It was a very full weekend.

Friday we took Simon to the YMCA for swimming. We're considering moving on from the "Y does the the staff have to be so rude?" and "Y do they not heat the freezing indoor pool in the Summer?" to a more friendly atmosphere. We assume the answer to "Y is the place miserable?" is lack of funding but it is hard to want to fund a place that has an atmosphere of misery. Apparently the enormous "God Loves YOU" painted in the gym is not encouragement enough to be friendly. Alas Simon, the polar bear, thinks it is a fabulous place and is not very understanding when his parents want to take a few extra minutes to ease themselves into the water instead of jumping right in.

Saturday we took it upon ourselves not only to get a drop-in hair appointment for Simon but also a drop-in photo opportunity at the local Picture People and use up the deal we bought at his last birthday photo shoot. The closest Picture People is in Hokie Pokie Skokie so we drove there not once but twice on Saturday. Besides having a miserable name which they actually CHOSE not that long ago, Skokie is home base for the Jewish people of Illinois. It has a nice outdoor mall with the same shops you would find at any Westfield Shopping Center. Skokie also has a very nice sculpture park next to a canal separating it from the nicer (so we hear) Evanston. We ran through a small section of the park and checked out some sculpture before heading home (the second time). Between the mall and the canal, Skokie is one strip mall after another. Maybe we missed something spectacular along the way but the first time we drove there we got pretty lost and saw enough of the area to determine that there isn't much else to see.

So by the time we had Simon's hair cut (a miserable experience during which he thought he was going to be mauled by the mean lady brandishing clippers), driven to Skokie, and eaten lunch, Simon was very tired. When Simon is tired he is either punchy, hyper, or cranky. On Saturday he chose to manifest his sleepiness by being hyper which doesn't work out so well when someone is trying to take your photo. This particular Picture People, unlike the one we used in California, uses this stuff called FILM. So not only can they not take a million shots and immediately delete those which are bad, you can't see the shots right after the photo shoot (hence our return to Skokie later that evening). It took us quite a while to figure out how the process works when film is involved. We are creatures of the digital era. As one might expect, the photos turned out remarkably bad. We purchased the two least terrible shots which are out in the mail to many friends and family this very day. Family should feel free to ask for larger versions of either or both - we have them on hand just in case. Next year, when Simon can understand the need to sit still and smile, we'll find a real photographer.

The reason we forced all of the Saturday activities into one day was because we were looking forward to visiting a new museum on Sunday: The Field Museum of Natural History. We saw Sue. We saw lots of stuffed birds and mammals. We pushed a few buttons to hear bird calls and Simon petted and kissed the touch-me animal examples. We visited Africa and Egypt and stones and jade before Hava and Simon declared the place painfully boring and had more fun with a bench and some guys dancing to music in the gift shop while Matthew did a little looking on his own. PAINFULLY BORING but to each their own; apparently there are people impressed by taxidermy, fake plants and shiny rocks. Raise your hand if you find taxidermy interesting. Do you see any hands raised? Didn't think so.