falls off a shelf to a cup of water that he's poured onto the floor (on purpose, of course) or a big truck going by on the street. He's extremely excited about trucks: he frequently looks at his books filled with truck pictures and he keeps a close eye on the street, where trucks sometimes go by (especially garbage and recycling trucks). When he sees a big truck--or a kind of truck that he hasn't seen before--he usually lets out a big "OH!!!" and points at it as it passes. Another favorite phrase is "out there", which he uses to tell us about squirrels or dogs or trucks passing by outside. He talks a lot about dogs ("Dauh") and milk ("Mih") and lions ("Ahhhrrrrrr!").

Soon after we returned home, some of Lee's relatives (the Morgans and Kamlays) came to Chicago to see the gathering of tall ships on Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. They stayed at the Schaumburg Marriott, very close to our house, so we were able to have breakfast with them before the Kamlays went north to visit their son and daughter- in-law near Milwaukee, and breakfast with the Morgans the following day. It turned out that the tall ship event in downtown Chicago was too crowded for anything but driving by, so the Morgans came back to Schaumburg in the afternoon and we had lunch with them at IKEA while Adrienne shopped for necessities for her new house.

In mid-August, Kristin spent a week as a voting member at the ELCA churchwide assembly in Milwaukee and Evan's daycare was on vacation. Lee's mom, "Nana", or Grandma Dundas, came to stay with Evan and Dad to take care of Evan. Dad also had to spend a couple of days on business in Los Angeles, so Nana took care of Evan during that time also. Evan and Nana had lots of fun together, visiting playgrounds and going for walks, and even visiting the nearby HealthWorld children's museum. Aunt Katie and Uncle Skyler came to stay for the weekend, and we all went to the Botanical Gardens. Evan was sad when Nana and Aunt Katie and Uncle Skyler left, but he was happy to see his friends at daycare again, and he was very happy when Mom came back from her trip soon after.

In late August, Mom and Dad's friends Emily and David came to visit from Austin, Texas. We hadn't seen them for almost two years, so this was the first time they'd seen Evan in person. We had a good time at the Botanical Gardens and eating out on the back patio with a roaring fire the outdoor fireplace.

In early September, we went to the Brookfield Zoo with our friends, the Finleys. We saw all kinds of animals: rhinoceroses, hippos, giraffes, kangaroos, zebras, and ibices. We had a nice picnic at the zoo, and then we saw lots and lots of monkeys in the primate houses: three huge indoor habitats representing South America, Africa, and Asia.