Keila and Dan's Wedding

Last weekend we attended the wedding of a very dear friend of ours, Dan, and his fiance, Keila. We have known Dan for many years, and Keila for a few, and we were so excited to share their day. Evie was very special to both of them, as Dan does research and proposals to get grant money to fund advances in cardiac issues, and Keila is a pediatric cardiologist.

The wedding was held at a chapel on the campus of University of Chicago, where Keila did her residency. I had not been to U of C, or even to Hyde Park before and it was beautiful!






Dan and Keila lit this little pink candle (below, in the middle) for Evie. Evie was supposed to be one of the flower girls. Honestly, it was quite difficult for me to see the other two flower girls walk down the aisle (and they were so adorable)knowing that we had planned for Evie to be there as well. I had this image of her in my mind: in her little wagon which we were going to decorate, and with hair bows made by my neighbor to match her dress. I had hoped she would toss flowers on the floor just like she used to toss treats to Auntie Di's cats!





Francis and I were touched that Dan and Keila lit this candle and also mentioned Evie in the wedding program. The ceremony was wonderful, with some songs that all former Happening team members would know.

Here are two more of our dear friends: Beth, left, expecting a baby in October, and Robin, right, who just had baby Timothy 3 weeks ago! She is such a trooper!




I got to hold baby Timothy after the ceremony. He is SO adorable!



Our good friend Mark, Tim's daddy:




Beth and our friend Laura, who came in from Arizona:







Francis finaly got his chance to hold Timothy at the reception, which was held at Salvage One:




This was not the real wedding cake:
(Yes it was, they put the layers on apples and it started to tip over. It was the leaning tower of applecake. - Francis)




Salvage One is a real, working salvage company and resale shop, and has all kinds of crazy things for sale... that I decided are usually seen in rich, eccentric, or designer type of homes. For example, you can buy a stained glass window, an antique couch, or a red blinking light from railroad crossing signal!



The wedding party out back - I don't know if this was a courtyard, or the back entrance for deliveries, or extra parking... we were out there!





The next several pictures are from a Brazilian square dance, led by Keila's uncle.















The rest of these are from the reception:

























In case you were wondering, Gavin spent the day at home playing with Nana & Grandpa Cermak. He was a good boy for them!




This is a special "Super Hero Squad" version of Candy Land:

Visiting Evie

These pictures are from our Memorial Day visit to the cemetary. Gavin was excited to put flags by Evie. One wasn't enough, so he used three.





He also got a nice big seashell from Nana, and he made sure he put it in just the right spot:

More Fun at Brookfield Zoo

Last weekend we spent some more time at Brookfield Zoo. We saw several more animals and still have seen only about half the zoo. It was a nice hot day, and as you can see, Gavin is wearing jeans. He didn't want to wear shorts at all. Finally, we resorted to bribing him (yesterday, when it was 95 degrees) to wear shorts. We gave him a toy dragon and then decided that he doesn't hate shorts anymore. (No joke, he told me the other night that "I hate shorts!")


At the zoo, Gavin loved this flower-mister-sprayer thing:




We watched the dolphins underwater first...




...then went upstairs for the dolphin show:

I wanted Gavin to stand by this chart, because he hasn't been measured since last October. He doesn't like to stand still at ALL (no surprise there) so I was not sure how tall he has gotten. He only stood here for a split second, but I think I spotted him at 42 inches, maybe 43.

When he started saying he wanted to go home, I brought up the carousel, which I knew would be a big hit. He went on it four times! He was getting tired by this point. He walked most of the time.

Last stop was the butterfly garden. He was completely disinterested in it last year, but this year he loved it!

Central Park and Bubbles

Last week Grandpa & Grandma Cordes came over to entertain Gavin, although it's usually the other way around! First we played with bubbles on the driveway. We got a bubble machine at Target - you can't see it in this picture but you can see the cloud of bubbles that it made!



At the zoo last weekend, Nana had gotten Gavin an extra big bubble wand, so we moved on from the bubble machine to the wand. Gavin loved popping the giant bubbles:




Then, in typical Gavin style, he found an alternate use for the bubble wand: washing the car (who can understand the mind of a three year old?):




Time to rinse off the soap:




Grandma got the hang of making giant bubbles:

After lunch we went to Central Park in downtown Naperville:







We explored the whole place. We checked out the new seats at the bandshell:



And the memorial statue:

And the Civil War era cannon:

We ended up at this gazebo that had shelves all around the inside that could be raised or lowered. Well, when Grandpa showed this to Gavin, Gavin was fascinated and went around the gazebo three times raising and lowering the shelves (with Grandpa's help). This video is short, but you get the idea:




Gavin actually out-lasted Grandma, who is eight weeks post-op from liver surgery. She is doing really well overall, but she gets tired more quickly these days. When you get your stamina back, Grandma, Gavin will be ready for you!

Brookfield Zoo

Last Saturday we went to Brookfield Zoo with Nana & Grandpa Cermak. You may remember that it rained in the afternoon that day - but not in the morning! We got there just before 10 am and stayed til 2 pm, when the rain started. It was a great 4 hours. The zoo wasn't crowded and we got to see a lot of exhibits.

Gavin's favorite thing -this time- was the Hammill Family Play zoo. It's a "hands-on" building with a lot of pretend-play activites. Gavin was so thrilled with everything that I think we were there for an hour, maybe longer. He loved spraying the plants in the green house:



In the "Bug Walk:"




We ventured into Tropic World for the first time. Gavin was more interested in the bridges, stairs, and this phone than in the monkeys and gorillas:




Also a first for Gavin - using the Moldarama machines! Francis had a lot of Moldarma animals when he was young, so this brought back a lot of memories for Nana & Grandpa. Gavin was fascinated by the molding, and by checking to see if the animal would be "too hot" to pick up:

Good thing the zoo has lots of stuff to climb on:

Waiting to get into the Stingray Bay exhibit. It was about 1:30 at this point and Gavin had walked the entire time. He wasn't sure if he wanted to touch the stingrays, and after one brushed past him, he definitely didn't want to. So Nana & Grandpa got him a stingray T shirt (among other things) and we made a Moldarama stingray and then we headed home.

We didn't even scratch the surface of things to do at the zoo, so we will be going back there often! If anyone wants to meet us there, just give me a call!

Ice Cream

Gavin doesn't like ice cream, or many sweets at all for that manner. My moms group was meeting up at Maggie Moo's last week, so I thought we'd give it a try. I figured maybe if he saw his friends eating ice cream, he would want to taste it too.

He picked out a bright blue flavor, "blue cotton candy":




And then he tried to get me to eat it, but I am not big on ice cream either. So he decided to "paint" his cone with the blue ice cream. He never did take a taste. Oh, well!