Outdoor Breakfast - with avocado!

With hot (90s) & humid days recently, we have been grabbing any semi-cool temps outside when we can - which means breakfast on the back patio. (For those who have seen it, you know that "patio" is a generous title.) Gemma loves to listen to the birds and point in the air and say "biiiir" (or something like that). Today on the menu was bananas and avocado to start the meal. Previously she didn't like avocado when I mashed it into her cereal, but this time I cut pieces and she liked to eat it that way. (Is this a sign of independence already?!) At one point, she was so excited for more that she grabbed her bib and starting sucking on the leftover bits that were sticking to it. In the last photo, she was vigorously waving arms and legs. I think that may be a "more" signal...notice the furrowed, intense brow...she gets that from her father...

We miss you already, Daddy

On Thursday morning Jim took the bus from Indianapolis to Chicago, spent the night in Wheaton with Mom & Dad, and then on Friday began his flying journey: Chicago - Los Angeles - Bangkok, Thailand. He is supposed to arrive in Bangkok at 6 PM on Saturday (our time, which is 6 AM Sunday in Bangkok!), and later convene with his other classmates. They will have a few days to adjust to the time change and get to know the city before they begin their consulting assignments at various universities. We miss him a lot already!

Gemma in particular misses her daily wrestling matches with Daddy. She's a bit of a crazy girl...

Also, who is going to eat all these glorious shiitake mushrooms? At Friday's pick-up of our CSA half-share, there was a bag of these beauties (in addition to field greens, garlic scapes and radishes). While I don't care for mushrooms and have never seen the 'point' in eating them, these may convert me - plus I have a bag of them waiting to be consumed! All I know is to slice and saute them as a side to a nice breakfast (or supper) of bangers & mash & fried tomatoes. Which will be delicious, I know. Shiitake mushrooms are quite meaty and with a mild scent and flavor. Anyone else have suggestions?

More good times to celebrate the end of school year

Here in B-town we continue to find little ways to celebrate the end of the school year - our 2nd here! unbelievable! - and of course food & being outdoors are two ways we do that...

Here is Gemma with Melody, a colleague of Jim's who came for dinner a couple of weeks ago. She is originally from Bloemfontein, South Africa, and has spent the year at IU on a fellowship, finishing up her dissertation. It was wonderful to get to know her a bit this year (and hear a lovely South African accent!) and perhaps we will connect again in the future, in the southern hemisphere next time.

We went out to breakfast at one of B-town's favorites, The Village Deli. Once you've had their pancakes, you will hunger for them again and again, and we've been waiting all semester to go back! (And now that the students are gone for the summer, downtown places are much quieter.)

A peek at the menu: we ordered a pancake and the spinach scramble, and shared both plates. Even still, the pancake was so HUGE, we didn't finish it. So light...fluffy...loaded with refined flour and empty calories...oh wait, this was a special treat, we're not going to think about that. SO, so yummy. We think their recipe adds more eggs than traditional pancakes, which is what makes them so delicious and cake-like.

This was Gemma's first meal eaten out, though we brought it from home of course - pears.

Yes, that is the pancake in the front of the photo. Yes, it is on a plate (barely).

Here's a glimpse at one of Gemma's new favorite activities - standing. She loves to stand at the couch or a low table or windowsill, bouncing and blabbing and banging. She's still working on pulling herself up to standing, though she can pull up on us and then wants to launch in every direction, walking around the house, holding on to our hands. We are getting the hint that she is going to be an energetic child...


And Sunday afternoon at the park! Yay for summer weather and free hours to just hang out!! In just a few days, Jim leaves for Thailand, where he will be for about a month with a small group of IU doctoral students, doing advising/consulting work at various universities in Bangkok. I (Jul) am not looking forward to being apart, but it will hopefully be a terrific experience for Jim, and meanwhile Gemma and I will be going out to Seattle to see family for part of the time. And that we are looking forward to!

Meeting sweet cousin Elsie

To help celebrate the end of the school year, we took a long weekend and drove down to Memphis (a 7 hr. trip turned to 8 hr. with an infant - but worth every mile!!!) to meet Gemma's newest cousin, Elsie Katherine Brink. She is almost exactly 6 months younger, now 2 months old - and what a sweetie! She definitely sets the standard as a flexible, content baby who is already sleeping 10 hour stretches at night and rarely cries (at least, we never heard her do much more than fuss a bit...). And she is already quite talkative and expressive - as you can see in the photos. Amazing! It will be interesting to see if that element of her personality continues as she gets older.

The first of many times these two will play together...and Elsie graciously let Gemma check out her favorite toys.


Off for a morning walk in our matching strollers! It was uncharacteristically chilly during part of the time we were there, but we still enjoyed strolling through their neighborhood, admiring all the beautiful lawns and huge azalea bushes.


On Saturday we trooped down to downtown Memphis to see a few sites. Here we are outside the motel where Dr. ML King, Jr. was assassinated. It is now a Civil Rights Museum (hopefully we can go through on our next visit - it is undergoing some construction right now). It felt a bit strange & sad to stand and take our photo here, but this is a significant place in our country's history.

The mighty Mississippi River!! It is currently at its widest - 3 miles! - since 1927, due to the heavy storms across the midwest in the past weeks. It has already receded somewhat but many places are still flooded (like Mud Island, on the right side of the photo - maybe you remember the museum scene from the film, The Firm).

A couple of fun scenes from part of the area near the Civil Rights Museum. Also on our next visit we will have to take the Trolley.


And of course no visit with Katie would be complete without scrumptious baked goods! In addition to homemade banana pudding and oatmeal-molasses cookies, we also had Muddy's Cupcakes. They were light and soft and sweet and incredible.

Noah, Katie and baby Elsie, outside after church. Elsie apparently was still in a prayerful mode.

Bye, bye cousin Elsie. See you again soon!

Final class of the semester

For our final class of the semester (this was C795: Dissertation Proposal Preparation), and in honor of John Bean's final day as a professor at IU before retirement, my classmates and I brought food for a party: home-baked sugar cookies with "IU" penciled in red icing, chips with salsa, Chex mix, cupcakes, banana muffins (my contribution), and apple juice. And John provided the music! It was a fun group of colleagues and John was a great prof. I will miss them both.

8 Months Old

Our little Gem is 8 months old as of May 1st! She marked the occasion by signing "more" for the first time. I don't think she really knew what it meant but she did it several times during breakfast, so at least she is starting to learn and associate some signs with the thing or event it refers to. Her favorite foods are still oatmeal with banana or applesauce - or just plain fruit. She loves frozen banana and graham crackers, too.

She is also getting very close to an official crawl, now starting to rock on her hands and knees, and just starting an army crawl. She is already prolific with rolling over, squirming around, crawling backwards, and standing by herself while holding on to the windowsill or couch or crib rails. Fortunately last weekend I went to a consignment sale and got a gate for the top of the stairs, and we suddenly are realising that we need to do some crawler-proofing/safety around the house. Yikes. Watch out! Life is going to get even crazier very soon!