Lego Heaven!

Caleb and Zion have been buy building with Legos lately, waiting for Spring. We all need to go outside!! Here is Caleb's new Tie Wing Fighter (I think???), purchased with his own chore money.

And this...is a creation all Zion's own! I think the cape is an especially nice addition to this robot.
Notice the little man in the head of the robot, who controls it all!

How do you spell a great school? R-A-Y

The winner of the Chicago city spelling bee is Kiara Jones, a 6th grader from Caleb and Zion's elementary school! She now gets to compete at the National Spelling Bee!

Caleb is a big fan of the National Bee. We've watched Akeelah and the Bee multiple times, and Caleb even sat through the documentary Spellbound , which follows kids from their hometowns to the National Bee. He's already talking about 3rd grade, when he will be old enough to enter the school bee. Of course we think he has a great chance of winning it!

We think Ray School is awesome! Ray School is a fantastic example of why we shouldn't give up on public school education. And Kiara Jones is a great reason to be proud of Chicago's city kids!

It's STILL winter in Chicago

Yes, it is still snowing in Chicago! After a day of rain and of melting snow, we woke up yesterday to big fat snowflakes. We are all sick of boots and snowpants and gloves and scarves. Robert and I had a long-awaited date last evening (thanks to very generous single seminarians who planned a Parents' Night Out! Free babysitting! Whoo hoo!!) We ate at the Park Grill in Millenium Park, which has an ice skating rink just outside.
We both thought our food was pretty good, though I agree with Robert that it didn't have the "wow" factor of other places we've tried. Nice for a date, though. Doesn't Robert look like his hair is on fire in this picture?? After eating, we just walked around on Michigan Avenue for awhile. For some reason, Robert wanted me to take a picture of the lions in front of the Art Museum, so here you go!
This is one of Zion's Bionicle creations, which we had to photograph so we could send it into the Lego magazine. Ta-da!