We took a long Memorial Weekend to the Windy City of Chicago!  It was my first visit and I was fully entertained.  We went to visit my brother-in-law and he took great care of us.  My In-Laws also drove from Detroit to join our visit.  This is one of my favorite part of Chicago, Kapoor Sculpture, or as I call it, The Bean, at Millennium Park.  It is a giant shiny bean that was inspired by liquid mercuy.  I wish they sold a desk-size verion of it!  I would buy one for my office. The weather was simply divine the entire weekend we were there.  It was in the low 70's up until the last day of our visit.  As we were leaving for the airport, it finally sprinkled.  But we managed to tour all of Downtown Chicago, including drinks up at the Hancock Building with a breath-taking view of downtown at night and an Architecture Boat Tour of the ever-changing Chicago skyline.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Weekend.

The famous "Married With Children" fountain!	Why don't they make a desk-size bean???
The outdoor concert stage modeled after the Disney Conert Hall in LA.	Chicago's Art Institute, perhaps the best art museum I've been to thus far in the US.
BIL took us to an extremely upscale restaurant called True.  This painting at the restaurant was painted out of chocolate!!	Us, along a scenic walkway by the Chicago River.
The Architectural Boat Tour down the Chicago River.  We learned all about the various styles of architecture that dominated the densely packed skyline.	Breathtaking view of the skyline at night from the top of the John Hancock Center, the tallest building in Chicago.

Here we are, in front of the American Gothic farmers!  We saw the original painting just the day before at the Chicago Art Institute.  When we saw the crazy figures, we had to pose in front of them!   Unfortuately, Mr. BAW had the pitchfork in the wrong hand!  :-) Besides the art, I also got to see a planetarium show at the Adler Planetarium.  It was the first planetarium in the US.  I enjoyed the show about the Chicago evening sky.  But I must admit, it was not as good as the show at the Griffith Observatory.  But I was happy to be selected to be the next moon astronaut! :-)

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A year ago, when we first moved into our house, we got two housewarming gifts from our friends.  Both happen to be Orchid plants.   The first Orchid plant is a beautiful giant white plant that I think is called Phalaenopsis.  The flowers of this Orchid is so sturdy that the flowers lasted for months!  After all the flowers finally fell off, I cut off the remaining "stick" and was left with four large, dark green leaves.  The second Orchid plant we have is a smaller plant with thin leaves and purple flowers.  I don't know what type of Orchid it is.  After the flowers fell off from the initial pot, we were left with tons of leaves.   I also snipped off the remaining stick.  So through all the Winter months, my two Orchid plants were flowerless.  But I kept them both in the house and watered them daily.  I made sure that there was good draining in the pot but also made sure that the roots got enough moisture.  I knew that Orchids are very finicky plants and they don't flower often.  But when they do, the flowers will last for a long time.  So I kept patient and not stare at the plants daily.  Turns out that there are tons of Ochid-lovers out there who have Orchid-woes.  Read their comments about their finicky Orchid plants here.

So my patience finally paid off a few weeks ago!!  The purple Orchid plant grew two stems of flowers, one has three buds and the other has one.  The white Orchid has not flowered yet but there's evidence of more new leave-growth.  This is encouraging, especially when so many people complain that their plants don't even produce new leaves.  So the conditions at our house is pretty dry and usually stay in the high 60's or low 70's.  As I mentioned, I do water both plants daily, but only with a small amount of water.  The purple plant gets some sunlight through our bay window.  The white plant usually don't get any direct sunlight.  I do not fertilize either plant.  They are both still in their original pots and I have never touched their roots.  So I guess the best advice I can give people is to just give it minimal attention and keep it hydrated.  Happy Spring!

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Happy Mother's Day!!  Remember to take the time this weekend to make the mothers of your lives feel special. This mama bird decided to make her nest in our backyard awning again.  This is our second Spring at this house and my second defeat in the battle of the birds.  A few weeks ago I started noticing the birds flying about looking for a good place to set up nests.  I knew it was a tough fight so I asked Toby to keep an eye out and chase the birds away.  Well, turns out he's not much of a watch dog.  Long story short, we started to hear little birdie chirps and I caught this mama bird feeding her four, count them...four, baby birdies!  A few weeks later, the baby birds started to shed their soft white down and stretch their wings.  A few days later, I came home to an empty nest.  Such bittersweetness for mama bird.

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Happy 7th Birthday to my little Toby-pie!!!!!  I can't believe it was seven years ago when I first brought you home with me.  You've brought so much joy into our lives, I can't tell you how much we all love you.  As usual, his daddy will bake Toby his favorite carrot cake tonight.

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A week ago, we went to the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA.  This is an annual event celebrating the printed words.  I have been to a few years ago when I was a grad student there but it was Mr. BAW's first time attending.  We had the perfect weather for the event, both days stayed in the 70's with a gentle breeze.  We attended two discussion panels but were mainly interested in browsing the hundreds of booths, including the comics area.  We did exercise great self restraint and only bought about 6 books.  Mr. BAW's aunt and uncle came up from San Juan Capistrano to attend the festival and stayed with us for the weekend.  We all had a wonderful time both at the festival and spending time with them. I also discovered some big changes to my old lunch hangout at UCLA!  They completely changed the old Cooperage.  See the pictures below.

Yes, my husband is a geek, but I still love him.  At least he wasn't the one in the outfit!  There were two things Mr. BAW wanted to see at the festival, the comics booths and Giada De Laurentiis at the Cooking Stage.  Though she didn't do a cooking demonstration, her interview was entertaining.  She even brought her baby daughter out on stage.  Turns out she was an alumni of UCLA.  There was a huge crowd waiting to see her so we didn't get to sit since we didn't want to be there hours before her show.  But I still managed to get a decent picture of her.

Campus was littered with white booths.  There were hundreds of publishers and authors prompting their books.   There was also an area dedicated to children and reading for children.  As we walked around campus, I discovered new changes, some good, some rather sad.  The biggest change I saw this time was the old eating area called The Cooperage.  It used to be this dark area with low ceiling and strange and awkward seating area.  They've completely opened up the dining area and now is equiped with a large screen tv.  They also added a Jamba Juice, my friend TNK would have loved having the Jamba Juice right on campus!! But the sadest change is that they've replaced all of the old food places, including the salad bar and Krispy Kremes Dounut with a Carl's Jr!  Sigh...how are the kids going to get their healthy eating?  The old Coop looks so different that I got confused and thought I was on a different floor!  Thankfully, my favorite noodle place, Tsunami, is still going strong.  Overall, we enjoyed the Festival of Books and will probably go again next year. :-)