We're Still on Vacation, in Chicago!

Today was the perfect day for an outdoor adventure. We headed to the Chicago Botanic Gardens to "tree peep" and check out the haunted railroad garden.

Cloudy with a 30% chance of rain morphed into sunny and too warm for our fall jackets. The gardens were explosively gorgeous, shades of orange, red, yellow, and green. As you can see above, the gardeners have been beyond creative in using natural materials to makes things that haunt, crawl, creep, and wow.

Charlotte, of course, has no idea of how exciting it is to see this exhibit as landmarks of the United States. Philippe and I did not know that the model buildings change every now and then. But, mostly we were excited by the dragon made of leaves, the spiders, the pumpkins, and all the other ghoulie things.

I think Charlotte was excited.

Oh, and she got to make a gift for Miles, a cat mint plant. Miles likes to eat our plants. Our hope is that he'll eat this plant and not the houseplants. If it grows. (It did tip over on the way home.)

Behind my "big" and "little" are obelisks made of red mums. Stunning.

After lunch, we took a scenic car ride (read: let Charlotte nap in the car) and headed to our synagogue for a concert by Dan Nichols. The true highlight was that our friends Mhari and Ava were accompanying Mr. Nichols with their temple choirs. Charlotte could barely contain her excitement and had to be convinced not to interrupt the concert to say hello. She's never been so close to celebrity (the girls, not Mr. Nichols). *I'm not posting a picture because I never post other people's children without explicit permission, in case you're concerned after reading today's New York Times.

After a very early dinner, Charlotte was so excited to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Dad and I got rated "as fun as Karley" because we took her out after dark. Woo hoo! I'm finally as fun as Karley!

p.s. Thanks to Philippe for the great photography!