The boys had a play date today with Ms. Cindy's kids. Look how perfectly well behaved they all are: Will, Nathan, Drew, Abigail and Adam. After the jump, see the five little monkeys in their natural environment.

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Last week Will's vocabulary doubled almost overnight. In a just a day or two span he went from "mama" and "dada" (much more of the former than the latter) to include "uh-oh" and "nana" (a much loved fruit). For Will, "uh-oh" included accidentally dropping his sippy-cup as well as throwing his sippy-cup...as in, he's done drinking, he tosses his sippy-cup, we turn and look at him and he says "Uh-oh!"

I'm always forgetting to write down the funny things Drew says, but here are a couple of recent items:

Mary: (reading traffic signs on trip from St. Louis to Chicago) 259 miles to Chicago!

Drew: Mama that's a lot of miles.

Mary: Yes. It's over three hours to get there.

Drew: Tell me when there are zero miles.

Drew: (playing eye-spy in the car) I spy something yellow.

Mary: (after many wrong guesses) Give me a hint.

Drew: It has green around it.

Mary: (after many more wrong guesses) Give me another hint.

Drew: It is outside of the car.

Mary: (ponders a long time) I give up, what is it?

Drew: Corn. (they were driving through central Illinois surrounded by fields of corn)

Drew: (in McDonald's...a person passes the table and in a surprising clear and not-so-soft voice) Is that a boy or a girl?

Mary: (*pause*...*pause*...in a low voice) I don't know, let's wait and see which bathroom the person goes into.

Mary: It's a girl!

Drew: (coming out of the bathroom at home) Daddy, the little boat is a big boat.

Don: Yes, Drew, the toilet is clogged. Thank you.

(The outline of the water surface is the shape of a boat's hull, normally small, but big when clogged.)

On the second leg of the 2007 Heartland Tour Mary and the boys visited Mary's college friend Stacey and her three children, Jonathan, Nicholas and Alexandra in St. Louis. They were fortunate enough to time the visit to coincide with Alexandra's second birthday party.

Stacey with Alexandra and Will.

Will, Drew, Jonathan, Nicholas and Alexandra.

New Year's Eve 2006-2007

On New Year's Eve, for the second time ever in Drew's 3+ years he got sick. He'd previously had a slight fever for an afternoon, but this time he was sick for real, throwing up 9 times. By the end of the day, he was able to hold down some soup, but he was in no condition to ring in the new year. So, once everything settled down, I joined my friends for New Years while Mary, Drew and Will stayed home.

Harry and Beth really out did themselves this year with perfectly cooked fillets and huge Alaskan King Crab legs along with a number of homemade side dishes. Dessert was a chocolate fountain with everything you could ever think of for dipping. It was a huge success.

Morgan and Doug really enjoyed the chocolate! Doug's hamming it up...just like his dad.

On the left, our hosts, Beth and Harry. On the right, Jon was in from California. He's no longer working on the space shuttle's guidance system and is now working on a super-duper secret project he couldn't talk about, only that his work was still guidance related. I'm hoping it's some kind of massive treaty violating space weapon!

On the left, Henry, Sheila, Morgan and Doug. And, on the right, JR, Lisa and dog.

Over Christmas we got together with my college roommate, Jon Platt, and his family. He had the terrific idea of getting our families together at the Chicago Botanical Garden where they had on display the Wonderland Express miniature train exhibit.

The 10,000 square foot exhibit featured 750,000 twinkling lights, 75 miniature Chicago landmarks handcrafted from all natural materials and 9 different model trains.

The landmarks included all the famous buildings Chicago is known for as well as hidden gems such as a tiny Mrs. O'Leary's cow, Sue the T-Rex and a Michael Jordan statue.

The trains ran over bridges, under trestles, past waterfalls and included a variety of passenger and freight trains with steam and diesel engines.

Click on "continue reading" for more pictures of the grounds, wildlife, sculptures and family.

Despite being the "off season" the gardens were very beautiful. The chilly weather also meant there were almost no other people which made the stroll through the gardens that much more peaceful and enjoyable.

This is a view of the very beautiful Japanese Garden.

I couldn't help but take a number of reflection shots. In the middle of the last one is the Memorial Bell Tower which features 40 bronze bells cast in Holland. It is one of very few hand-played carillons in the nation and very much reminded these University of Illinois grads of the Altgeld Hall Tower bells.

These are balls of Christmas lights which are quite spectacular lit up at night.

On the left is the top of the Guardian, by Simon Verity (English b. 1945), created in 1992 of Minnesota limestone, Arizona jasper, Arkansas quartz and Portuguese copper. On the right is the Composition in Stainless Steel #1 created in 1985 by Gidon Graetz (Israeli b. 1929).

This is the bronze sculpture of Carolus Linnaeus created in 1982 by Robert Berks (American b. 1922). Linnaeus (1707-1778) was a Swedish physician and father of modern taxonomy who established binomial nomenclature, the international system of naming plants and animals that is still in use today with modification.

There were plenty of ducks and geese taking advantage of the mild conditions.

Catherine and Drew called a truce to King-of-the-Hill atop a rock with the inscription: "May the peace of this garden bring you contentment."

Thanks to the ever prepared Eagle Scout Jon, we were able to travel in style in one of their double strollers. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of Charles and Harrison...they're fast!

The Danz's at the Chicago Botanical Garden.

The day after Christmas we visited Dan and Michelle Mosier and Mike and Tonia Timlin. We all attended the University of Illinois together...a long time ago. We hadn't seen each other in years and, yet, it seems like it was just yesterday. In addition to getting up to speed on current events, we swapped old memories of our college days. Some of the things that happened at U of I you just wouldn't believe if you weren't there.

