I haven’t been terribly homesick since I got to Chicago, but today I found myself a little achey–not just from all the walking.

I missed Utah. I missed my Sugar House neighborhood parade. And I missed all the Republican Patriots! No one really sported the old Red White and Blue. I missed the local marching bands and the musics and the glow sticks and the kids with streamers on their bikes. I could not track down a single piece of salt water taffy.

Fourth of July Sierra. Dunno why Jeremy took it, feel silly posting it. Doing it anyway.

Ah! I was scratching my face, but Jeremy looks handsome, so I’m posting this with no qualms.

Still, today was wonderfully busy and a lot of fun. We watched The Amazing Spider Man and I loved the heck out of it. It wasn’t the action piece that we’ve seen with other super hero movies, but in a lot of ways, it felt more real. Emma Stone out-MJ-ed Kirsten Dunst, and she didn’t even play MJ! She was a strong heroine, funny, real, charismatic and oh-so-charming. It’s official, she’s my favorite actress in Hollywood. The movie really plays up the whole growing pains of being in high school, a plot line which always tugs at my heart strings since I will be spending a good portion of my time in that arena as a teacher. Love it. Great way to start the day. We even got tattoos.

Then we ambled over to the Lincoln Park Zoo, which was the most beautifully landscaped zoo I’ve ever seen. Most of the animals were hibernating away from the heat and tucked into corners of their cages, so we didn’t get a good glimpse of many. We spend most of the time searching for an indoor house with air conditioning. The Small Mammal and Reptile House did not disappoint. We saw a bat pee upside down, which was thrilling, and I saw two of the smallest little Asian River Otters I ever did see. And a hedgehog. And a Sloth, so I thought fondly of Kristen Bell.

See the Sloth’s little face?

We searched in vain for several minutes for the sloth, only to find, it was right above us.

Not a Kangaroo, still enjoyable.

He didn’t move a muscle and it was so unnerving.

In love with him? Yes, I think so.

For Good Measure. Because what holiday is complete without river otters apparently.

We later met up briefly with Kelsey and Michael in Millenium Park who were in town as they migrated to their new home in New York City, and that was delightful. I’ve seen two of my old roommates since we moved here, and I’ve been both happy and sad to notice that our conversations have changed a lot. Now we talk about leases and babies and graduation. It’s nice to have enduring ties, but sometimes I do miss the times where we’d squeal about boys and jump on our beds. Kels? How about a fort building party one day?

Then we fireworksed it up, like y’all should have, and the show was awesome, short, and to the point. Fireworks can’t be written about. One can only experience the magic firsthand. Nice juxtaposition with the ferris wheel though.

We sojourned home, tired from the heat, and found a dirty wet rag by our door. An ominous omen. Inside, our two maintenance men had knocked a hole in our closet wall and had moved all our clothes onto the bed (the wet ones, they moved into the bathtub). For the most part, they saved our apartment from disaster. A pipe had burst behind our wall, and unfortunately flood the floor beneath us pretty badly. We feel terrible! Except that it was in no way our fault, but still.

Jeremy was a saint. He was so casually nice about it, and prepared the maintenance men glasses of ice water and some brownies. Love my thoughtful boy.

If you didn’t make it through this big long blog, I blame you 0%. More of my journally type blogs where I surrender the desire to write creatively in order to effectively document.