The Field Museum

This is the view of the lake and part of the city from the museum.  It was a balmy 8 degrees(-: Every Tuesday in January and February are free days at the museums (they have to have 52 free days a year so they stick them all in the winter) and my day off at work is Tuesday so I tried out the Field Museum and a little bit of the Shedd Aquarium a few weeks ago... 

This is not a diamond, but it sure is big and pretty!  I don't remember the name of the gem but it's 50 carats. Awesome!  The gem exhibit was cool but small, they are supposed to be expanding it this summer.

This is for Jeff, that's a lotta points!  It's an ancient deer/moose from Ireland, it stands 8 feet tall, not counting the antlers.  I sure hope the people that hunted this thing had a four wheeler to bring it back to the truck!

Four foot ivory tusk from Africa, the carvings were awesome but the size was amazing!

Took this picture to scare Josh (that's a giant spider), this was part of an alter used for sacrificing animals, it was Inca or Maya, can't remember.

Two story Totem!

Really cool Inuit art, tattoo anyone?!

My favorite part of the museum is their collection of Totem Poles.  There are probably close to one hundred but I couldn't get great pictures because I only had the camera on my phone and the lighting was dark and mysterious.  The majority of them stood 15 to 20 feet and each had a description of what the animal represented and where it was taken from. 

I really don't want to have nightmares about this mask...

I like the sculls in the center...

Ten feet in diameter!  It's an Mayan calendar, I think, I should have taken notes!

This is for Pamela, R.I.P. Excetra!

(In the voice of the shark from Family Guy)"Hhhhheeeeeyyyyy!  My name is Sue.  I am the largest, most complete T-Rex fossil in the whole wide world!   I got big teeth, but you don't have to worry about that, cause I ate a fat kid earlier and I couldn't eat another bite!  Stop by later though, I might be hungr... I mean there's a new exhibit about... human things you might like, right here in front of me, within reach of my giant bone crushing jaws!"   

More of the city from the museum stairs.  It looks so peaceful!  

Update

I know some of our friends and family were asking for a general update on how it's going up here and it's going well!  We miss everybody a lot but people at my work and Josh's have been great!  The winter has been hard, we recently had a record high day of 60 degrees which was awesome and melted all of the snow, but two weeks before that we had four straight days where the temperature did not get above 0 and got as low as -32.  Insane right?!  Well hopefully the worst is behind us and we are ready for summer!  Josh just opened his second store in the city of Park Ridge.  It was hard to get started, but now they are doing really well and selling lots of sandwiches.  I am working with two year olds and having a great time.  My co-teacher, Ebony, is awesome and we have a lot of fun that keeps us from going crazy, she also gives me a lot of tips about Chicago.  Kitties are doing well, eating a lot, fetching, sleeping, the perfect life.  In March we are moving to a new apartment! It's called the Pavilion and it is sweet!  There is an indoor and outdoor pool, two story gym, a bar and restaurant, a convenience store, a UPS store, a dry cleaner, and a beauty salon all in the four building complex!  We will be sure to post lots of pictures when we move in.  Other than that it's been hanging out and playing video games and eating really great food.  Thank you everybody who checks the blog and writes comments, we LOVE reading them, we miss you all and hope to see you soon!

Jason and Kerri's Visit

For New Year's Eve Jason and Kerri flew up to visit and we got to do a lot of the winter activities that allow Chicagoans to make it through the winter.  Happy New Year everybody!  Sorry I've been lazy and not published in so long!  I'm gonna stay on top of it from now on!  

This is the only picture we had from our snowboarding/skiing trip.  During the snowboarding portion we were all either on our a$*es or flying so fast down the hill and landing so painfully that pictures were the last thing on our minds(-:  After 20 minutes, and switching to skis, we got the hang of it and had a great time!  Jason and Kerri were pros and Josh and I were umm, we could go down the hill really fast and sometimes stop, so it was awesome!  Josh and I are just naturally athletic (cough cough)(-:   He does look so handsome when doing extreme sports, even if we suck!

A winter in Chi is not complete without ice skating in Millennium Park.  The city as a backdrop, hot chocolate, Christmas Lights, snow flurries here and there, it was sweet! Josh wants me to make a note that he was sick over New Years so that is why there are no pictures of him with a drink in his hand and why he is wearing my scarf on the ice skating rink (I made him do that)!  It's a great scarf, thanks Mommy!  

Yes your eyes are not fooling you, that is a man in a penguin costume (Pamela, Megan, your welcome, I was hanging out the car to get that picture:-).  On New Year's Day we heard of a Polar Bear Club meeting down in Lake Michigan, so naturally we bundled up, grabbed the camera, and headed down to see well fed men jumping into a freezing lake.  Turns out this is like a rite of passage in Chicago.  There were seven year old kids and entire families jumping in! Plus, probably 500 onlookers. The air temperature was 15 degrees (10 with windchill) and the water temp was fluctuating between 33 and 32 degrees, there were parts that were actually frozen.  Enjoy, we sure did!  You can click on the pictures to enlarge.