The Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago

On our last full day in the Chicago area, we took Blaze to the Museum of Science and Industry. It seems that everyone else had the same idea, because it was packed with people. DH is not a fan of crowds and really didn't enjoy himself, but Blaze took a completely different view. Upon see this huge line to buy tickets, Blaze excitedly pointed and shouted out, "look, a maze!"























The mailbox right outside the museum:

Christmas in Chicago

Two days after Christmas, we headed North, following behind my mother on some pretty confusing and sometimes slippery, unplowed country roads (she has a special way of getting from Palestine to Elgin, where she drives through fewer towns to save time on the trip). To make the trip more exciting, the sky and the ground were the same color of white, a phenomenon I'm not sure my Floridian husband had ever seen before.

The next day, DH and I took advantage of having my mother and Ula there to babysit and took our first time off from parenting in a very long time.

We drove into Chicago and had lunch at Rick Bayless' restaurant, Frontera . We had watched the t.v. show "Mexico, One Plate at a Time" with Rick Bayless on PBS.



We arrived towards the end of the lunch rush, which turned out to be to our advantage. When we came in, we had been told it would be a two hour wait for a table, but it actually turned out to be only 20 minutes.



The food was excellent! I had the duck breast in mole sauce that I had seen on a Food Network show called The Best Thing I Ever Ate With a Sauce (yes, I watch a lot of cooking shows).



DH had a shrimp dish that he said made him weep a little, it was so good. He said that for the past 15 years he had tried to find this dish in the United States, but it had never been as good as when he had it in Mexico, until now.

Then for dessert, there was a dish with two kinds of flan.





The food was all wonderful, but besides that, I was impressed with Frontera for another reason. These people are masters of portion control. We had hot chocolate, two appetizers, and generous main courses, and still had room for dessert, which is something that rarely happens. Not only that, but after dessert, we felt full and happy, but not so stuffed that we couldn't comfortably take a nice long walk.





Inside the giant Macy's Store (formerly Marshal Field's):








Back outside:

Excuse the fuzziness of this next picture, but we were able to stand outside the window and watch ABC, channel 7, doing the evening news.

Persimmon Pudding

This is an old-school, regional dessert favorite. My mother's mother has been gone for about 16 years, but the memory of the persimmon pudding that she always made for holiday meals lives on.

This year my mother used that same reliable old recipe, found in an dog-eared and yellowed, locally printed, paperback cookbook, to make persimmon pudding for our Christmas dessert. As always, it received rave reviews, and one of the younger cousins, who is too young to remember his great-grandmother, said it was the best persimmon pudding he had ever had.





To make this masterpiece, follow the directions from the ancient cookbook, including Grandma's handwritten baking instructions, cool, cut into squares about the size of a brownie, and serve with homemade whipped cream.

Black, Red, and White Christmas

For many years now, my mother has had a new color scheme for Christmas each year. Last year it was brown and gold. This year it was black, red, and white.







She decorates everything to go with her color choices, from sewing new slipcovers for the throw pillows on the living room couch and chairs, to the light switch covers.

While Ula was put to work scraping the frosting out of Oreo cookies, so Mother could use the cookies for a crust, I was given the challenge of turning the following objects into decorative candlesticks for the dining room table.



This was my final result:



Each candlestick was then placed on a red lace doily on the table.

The Christmas Eve Snow Fall

After years of telling Blaze (and DH) that going to see my family in Illinois for Christmas meant that we might see snow, it finally happened. It snowed most of the day on Christmas eve.

This was particularly exciting for Blaze, who had not seen snow since he was 2 years old.



We fit as many snow related activities into Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as we could, and Blaze enjoyed them all. Even clearing Grandmother's front sidewalk was fun.



I was the victim of Blaze's first snowball, which went down the back of my neck, but Ula was the target of all the rest. He didn't really like the fact, though, that if he threw a snowball at her, it meant she could retaliate.



The sled:











Our somewhat sinister looking snowman, with bulging eyes made out of kumquats:

Grandma

We're back!
We had a lovely white Christmas in Illinois, but this was our real reason for the trip, to visit my 92 year old grandmother.



She has recently been moved into a "managed care facility" due to several falls, after which she couldn't get up without assistance, and a condition called Sundowners, which causes her quite a bit of confusion about what is real and what is not.

When she moved into the nursing home, she told my dad that she wanted to see her granddaughters, so my sister, her husband, and little girl came from Seattle to see her over Thanksgiving, and we made the trip over Christmas. It was very good to see her, although it was also sad to see how confused she was about who everyone else was except my mother and me. She kept thinking Blaze was a girl and that Ula was her mother. For some reason, she thought that I already had 2 grandchildren.

I don't usually like nursing homes. I find them depressing. This one was a very nice surprise, though. It was beautiful, the staff was very attentive and friendly, and there were activities for the residents.



There is even a dog.



Grandma's only complaint is the food. She is very used to her own cooking ( and home canning) and is disappointed that her room has a refrigerator, but no stove.





At home, she always worked in the garden, and refused to stop even when it was no longer safe for her to do so (one of her falls happened in the garden). The nursing home has told her that in the Spring, they have a place where she can plant some tomato plants.