From left to right, Alyssa "Aly," Darren, Mark, Drew, Nicole and Will. All of their kids were amazingly well behaved. Everyone played together really well and put up with each other's good-natured teasing like it was no big deal. They were all very nice to Drew who had such a great time, he wanted to spend the night and kept asking if we were going back the rest of the week.

Click "continue reading" to see family portraits.

The Mosiers: Dan, Michelle, Nicole and Alyssa "Aly."

The Timlins: Darren, Mike, Mark and Tonia.

I hope we don't wait so long to get together again.

We just received news that Janice Harvey, a friend of Mary's family, frequent reader and occasional commenter here, passed away today. She was only 32 and engaged to be married next year.

I remember her for making the world's worst cheesecake and always being incredibly nice to everyone. Rest in peace.

Drew's friend Hope came over today. She is just four months older than Drew. Although they had met before, they had never played together. They instantly hit it off, playing with Drew's toys which he did a great job of sharing. Later, they went to the park by our house and had such a great time playing on the slide and other equipment that Drew talked about it for a week afterwards.

Of all the cards we received this past holiday season, two stand out. The first is part of a thank you note a friend sent in response to a donation we made in the name of his father who had passed away.

"It seems there was a period when we were all getting married, then all having kids...now perhaps we're in another state of life."

It's amazing how quickly time passes. And, now, it seems that it is passing faster than ever.

The second is an excerpt from a letter of friends of my parents. It is unbelievable:

"In February we toured Cambodia, Thailand, Myranmar and Laos...as always we climbed the temples, rode the elephants, rode the bamboo rafts and long-tail boated up and down the River Kwai."

"We are celebrating our 60th anniversary by taking a riverboat down the Rhone River to be in Marseilles on the 26th."

I hope I'm half that active and having that much fun when I retire. As for our 60th wedding anniversary, I just hope I'm still eating solid food.

Saturday night we had a going away party for one of my coworkers. She and I worked together at a prior firm in 2001. She left that firm for our current firm a few months before I did and we've worked together ever since. She will be rejoining her family in New York who had moved out here while she was in school but who then shortly thereafter all moved back to New York abandoning her in Oklahoma. She's been a good friend and will be greatly missed.

We had twenty-four people attend the party. Some thought it was bigger and some thought it was smaller than our last firm get together at our house two years ago. I can't remember myself. I just know we all had a great time.

We went to a funeral today for a friend of ours, John McKay. He was just 47. He contracted meningitis two weeks ago, then suffered a massive stroke, and passed away Wednesday this week. He and his wife of twenty-two years, Paula, have one son, fifteen-year old Ross.

There are few people in this world that you can only say good things about and John was one of those few. From being a strong Christian to having an incredible sense of humor and running his own consulting business, John was a uniquely wonderful man. Rightly or wrongly, I often judge people by their children and while Ross is still just a teen, Paula and John have obviously been ideal parents.

During the services for John, they played a video montage of his life. I couldn't help but think that the video ended too soon and, indeed, it had. John will be greatly missed.

The wife of my friend and co-worker, who offices next to me, was pregnant with twin girls due in December--Autumn Grace and Lauren Elizabeth. About four weeks ago she lost one of the girls, but was still carrying her. Then last week she lost the other. After a half-day in the office on Friday, Mary, Drew and I drove to Illinois for the wake, stayed for the funeral on Saturday and then drove back Saturday night so that I could work Sunday getting done what I didn't finish on Friday. It was all very tiring and emotionally draining.

It was important for me to attend not only because I was the only person who would be attending from work but also because I remember how much it meant to me when my friends, that I hadn't even contacted, showed up at my father's funeral last December. Not only did their showing up mean a lot to me, but also the fact that they just hung around for what seemed like a couple of hours really helped that day. If at all possible, I wanted to do the same.

The trip was Drew's tenth out-of-state journey in just eleven months. He's a great traveler.

Mari-Rae was a classmate of mine in 5th through 12th grades. I recently got around to scanning in some photos of her I had from 6th grade. The memories are sharper than the photos. She would have been 38 years old, this the third anniversary of her death.

From www.mari-rae.net:

Having boarded American Airlines Flight 77 at Washington Dulles International Airport early in the morning of September 11, 2001, Mari-Rae Sopper had no idea that she and thousands of other innocents would become part of a national tragedy. Ironically, Mari-Rae had served at the Pentagon during her tenure in the Navy JAG Corps.

From Wall of Americans:

Mari-Rae Sopper, the women's gymnastics coach at UC Santa Barbara, was aboard one of the flights downed by terrorists. She was traveling on the American Airlines flight from Washington that crashed into the Pentagon, according to a list released by the airline. Sopper was hired as coach less than two weeks ago. She had been an assistant coach and choreographer for the U.S. Naval Academy's women's gymnastics team before taking the job at UCSB. She also served as a graduate assistant at the University of Denver for one year, as the floor exercise coach and choreographer for the Colorado Gymnastics Institute for three years, and as a junior Olympic gymnastics coach in Dallas for three more years. In high school, Sopper was honored as the outstanding senior gymnast in Illinois in 1984. She graduated from Iowa State in 1988 and received a master's in athletic administration from North Texas in 1993. Three years later, she graduated from the University of Denver College of Law. "She was an incredible person who had done so much in her life," said Lesley Ross, a sophomore gymnast at UCSB. "She had an awesome attitude and was so in love with the sport. She was getting us all pumped up to come back." Simkins said the teammates she has spoken with still plan to compete this year. "I think we just have to keep going, take everything what's happened into our season, and try to come out of it even stronger," she said. "We can't go out like cowards."