A Trip Back Home

For those of you who have moved away from home to a completely new place with brand new challenges you can appreciate how nice it is to make a trip back home soon after the move. Such an occasion arose a few weeks ago, for a Lucas-Kappel celebration. The occasion of course was to celebrate Matthew and his new wife, Sharon, who went and got hitched last fall, and with the size of our growing family you can bet there were more babies to meet! (3 to be exact!) I’ll recap the very busy and exhausting week for those of you near and far, and for those who couldn’t make it (ahem, Brandy and Will).

The trip started with a visit from Momma Max who drove up from Cincinnati to see the new place and my neighborhood, and of course a little shopping! It was so much fun to show her where I live because although she has been to Chicago numerous times, never to the neighborhoods north of downtown (where the museums, Magnificent Mile and hotels are). I fell in love with this area a few summers ago when I came to visit friends and knew I wanted to live here upon my move to the Windy City. I took her to my favorite places to eat a vegan-vegetarian restaurant, The Chicago Diner (“Meat free since 1983) and to the most wonderful breakfast place, Ann Sathers, with the best cinnamon rolls. We walked along the lake, saw Wrigley Field and made a trip out to IKEA to get more things for my apartment.

It was a quick visit though because we turned right around to join in the festivities at home. The first morning there I went to the Cincinnati Zoo with the whole crew: Mom, the Newly Weds, Taylor, Sarah, Desiree, Anthony, Clint, Marianne and their two little ones, Reeder and baby Hayes. You could say we brought the zoo to the zoo, as Don would have commented if he had been brave enough to go, ‘It’s like herding cats’. But we covered a lot of ground and made the loop.

Sarah and her little boy, Anthony, at the petting zoo.

Sharon! My new sister-in-law.

The Kappels taking a look at the polar bears.

Reeder and her Dad on the carousel.

That afternoon and the next day were filled with errands, chit-chat, a trip to the new pool and of course the breakfast at Half-Day Cafe. Friday night, Jason and I made it to the Reds game where they beat the Red Sox (go figure!) And good thing we went to that game because they lost the rest of weekend. Despite my objections and whines of being tired, Jason insisted we stay for the fireworks, quite the display of pyrotechnics.

Hayes and his Grama Max. What a stud, right?

Self-portrait at the Red's game! (I was bored waiting for the pyromusical to begin.)

As I mentioned, we have a new addition to the clan, my step-sister, Mary, had her second child, a baby girl Samantha Opal who was born on June 10. I went over to Mary and Kevin’s to meet this little one, what a sweet thing. The family is doing great. That evening we had the elopement celebration BBQ. It was at my parents’ house in Wyoming and there was some great mac’n’cheese, ice-cream, cake and Sangria that sent me back to my Spain days. (All my favorite food!) Sharon was appropriately welcomed into the family.

Baby Sam, only a few days old.

Baby Sam getting some love from Big Brother, Taylor

The Newly Weds!

The obligatory cake in the face pic!

Oh, to be two, and able to eat cake the right way.

Me and Sharon at the BBQ

A party wouldn't be complete without balloons by Fouad. Usually a crowd please among the tots, but Jason's a kid at heart or just a big goof ball.

Me and my wonderful mom, Max.

Me and Jason.
The last full day in Cincinnati was spent running around despite the effects of the prior night’s fun. Jason and I stopped by St. James to see Hayes, my nephew born in March , be baptized and welcomed to the faith by all his friends and family. Then we made it across town to pick up Brutus from his first stay at a dog spa and resort. For those of you have had the wonderful opportunity to meet my Black Lab, you will know he is appropriately named because he is quite the brute but full of love and without a care in the world, he survived and even got good marks. I was nervous the entire time he was there that I was going to get a call about his behavior. Then we made our way up to Oxford to see Jason’s family for Father’s Day. It’s always nice to go to Oxford because I will always miss Miami and it’s such a lovely little college town and of course it's always nice to see his folks and sister.

Hayes debut into faith. Good work, lil guy!

On Monday, the party was over and I headed back on Megabus to Chicago. And I have been up to the usual things, working, nannying and living in the Windy City. (To see more pictures you can visit my albums at www.kodakgallery.com. Username is my email and password is kappelsphotos.)

xoxo

Amber

Settling In

Hi Folks, I have been here in Chicago for almost a month and I am settling in to my new city. Not a lot of has been going around here, just the usual. Like I mentioned in my last blog I am baby-sitting for a family I met through the Cohen’s. And so far I am having so much fun with their toddler, Nora, and learning a lot about newborns with Astor, their one month old. They live in a neighborhood west of the city so I take the bus to their house a few days a week and help out their mom, Jen. I am also working at the restaurant but I am hoping to find something else more in sync with who I am. (Unfortunately while they were shooting the movie I didn’t get to see Johnny Depp or Christian Bale, just a bunch of extras and old cars.)

