Spring Outing

Spring has been creeping into Chicagoland; days are getting warmer, flowers popping up, trees unfurling their leaves. And the kids have gone back to full-day school, from half-day, which has opened up opportunities for field trips. This week I got to tag along for a trip out to the woods with Townshend. It was the perfect day for it!

We started off the day with the kids sketching in the woods or out in the field, then we explored down by the river. Quick break for snacks, and then they had choir in the woods. 

After that, we played some field games, followed by exploring the woods a little more. While they out poking about in the woods, the kids found what looked like a mummified toad:

And, a little later, an adorable (and alive) little toad:

I really enjoyed hanging out with the kids and it's always fun to be out in the woods. Hooray for a little taste of normalcy.

And hooray for a gorgeous day in the woods!

Make Hay While the Sun Shines

This crazy virus, and the massive uncertainty that it brings, seems to be the defining characteristic of 2020. It touches all the elements of life - weekly grocery shopping to day-to-day work schedules. The unpredictability of things - how long will it go on? how widespread will it get? how catching is it? how careful does one need to be?? - make it difficult to make plans too far in advance. 

However!

What are humans if not creative? It's been some months since I've hung out with my family. Funny how far a neighboring state, a town just a few hundred miles away, can feel. And, as summer's end draws nearer, bringing on the cold and flu season (which one can only assume will be more intense this year, what with COVID and all), it was feeling like we ought to make hay while the sun shines; figure out a way to get together while the states were still open and restrictions relaxed. Quick before the colder weather sends everyone back inside. 

At our house, here in Chicagoland, we're being very cautious and careful about our little quarantine bubble; careful where we go, careful who we see. This makes it hard to visit family, even just a few hundred miles away. But, then it occurred to me that we should meet in the middle!

My dad has a great eye for finding fun places to ride bikes. So, I asked if he might have any ideas for a good place with a bit of a ride, plus a nice spot for the kids to play before we rode back again. And he found a great one - it had everything we were hoping to find!

It had rained the day before, but by the time we got there, the sun was shining and the flowers were blooming and everything was beautiful. The fun thing about biking with my folks is that they enjoy taking their time, and aren't afraid to stop and smell the flowers (or take pictures off bridges). The path took us past some really lovely sights, so we found lots of things to photograph. 

My two kids came along as well, thus the importance of having a playground at the end. And this playground did not disappoint! It was one of those rare, old fashioned ones with wooden equipment; the sort with multi-level areas and secret paths all throughout and in between. Plus some cool artwork in the teepee. So fun!

We brought a little picnic and let the kids go! Though the temperatures weren't too terribly high, the humidity was intense. So, the grownups spent a fair amount of time chatting in the shade, while the kids spent more of their time running around.

However, eventually, all good things must come to an end; a day trip only works if you get back home before too long. So, we mounted up the bikes and headed back the way we came... but not without another stop or two for the great scenery. 

Eventually we said our goodbyes (though, of course, not without the traditional 35min Midwestern goodbye conversation), and we took to the highways - them going north, and us heading south. 

It was a good thing we decided seize the day when we did. Chicago, and the surrounding suburbs, have a travel ban in place; an on-your-honor quarantine-for-14-days-when-you-get-back-if-you-travel-to-certain-states sort of deal (which I'm trying to avoid, what with school and stuff starting up again soon). The list was slowly growing, and - on the day we met up - Wisconsin had only been given a warning that they were next if their COVID numbers didn't improve. Not a week later, they got added to the ever-growing list of restricted states. 

I feel very blessed! 

Field Trip Day

This past week, I tagged along with the first graders to visit the Pilson neighborhood of Chicago to learn a little more about Día de Muertos. This is a field trip the Spanish immersion classes all do every year. They tour the art museum, stop at a panaderia, have lunch at a Mexican restaurant, and visit an exhibit at the local library.

This is a fun field trip, one I think that I'll try to go on whenever I can. I was interested to see what was different since I got to go last year.  So, I dropped the little guy with a friend and drove into the city to meet the class. We started at the art museum. There were really cool exhibits. Many different depictions of  ofrendas and traditions of different areas who celebrate the day of the dead. 

Some of my favorites were these:

Along with the tradition-inspired artwork, there were many exhibits that were more contemporary; inspired by current events. There were many that were about protests about the treatment of people at our boarders and helping refugees. 

It was seriously cold the day we went so, instead of everyone walking to each of the stops, the bus took the kids and the parents walked. In part, having the kids contained on the bus made walking lots easier. This neighborhood also has lots of murals, and I passed several on the walk between our stops. However, it being super cold didn't inspire much photography. 

The library had a cool exhibit that was built by a big family in the neighborhood.

Then of course, we got some treats to take home to share.

It was a fun day, I just hope that next year the weather is a little kinder. 

Dia de los Muertos

One of the exciting things about having a kid old enough for kindergarten is the added element of field trips! Before the school year starts, the local school offers a lottery for the language immersion class and Townshend got in. Woo!

They spend a good amount of their day learning and speaking in Spanish, and they also focus on learning about Hispanic culture. Dia de los Muertos is celebrated on November 1 and 2 and, judging from the stories he's been telling and the worksheets he's been bringing home, that's been the main theme of class for the last week or so. And, then last week they took all the Spanish immersion kids, K-5, on a field trip to visit the National Museum of Mexican Art tucked in a neighborhood of Chicago that's known for it's Mexican-American roots.

With a little brother still at home, it's a bit of a dance for me to get away for a whole day. Knowing that, I'll probably only have one school trip this year, but this field trip looked so fun!! So, I cashed in all my favors and tagged along.

It was a big ol' group of kids but, turns out, there were lots of other parents who felt as I did, so we had a fairly good ratio of adults to kids. Still, it was a little crazy to have all those kids wandering the neighborhood, but we did pretty well!

First, we visited a Mexican bakery to pick out a sweet treat:

Wandered the neighborhood a little bit to check out the murals. There were some really amazing ones; despite it being a snowy, windy day, I wished we could have had more time to wander a little bit more:

We ate lunch at one of the many neighborhood Mexican restaurants. It was so yummy! It made me a little nostalgic for my time living in Logan Square in the Hispanic district.. Yummmmm:

Our final stop was at the museum to see their Dia de los Muertos exhibit. We had an awesome tour guide who walked us through and told us about all the displays. It was fascinating. First, she talked about the history and origins  of  Dia de los Muertos influenced by the Mayan and Aztec traditions:

The next room focused on how the traditions changed with the arrival of the Spanish in South America. The culture shifted their focus slightly with the introduction of Catholicism, but they retained many elements of the original traditions:

There were other, more modern interpretations of old traditions and culture. As I've come to learn more about this tradition, I've really come to love its celebration of life and family connection even beyond death. Some of the imagery may seem a little morbid at first glance, but it's actually a reverence and appreciation for death as just a next step; that is a cool way to look at it:

I had a great day.. Townshend, however, seemed less impressed.

the face of a kid excited and enthusiastic about new foods and experiences

Overall, the kids did great, still, by the end, we were all ready to head home:

It was a cool trip! I'm excited to know that, as they do this every year, I'll likely have a chance to go again.