Busy times

It's been a busy couple of weeks, thus the delays posting.

Last week Jennie, Karen, the hubby and I went downtown to the Museum of Science and Industry for the Harry Potter and Smarthome exhibits.

The Smarthome exhibit was really fabulous. It's the "greenest" home in Chicago, designed and built by architect Michelle Kaufmann. It's designed to fit a typical city lot size and runs on solar and wind power (we were lucky enough to witness the installation of the turbine). It has tanks underneath to collect rain water and reuse it for the garden and other suitable uses. It's made from energy efficient and recycled materials and we all decided we could totally live there. The only thing is was lacking was a suitable sewing studio space, but since it's modular, I'm guessing you could easily add one. If you go onto the museum's website, they have a video of the house being built.

Apparently there is a whole neighborhood development of these super green houses out in Colorado.

The tulip was in the container garden in the back of the house.
The wind turbine going up, and all the way installed. They used a van outside the gate with a winch to bring it upright.

This was a vertical garden installation in the courtyard of the Smarthome. Quilt anyone? Of course with 3 quilters there, we all ooo and ahhhd over the vertical garden.

Always a favorite at the MSI, the baby chicks hatching!

The Harry Potter exhibit was interesting. It's costumes and props from the movies. I was sorted by the actual sorting hat, and it's official, I'm a Griffindor! I'm sure it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the girl asked me which house I liked best prior to hovering the hat over my head. Jennie, Karen and I were amazed at the construction and detail of the costumes. Some of them were just exquisite.

The really funny part was that they had all British people working the exhibit. I asked one woman if they imported them all from the UK to travel with the exhibit, and she said that they were all living in Chicago currently. She told me "you'd be surprised how many people from the UK live in Chicago, there's a lot of us!"

They didn't allow photos in the exhibit, so the Flying Ford Anglia from the "Chamber of Secrets" movie that was in the lobby is the only thing I could take a picture of.

The Mold-a-Rama is one of my all time favorite childhood memories. (Although I really think it should be called the Mold-o-Rama). The "o" makes all the difference.

They had them at the zoo and you could get a molded piece of colored wax in the shape of your favorite animal. The train section at the museum had Mold-a-Rama machine and since Jennie's hubby is a huge train fan, and Jennie had never experienced the joy that is the Mold-a-Rama, we decided that the hubby needed a Mold-a-Rama train as a remembrance of our trip, even though he wasn't with us! (The machine says it's plastic, but I think it's really more wax-like).

The Mold-a-Rama in action:

1) The mold closes and the hot wax flows through the tubes into the mold

2)The mold opens and you see your wax masterpiece!

3) The shovel thingy pushes your Mold-a-Rama masterpiece into the pickup shoot.

4) This step is VERY IMPORTANT - you have to hold your Mold-a-Rama upside down while it cools. The directions are very firm on this point.

5)Your Mold-a-Rama is complete! (I didn't take a photo of the finished product, so this is the upside down picture rotated)

Last weekend we also participated in the Adopt-a-Husky fund raiser hike with Bug, Abbie and Robbie. The first two are Adopt-a-Husky alums, and Robbie likes an adventure, so we took him too. I walked Bug and Robbie 3 miles around the lake. It was a glorious spring day, in the low 60's, just perfect for the me and the huskies. There are horses allowed on the trails and Robbie had never seen one before, so it was pretty funny. His eyes got really big when he saw them. Abbie is old and has all the leg issues, so the hubby just walked her a little way then went back to the gathering area.

Abbie: Above photo: Bug and Robbie stacked on one another in the car to stick their noses out the window. It's really perfect because he's so much taller than she is, so they fit perfectly that way.
The 3 mile walk around the pond. Very lovely.

The pile-o-puppies for adoption at Adopt-a-Husky. Aren't they the cutest things? The one in the left photo was especially funny because that's totally how Bug likes to sleep. Apparently contorted sleeping positions is a totally Husky thing to do.