Mamascrapalota-Blogga

Pics of Chicago

Here are some pictures of Chicago. Again, LOVE that city!

That is the water tower (It didn't burn in the GREAT CHICAGO FIRE) with the John Hancock Building in the background.

Shopping on the Magnificant Mile. Very cool, but I was with Byron and shopping just does NOT happen with him in tow.

Ok, that's all she wrote!
Mary-Kay

New York, New York

As you know I am on my whirlwind tour of back east and now we are in New York and having a blast. One complaint...... It was hotter than blazes here today.

My Thoughts:

1. New York is NOT as big as I thought it would be.
2. NY is NOT as intimidating as I thought it would be.
3. The people are MUCH NICER THAN I EVER THOUGHT THEY WOULD BE....
4. I LOVE NEW YORK!

Another List:

= We went to SoHo, saw street art work, Kate Spade, and Anthropolgie - I was so drooling!
= We went around Greenwich Village, Chinatown, Little Italy.
= We took the Staten Island Ferry and saw the Beautiful Statue of Liberty.
= We went to Times Square and saw the line up for 50% off tickets to all the shows. Then left...Bummer.
= We saw the MTV building, some crazies.
= We found out this was the weekend of the worlds LARGEST Gay,Lesbian,Transgender, Transvestite Pride Parade. Now that was interesting. That explains the strangely-beautiful-but-something-was-just-not-right girl/guy on our flight here from San Diego that Byron kept staring at. HAHAHA!!!
= We came to our hotel and slept for TWO hours.

Funniest story of the day:

Remember the parade I was talking about earlier? Well, there was a HUGE, large, fat, black woman wearing fishnet stockings on her arms and upper body and lower body (maybe it was a body suit?) and a triangle of fabric over her very ponderous breasts that weren't quite covered. Below was a MINI-skirt that rode up in the back showing buns below. The shoes were black stilleto ankle boots with bright pink fushia ostritch feather fluffy stuff around the top. It was just plain wrong. A family of three were getting off the boat behind us and we hear this.... "Owaka, OWAKA, OWAKA in a bathin suit. Sambady shooda told haaa!"

Translation==== "Orca, Orca, Orca in a bathing suit. Somebody should have told her!!!!!!" Byron actually LAUGHED OUT LOUD on that one. You KNOW I did. Shoot, that cool New Yorker accent just put that whole thing over the top and sealed the deal for us. Best story so far on the trip.

Tomorrow Byron is working and I am going to the Museum of Modern Art (of course) and then off to some art stores to buy some cool art supplies. I need more Crayon de' Ashe (can't spell that) and some of those cool Japanese expensive pens in all different colors, especially white. Think I might try to find some pre-cut 150 lb. weight Hot Press water color paper and some Golden Liquid Acrylics. Just a few things on my list. I'd love to do ONE piece, just ONE, here in New York. Bring it home and frame it for a memory.

To fun.... I'll try to write more tomorrow night.
That's all she wrote!
Mary-Kay

Chicago, Chicago, what a wonderful town....

Ok, once again, I say that I COULD LIVE HERE. It is a big city, but one heck of a clean one. The people are incredibly nice and helpful. The sights are amazing, and the food (steaks) are good!

Today we went on a river tour. We decided to take the history and architecture tour. What a cool bunch of buildings. Of course Donald Trump is building something here. It'll be the fourth largest building here in Chicago. I have tons of pics but can't post them until I can download my camera.

Byron went off to some of his Rotary meetings and I decided to go to Windy City Scrapbooks! HELLO PEOPLE this place rocks! I'll post pics later - but it had EVERYTHING!!!!! And, I mean EVERYTHING!!! Now, I really know that I could live here! I bought all kinds of Chicago themed things for the inevitable scrapbook that will happen from this trip.

From there I went way down south to the Science Museum and saw "Body World". Byron and I saw this in Berlin, Germany in 2001 at 12:00 AM midnight so it was a bit scary and strange. This is what it is; a man named Gunther decided to "Plastinate" real people who have donated themselves to science. They are real live dead people. No pun intended... But it is done in such a way as to STUDY the bodies. Like for students and doctors etc. It is not grotesque, just strangely differnet. They are sliced and diced in all different ways, but no one even seems to bat an eye here in the states. In Berlin the exhibit was held in an old wherehouse and it was dark and a bit scary. We had to walk up these steep and skinny stairs and wind around in different parts of the building. I also remember a distinct smell and thinking that I would NEVER take my kids to see something like that....But, here in Chicago, I would definatly bring my kids to see this. In fact there were a lot of kids of all ages in there. Well done Gunther!

Tonight we went to a White Sox game and they won! That was fun. Now it is off to bed for me - these feet have walked more that I can remember! Nighty - night.....

Mary-Kay

HUGE news!

Can't tell you yet, but, I have HUGE news that can be told in about another two weeks! I bet that will drive you nuts!

I am sitting right now in a KILLER hotel in Chicago, IL. My brand new FAVORITE CITY ever! It is cleaner than any city I think I've been in except Berlin. I would say that Chicago is as clean AND pretty as Berlin... Wow, I can't believe how amazing this is here. Byron is the Point Loma Rotary President this coming year and the annual convention is here in Chicago. We have seen the Field Museum of Natural History where "Sue" the Tyranasaurous Rex lives for now. Tonight there were about 20,000 rotarians in the museum or something crazy like that. We were there for about 4 hours and could NOT believe how many people were crammed in there. And, we barely saw even a 1/4 of the place.

Today we walked the "Miracle Mile" and into all of the huge department stores. Our favorite store though was Marshall Field's. It was the length of 2 or more city blocks and about 10 floors full of merchendice. (Remember folks - I can't spell). We also went to the top of the John Hancock building. I didn't do so well at the top and we came down pretty quickly. The city was beautiful up there though. If you want to hear the whole story write me and I'll tell it.

I've survived the last week of school, the flooded house and no husband at home and now we are in Chicago until Wednesday of this week. From Thursday until Saturday I'm in Newport Beach for an art class! (can't wait) Then, on Saturday afternoon, Byron and I are leaving for New York. We get back on Tuesday late and I leave the next morning for Vancouver, B.C. to pick up the girls, who are staying with Byron's mom and playing with all their millions of cousins up there. I have on-line service here in the hotel, but not sure about all of the other places.

Ok, folks, I'll talk to you later! Sorry I've been gone lately!!!!!!!!!! Please read me again! Hahahaha

Mary-Kay

Missin' this place

Well, been a bit busy lately. I have a lot to report. As you know I am long winded so I'll try to make this short.

1. Today, Byron ran over to our rental, that is for sale. There was to be an open house, but instead, there was standing water in ALL of the house. 1,800 square feet of two inches of water. The basement? About 2 1/2 feet of water. Byron said it had to have been going about 2 days, since the last day we were there. Not good. A flood guy is there and is doing his job. More on that later.

2. Yesterday we cleaned out the garage and got my car back in there. Yeah! Took 6 pieces of furniture down to the consignment store and listed them there. 5 of those were from my childhood room. Sad. Went to a barbque from there and stayed until 11:00PM

3. Friday I spent the ENTIRE day with 25 Kindergardeners at their teachers house for a swim party. Shoot-dang, that was something. I'll have pics of that later.

Ok, gotta run now. We are off to Souplantation for dinner before Byron leaves for Philidelphia again tomorrow for a week. He'll be back Friday. Another week of single motherhood.

That's all she wrote!
Mary-Kay