Chicago from a boat

We did a boat tour of the architecture of Chicago. Very interesting considering that Chicago had to rebuild after the great fire! Here's the link to the tour company!

http://www.chicagotours.us/tours/tourDetail.cfm/tid/1355

The Sears tower is the Taller one. The smaller is the largest reinforced concrete building.

Union Station

This is the fountain that was built as a new "gate" into Chicago. It actually shoots a stream of water accross the canal. Originally the water was to hit the opposite bank, but too many pedestrians got wet. So they adjusted it to hit the water. Now the boats get wet instead.
This is an apartment building. There's another one quite similar that has parking in the lower levels.


I've forgotten what this building is called. It's neat in that it reflects the opposite bank in it's windows. Apparantly, it's Chicago's favourite building.

Joe's Bebop cafe

This is my favourite place to go so far in Chicago. I just need to get here when they have a group performing. The food is excellent, and the service great. Navy Pier is a great place to go. Check out the link!

http://www.joesbebop.com/

The Wedding

A family wedding is always exciting - Even more so this time.

Marc and Meredith's wedding in Chicago when really well. Nathanael was the ring bearer's walker - Mandy pulled him down the aisle. We did have quite a few practice sessions with the dog outside Meredith's place.

It's amazing how different people look when they dress up - lots of people commented on Nathanael's appearance. He looks like a little gentleman!


This is Nathanael and Mandy practicing thier walking in the park near Meredith's place. We've also started getting Nathanael used to walking our two beasts. He's getting the idea of heel, although people 30 feet away can hear him scream at the dog he is walking!


This photo of the ceremony shows the wedding party. The construction was unavoidable.


Great Grandmother Budlong came down from Flin Flon for the wedding. Nathanael enjoyed having her around.



The two of us together.


This is the best shot of the wedding. And SUZANNE took it. Digitals cameras rule!

We took piles of pictures at the wedding. These are just the ones that turned out the best.

We're off!

We will be away in the US for my sister's wedding (cool, eh?). Have a great week!

Mary's Ghost

http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/mary_ghost.html

Heard this on late night CBC last week. A bit gruesome, but quite cheeky.

Our trip to Swan

Just some pics from our trip to Swan this weekend. Although there is not a lot of water visible, the crops are behind schedule, and the ground is very wet. The bridge is part of the old highway #10, near Dauphin, MB.

They're fogging the whole city

So it comes to this...

Winnipeg started to be progressive, using natural predators like dragonflies to kill adult mosquitoes and minnows to get the larvae. Of course, this year is rather unique in that we have had so much rain that the river is still flooded, the standing water situation is really bad, and the adult mosquitoes are about to descend. Perfrect conditions for lots of the bloodsucking insects.

So what does the province do? It forced the city to fog with Malathion yesterday. Check out the news release:
http://www.winnipeg.ca/cms/bugline/forcast/NR%20-%2024-Hour%20Notice%20-%20WNV%20Fogging%20Program%20-%20July%2014.pdf

So..... I do a quick search today (this morning) while my kid gets dressed. Here's what I find:
http://www.chem-tox.com/malathion/research/
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/op/malathion.htm
http://www.ncchem.com/malathion.htm

If I'm nervous about this stuff after 10 minutes of skimming these articles, I wonder what an indepth reading will make me feel like?

I'm also wondering if Malathion kills dragonfiles. There are so many right now it seems counter-productive to use the Malathion to kill the mosquitoes if the natural predators that we have worked to hard to produce (and who are all over the city) get killed as well.

We are under seige!

so...

Tuesday, June 28 was Nathanael's last day of school. He got an award for Scripture Memorization (Good job, Nathanael!) Picture of him getting his award is here on the left.

Then it strikes....

By Wednesday Morning he was covered in it. Chickenpox. Everywhere. Even where the sun don't shine... (ouch!)

Proceeded to call all of his classmates - just to let them know that he was sick and to expect the possible appearances of the pox on their children. Suzanne and I confirmed with both our parents that we had already experienced it....

This week was a week of firsts for Nathanael. He went to church last night. He went swimming in the local wading pool yesterday. He went to the library today. He is finally able to enjoy the great Winnipeg outdoors just in time to be eaten alive by the mosquitoes of Winnipeg. (There WILL be a post on this later this week!)

Suzanne started to show the pox yesterday evening after church (sorry to those we sat near, we didn't realise that's what it was) This morning she was covered. Completely. Saw the doctor today at lunch - who confirmed that she has the pox, full-blown, everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.

Needless to say, Chris is getting really good at applying calemine lotion!!

History of Worship Music!

I picked up this book at a local bookstore here in Winnipeg, and have found it to be a most revealing treatise on the gospel and CCM music industry and how it got to where it is now. It's almost scary when he starts to describe the way people approach gospel music as composers and performers - he is very clinical and factual when describing how people believe.

This is not part of the worship books I alluded to in the previous post.

Quotes to come later over the summer - I want to read it a second time before I put quotes in.

Until I can figure out how to stick these on the side, I'll put them inside the posts.

This is the first of three books on worship that I'm in the middle of (firgures, eh?), so I can only give a little bit of what he is talking about. The best quote so far is this:

As a worship leader I was replaceable - God could have used anyone for the
events that we'd been priviledged to be a part of. But as a son and as
a child of God, I was indispensable. There could be never be another me -
a child is irreplacable.

The book is The Unquenchable Worshipper by Matt Redman. I'm only in chapter 3 so far..... More to come.

We picked up a man!

We go for a walk last night, and we meet this guy - Ezra turned on her charms, and he walked with us a while. He stayed with us until his owners turned up. "Duke" was a most gentile guest, and only got upset when we turned in for the night. Mojo didn't like him sniffing her....... , but Ezra liked it....
Didn't realize the girls were so alluring to the opposite sex.

SOme pictures....

So....

Now that I can post pictures here, we are going to have more posts - Since we got a digital camera at Christmas, I've been wanting to put pictures on the net, but didn't want to subscribe to another way of doing it.
As you can see, we are all quite pleased with this development...

(sung to the can can)
Na
na na na na
na na
na na na na
na na
na na na na na
na na na na na na na (repeat)

It worked!

Hey - it worked...

That's Ezra - our second oldest "child" - and the one who most often refuses to eat. Right now it's the heat that turns her appitite off, not that I blame her. With the humidity, it's over 40C, and I don't blame her for spending the entire afternoon napping.

I'm trying this for the first time - hopefully this picture gets up here.  

The Zoo

Went to the Assiniboine Zoo Today - Nathanael was all excited, although I think the most exciting thing for him was the playground. He did enjoy watching the Brown Bears swim. We also saw lemurs - to which Nathanael and his friend Evan said "just like Zaboomafoo!!"