Summer begins...

We were pretty busy for the past couple weeks. Rob's parents came out for a visit over Memorial Day weekend. We took them downtown and all over the place. I think they enjoyed themselves.

While they were here, we took them to the Field Museum. Rob and I had been there before, but we got to see two new exhibits, which were pretty cool.

In other news, my first kindergarten class graduated last Friday. They put on a pretty good show for the parents. We sang, recited a poem, and some other things, and at the end of it all, we let go the butterflies that we grew from caterpillars. Summer Camp here we come!

Last weekend was our church's annual Church Picnic. We went to a place by Gary, Indiana and Lake Michigan. It was beautiful! We spent the morning outside chatting and Rob attempted to play "Monkey Balls." Right before lunch there was a sudden down pour that lasted for a while, so the picnic was moved indoors. Before we left, Pastor Tim showed us the beach. It was beautiful! There is a state park just east of where we were, so Rob and I hope to go camping there this summer. Anyone want to come?

flowers, mary poppins, and leona's

Beautiful flowers + Dinner and Visit from Grandpa & Grandma Haan + Mary Poppins =
A Wonderful 2 Year Wedding Anniversary!

Update...

Chicago is much better in the spring than in the winter. The weather has been amazing lately, and we have taken advantage of that. It seems like we have done more in the past couple weeks than during the whole winter. We have gone to the Lincoln Park Zoo, walked around different neighborhoods, and gone to a couple different art expos. Also, the other week, Rob and I went to the New Pornographers concert for my birthday! It was the best concert that I have been to. If you haven't heard their music, you should really look them up, they are great!

Other than the weather, everything has been good. For those of you who don't know, in December I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. I saw a nutritionist yesterday, and have learned so much on how I can control my diabetes with a specialized meal plan. I am also on insulin and have to give myself 1-3 shots a day according to how high or low my blood sugar is before a meal. It has been kind of a struggle to get it under control, but finally, I can manage all of the changes. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!

(The bottom picture is of a hospital that is in Chicago. It looks like it came straight out of 1984 or A Brave New World. Creepy!)

tasty bread

thanks mom!

our family

from becomeanmm.com
and yes, Ollie is bigger than Meg.

File under "C"

My Forearms

This morning as I was having my pre-commute coffee Ollie came flying through the air and sliced my left arm up with his back claws.

Then I went to work.

Then I went to my other work.

As I was walking home I fell on some ice and made a huge bump on my right arm to balance my injuries out. (The photo does not do justice to the swollen-ness of the bump.)

That was my day.

I hope this is at least moderately amusing for you. It kinda made me laugh.

Skiball

I don't take our camera out too much since it started acting up. I took this photo with my camera. It's Danny Klaver collecting all the tickets he'd won playing skiball.

Just thought I'd post a lil' something in case anyone still checks this blog.

missing email

Apparently my email account has fallen off the face of the earth. That's what I get for trying to have my own domain name and everything. Oh well... so if anybody's sent me anything in the past 2-3 days I probably never got the message.

I can still be reached at robhaan at mac dot com.

Crossword Puzzles

Does anybody else do crossword puzzles? I don't know if I've ever completed one yet. This morning I was only missing about 7 letters, but they always throw in one word that's from some other language or some actor from the 1920's or something.

I've been doing them almost every day since I saw the documentary called wordplay on Independent Lens on PBS. I guess Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton, along with a lot of other people do the crossword every day. I wouldn't be surprised if the current president does crossword puzzles too. They'd be easier for him though because he can just make up his own words.

Lately...

Life has been good. Rob finally has regular shifts at his new job, and I can sense that he is a lot happier. My job has been going quite well also. I only have 3-4 kids this weekend because of Thanksgiving, which isn't bad.

A couple weekends ago, Mic was traveling through Chicago. I took him downtown and we went shopping for a new jacket. We met up with Katy later and had a few beers. It was a blast. Thanks guys!

This last weekend, I went to visit Ginelle in Lafayette. I love Chicago, but it was great to have a new scene for once. Her apartment is beautiful, and I had a great weekend. Sunday we had a Thanksgiving meal at church. Our church is so loving and warm. We had some good conversations with some amazing people.

I love holidays, and I can't wait to celebrate them. Even though Rob is staying in Chicago because of his new job, I am really looking forward to seeing my family. It has been a long time since I have been with them, and being a person who has never really lived away from Sioux Center, I can tell. At home, I get to see our new nephew and meet up with some friends that I haven't talked to in years.

Lately, I have been feeling older, thinking about things that I have never thought about before. But it is good. Yeah, life has been good.

Clarification

A new job

This is a photo I took with my phone before my interview. I won't disclose any more information so that "so the internet doesn't stalk and kill me." (that quote is stolen from Ross's blog).

Our camera is on the fritz so when I tried to snap a photo of the movie filming that's going on down the street tonight, it didn't work. So I'm posting a couple of photos that are a few weeks old instead. One is the gorey mess of candles that completely melted in a matter of seconds on Sam's cake. The other is of course our new nephew, Jake.

New Things

It has been a while since Rob posted about the cowboy movies that he wanted to see, and a lot has happened. Over Labor Day weekend, Rob, Ollie and I traveled back to Sioux Center for a friend's wedding and to visit our families. I didn't tell my mom that we were coming, and it ended up in a big surprise. We went out for lunch and caught up on things that have been happening over the past couple of months. It was great. We spent the whole weekend with both our families, which was long overdue. We traveled back to Chicago on that Monday, stopped in Des Moines and then I traveled on to Chicago in a rental car because mine had broken down. After a few days of stress, Rob drove back a new car.

In other news, Kris and Josh finally got the chance to see Jake. Jacob Thomas arrived this past Monday, and we would like to welcome him. We can't wait to see him next weekend!

Other than a new car and a new member to the family, Ollie got a new haircut! When we were home, my sister Ashley took out her cow clippers and did a number on his long hair. It was quite the task, but we think he looks good.

It's about time...

Anybody else excited for these?


Even if one's a remake and one's based on a book, it's about time for another western or two.

Threadless again...

Since Rob is on his way back to Sioux Center for the weekend, I thought I would write about his new Threadless submission to make sure people go and vote. I like this design a lot, and think a lot of people will, so I think you should definitely see it. If you want to check it out and vote, click this button:

The Decemberists

How to Be Dutch in Chicago

Spoon Concert: free
General Admission to Shedd Aquarium: free with pass from library
Movie at second run theatre: $3 each

and that was our weekend.

WXRT sponsored a free Spoon show at Schubas. I was planning on trying to track down the reps from the station on Wednesday night as they went to various Wicker Park & Bucktown locations to give out tickets, but I managed to win a pair of tix off the Schubas website, so I didn't even have to mess with that.

You've probably heard Spoon on the trailers for "Stranger than Fiction". The first song on this trailer is them... they had 6 songs on the film's soundtrack. They were on Letterman last week too.

The show was super-crowded, but good.

The Chicago Public Library has passes to all the major museums that can be checked out for free admissions. The shedd passes seem elusive, so I grabbed it as soon as I saw it was availible.



Logan Theatre is a second run theatre near here. It's really old-school, but for $3, it's a great deal. We caught "1408" there. I like Stephen King short stories. It was no "Shawshank Redemption", but it was pretty good.

Around Our Neighborhood