I haven’t spending all my time working, though, I’ve been catching up with friends who live in the city. One of the draws of Chicago was that so many of my friends from home and from Miami live here, so it has been very nice seeing all of them. Last weekend I went to Jen’s house for a BBQ to help celebrate her roommate finishing the MCAT, and later that night I went out with a few AOIIs from Miami. I’ve also taken advantage of living a block from the shore, and made a few trips to the beach to enjoy the sun because it’s been hot here in the Windy City. I was also looking at different apartments where I could have a dog but have decided to stay in my apartment I have now for various reasons.

Out with AOIIs from Miami!

Me and Sarah. (Sarah and I were on exec at Miami, and she is such a great friend!)

I also had a visitor come visit! Jason came to visit on Saturday for the day. He rode up on the overnight Megabus (a super cheap way to make it between Cincinnati and Chicago and the rest of the Midwest,) so he got here in the morning in time for breakfast at Ann Sather’s a local favorite with the best cinnamon rolls and omelets. Afterwards, we spent the afternoon by the lake at the dog beach watching all the goings on, watched the boats out on the water and then went down to a grassy part while Jason napped, I read. We left just as the rain started coming down and got trenched. For dinner, Connie and John (Jason’s parents) met us and went for pizza before the three of them went up to Wisconsin for Jason’s cousin’s graduation from high school.

That’s all for now, I’ll see many of you this week when I am home for Matthew and Sharon’s Cincinnati Elopement Celebration (say that three times fast!)

xoxo

Amber

A Blogger's Debut

Hello to friends and family! At the request of Momma Max I am going to start ‘blogging’ about my new adventure Chicago. I am hoping it will follow the same trend as my Spain emails from a few years ago with a journal-like entry and a few pictures to capture my life here.

For those who haven’t heard yet, I recently moved to Chicago (by recently, I mean a week ago) to pursue a master’s degree at Loyola University in Public History. ‘What’s that?’ you ask. It’s taking the academic field of history and interpreting it for the public sphere (think museums, historical societies, libraries). However, I don’t start classes until the middle of August, so I won’t bore you with all that right now.

With the help my BFF from the Wyo, Jen, I found a great 1 bedroom apartment (the closest space was selling point) in a neighborhood called Lakeview, and like the name suggests, I am 2 blocks from the lake shore where there is a nice park, bike/running trail, marina, dog beach and tennis courts. My neighborhood is next to Wrigleyville, named for the Cubs stadium, and I also live near what is known as Boystown, the Gay Community of Chicago. So I live in a primo location because of its great places to eat, shop, watch baseball and it is very safe! Visitors welcome!

This is my building from the street.

My Kitchen.

This is my living room, walk in closet in the left corning, hallway to bath/bed room to the right.

Another view of the living room, the kitchen is to the right and the far wall is all closet, eat your heart out, ladies.

And is this a view of my bedroom from a small hallway that connects to the living room and also the bathroom.

No I am not just kickin’ it in the Windy City, I am a working a hodge-podge of jobs to keep me busy this summer. I am working at a family run restaurant and catering business called Zig Zag’s Kitchen, I am training to be able to take delivery orders AND to wait tables. (I have to admit I am not very good at this, because I am either too attentive of a waitress or don’t check on my tables enough, so I am trying to learn the balance.) I am also working on my Spanish because that is the entire kitchen staff’s first language and we have to communicate somehow (so all those Spanish classes and my semester abroad are paying off!)

*Fun fact about the place I work, they (by they I mean Michael Mann and Hollywood) are filming a Johnny Depp and Christian Bale (hotties!) movie across the street at a famous theatre AND in the restaurant where I work. (No celebrity sightings yet, but I will let you all know if I stumble upon Mr. Depp!) It’s called ‘Public Enemies’ and its based on the gangster John Dillinger, so when it comes out next year, go see it and know that’s where I work. The locals are going crazy about it because they have redone the entire block to make it look like 1930s (I have included pictures below.)

This is an image of Zig Zag, it's being used as a part of the movie set so the tables, chairs and wall hangings were brought in by the set people.

This is the famous theatre where they are doing most of the filming, it's across the street from the restaurant.

This is a street view, you can see how they changed the facades of the block and layed down fake brick down the middle.

I am also working as a baby-sitter for a family that has 21-month old little girl, a 10-day old baby girl (Nora and Aster,) a mutt and a Great Dane puppy (Dirk and Hank). I will be helping out their mom, Jen, two mornings a week and evenings once baby Aster gets a little older. And I am interviewing at a Doggy Day Care on Tuesday for a part time position, so keep your fingers crossed. (I am working on getting my dog fix because Brutus didn’t make the move to Chicago with me). I’ll be a busy girl this summer.

I named the ‘blog’ on the fly so if any of you have any suggestions for a title pass them along! I love updates and comments, so feel free to leave a few thoughts. Hope you enjoyed my first entry and I look forward to sharing this new adventure in my life with you all. (If you know of any who would like to hear about my time here, please pass it along.)

xoxo
Amber