Strange things...

I have lots of things I could post about. Rides at the mall, adventures on tricycles and big girl bikes, tea parties with friends. But instead I'm going to post some of the bizarre things I've seen in the last couple of months. Starting with...

Spotted this on a trip to best buy.

I was really, really tempted. But it wasn't a blu-ray. And I'd want to see the mega shark and giant octopus battling it out in the highest possible picture quality.

Spotted these at the pharmacy...

Which led me to have a number of questions:

Collector's series? When do you collect them? After you use them? I hope not. Before you use them? Doesn't that just make them really expensive, oddly textured stickers? Where would you even keep such a collection? Do they make special band-aid collectors books, like with coins and pokemon cards? This product is clearly for a very special kind of person.

Spotted this looking for bubble bath...

I can only imagine the commercial to go with this... does your baby have a hard time picking up dates? Smell a little too fresh, milky and powdery? Never fear, just use Johnson's baby cologne and your bundle of joy will be smelling like a frat boy and fighting them off in no time.

Seriously? Baby cologne?

And finally... this was quite some time ago, but it deserves a mention. For all the Brits, when you order tea and specify that you'd like milk to put in it, here's what you might get...

You get a mug of (often lukewarm) water. A teabag on the side with more lukewarm water. Some lemon. And almost a whole pint of milk. Because that's totally what I meant.

Lazy Vegetarian: Day 28

Breakfast... tea and leftover pizza! Yay vacation!

Adele and Olivia shared some nutella and toast and chili cheese fritos. Breakfast of champions!

We headed down to Navy Pier and walked around a little, the had some lunch...

Lunch: Vegetable panini and waffle fries.

After lunch we went to the Children's Museum. It was so fun, the girls had a really great time.

Fiona loved the tree house area where she could fish...

And Canoe!

I have some cute pictures but it's taking Foooooorrrrrrrrrreeeeeevvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrr to upload them so I'll post them on flickr some time when we're back. Hopefully some time in the next year.

On the bus on the way back I spotted this fantastic advert. I'll leave the interpretation up to you, but I think it's very interesting ;-)

This evening we went to the rehearsal/family get together dinner before the wedding tomorrow. It was so nice to see and meet some of Ben's cousins and family (and family to be) and the dinner was really delicious! Fiona was surprised and delighted to come out of the bathroom and find... Grandma!!

Full disclosure: I had more salad and beans and potatoes than shown, but I had to borrow Ben's phone for the pictures (it has a flash) and kept forgetting to take the picture before I started eating...

Salad!

Mashed potatoes, red beans and rice...

Corn muffin. I love these so much.

Bread roll (shared with Fiona)

Pecan pie. Ohhhhhhh YUM.

It was super delicious. We went to this restaurant. Next time you're in Chicago you should go!

We're having a great trip and are so happy to be able to spend time with people we love who we don't see nearly often enough :-)

Photo Challenge Day 4

One of the results of this challenge is that I have been taking more pictures in general, and I have my camera with me more often and am able to take fun pictures of things that would normally be forgotten. For example, we met friends for breakfast at Ikea this morning (which was super cheap and pretty tasty and I would definitely recommend) and on our way out I spotted this:

(Click to enlarge. If you can't read what's circled in the bottom right, you'll miss the joke!)

The sign must have been at least 15 feet wide. Who knew Ikea had a sense of humor? I had to stop and take a picture even though Adele was really mad and Fiona took it as an opportunity to climb on a pile of ektorps.

Fiona and Adele have both been really interested in taking care of babies recently, which is adorable. Fiona likes to wrap hers up and tote them around and put them in bed and tell people to be quiet because they are sleeping...

She was asking for a baby carrier so I made her a moby of her own and she insisted on packing two babies in there.

Adele loves to feed her baby too, and also likes to take their clothes off. She is funny.

This afternoon we went to the Zoo, partly to get out of the house and partly to look for something green to take a picture of. I got a telephoto lens for my camera (thanks Dad!) but haven't had much opportunity to use it yet and I thought that there must be a bunch of fun green things at the Zoo to take close up pictures of... crocodiles, frogs, turtles... Well I took some really fun pictures but it turns out it's a lot harder to find green creatures that I expected. The crocodiles look more grey than green and the other things had greenish parts but were not really green.

The only really green thing was this big fat caterpillar waiting to turn into a beautiful butterfly... so here he is.

30 Day Photo Challenge Day 4: Something Green

so this one time, in my blog stats...

Every so often I check my blog stats on sitemeter. I don't check often because it's never really that exciting, and I know pretty much who is reading it (hi Mum!). The most interesting part is looking at the google searches that led people here, but the vast majority of the time the search terms are either my name, or the name of the blog. Google doesn't have to work too hard for those...

But today... well, today was different. In the last week I had two very interesting, somewhat bizarre searches that sent someone here. The first came from Canada on January 8th and was...

"Granny making love to Grandpa"

*Ahem*

Interesting.

They landed on a story about my parents visiting, which clearly did not hold their interest because they left again almost immediately. Sorry to disappoint...

The second search though was the one that really surprised me...

"Old Grannies and Grandpas making love"

And to that I say... WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON HERE?!

And it's not even the same person! This one came from the UK!

So here's the thing. My stats only go back 6 days because they're free. In the last 6 days there were 7 google searches that led people here, and 2 out of 7 were searches for grannies and grandpas getting friendly. If I had 10,000, or even 1,000 searches, and 2 were for grandparent nookie, I might be less surprised, though I still don't really see the appeal, but 2 out of 7? That's just weird.

Still, let's look on the bright side... at least they're looking for Grannies having sex with Grandpas and not.. you know... something else. That's pretty wholesome, considering the possibilities.

So welcome, blog visitors searching for Grannies and Grandpas copulating. You won't find it here, but we're not judging...

Thai Food Adventure

Since we moved here, Ben and I have been on a quest to find a 'go-to' Thai restaurant. We've tried a few, but generally we've found them to be overpriced and not that tasty. There's one in particular though (True Thai, on Franklin) that we've passed by many, many times, but have never gone to. Recently we were near by and decided to pick up takeaway from there to give it a try. When we got home I had a closer look at the menu, and found that this is no ordinary Thai food..

Maybe you'd like to start with some soup? Oh, this one sounds good...

"Sure to please"? If it's that determined to "please" maybe they should be calling it Wanton soup. Hussy.

If you're trying to be a little more subtle about your intentions, here's a better choice...

Awww, Sweet!! I hope it also comes with a side of Sebastian from the Little Mermaid to serenade you in a boat. Now that's an enchanted evening! And if you're VERY lucky, a few years later you might still be serenaded from time to time...

But maybe you're not in that kind of mood. Maybe you just want to smile... oh, what do you know? Here's a good choice!

I'm smiling and I didn't even eat it! This stuff is powerful...

But you might be the kind of person who is happiest when at the cutting edge of the latest trend. Then you should have this one...

Or perhaps you don't care about what wacky combination of flavours are there, all you want is something that fits your lifestyle of skydiving and cliff climbing... something adventurous...

But maybe I'm being selfish. Maybe I should be focusing more on how the food feels, and less about my own happiness... Maybe I should be ordering a dish like this...

I'm hoping for an invitation to the baby corn-snow pea wedding. I bet they'll have a long and happy life together. And imagine how cute their kids would be!!

Not only does this menu have something for everyone, it also comes with good advice...

Mmmm Thai food. Delicious and entertaining. We'll definitely be back.