Time to play catchup

My apologies readers but owning a home has proved to be a busier task than I expected. Also summer finally set in around here so we have been feverishly trying to soak up as much sun and time outside as possible. Let's replay the last three weeks for you shall we...

May 4th- Prom

This was the second annual prom at Tallgrass Sudbury and it was another success. May 4th also happened to be Kentucky Derby Day and a friend of ours across town had a derby party. It worked out perfectly that Peter and I got to wear our prom attire to the derby party. We only looked slightly over dressed. From what I've read there is no over doing it on Derby Day.

Skip ahead to the 12th as we usually don't do anything all that interesting during the week. We had a favorable open house party welcoming everyone to visit our home. Of course because I never think about it I took absolutely no photos but I can assure there was merriment and laughter galore. My little one (Adlyn the girl I nanny) came with her mother too which was a special treat. She wouldn't let me sit down the whole time she was here.

The following evening Monday the 13th I was the MC and read stage directions for my friend Dan's play, Kid Yesterday, at the Den Theatre. It went very well and hopefully the powers that be will want to produce it for him. The rest of this past week was also pretty standard.

Although I did get to see an old friend from Austin on Friday night. Colin Gilmore played The Space in Evaston and Peter and I trekked out there for his show. I love that venue and wish it was not an hour and half outside the city but it was nice to see a familiar face and enjoy some excellent tunes.

Saturday Peter and I made a fire pit in the backyard and had some friends over to use our new grill.

Ain't she a beaut!? Hopefully we don't get shut down by the city. We both did a ton of research trying to find the fire code laws for Chicago. Even called 311 to discuss it with someone but never received a call back. 

For anyone who doesn't already know in 1871 a little over 3 miles of the city was destroyed by a great fire. Supposedly the fire started when Mrs. O'leary's cow kicked over a lantern in a barn. Needless to say Chicago now has one of the largest fire departments in the country and also once a week has a city wide fire siren test on Tuesdays at 10am. 

Naturally Peter and I would have thought they had some pretty strict fire codes about open flames in backyards and what not but we did not find much information regarding this practice. There were a lot of forums with people saying they "think" this is the code or have had their pit shut down for various reasons...i.e. neighbors complaining about smoke, not having a spark guard over the flame, being within 14 feet of a structure but none of these "reasons" could be found in any state or city code. We are good friends with our neighbors and I'm guessing they would just come over and hang out with us around the flames, a spark guard is in the works and we don't plan on having a fire until it's done, and we are 12 feet from a structure which hopefully no one will notice ;-)! All in all if we do end up getting shut down it was fun to build and looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself.