Labor(less) Day

This is summer's last song ... the last three day weekend that includes warm weather. We really took advantage too ...

no schedule,

no agenda,

no rush,

no multi-tasking (well almost).

OK ... most of you who know that Chris and I are true urbanites ... hate to get the hands dirty, camping means a mattress on the floor of the kids' room, a great weekend is in the city on Michigan ave. Well Jet is our anomaly. He loves everything outdoors ... camping (real tents, real sleeping bags), hiking, exploring and FISHING.

I know, I mean where does the innate desire to fish come from??? Well it must come from somewhere because he's been twice and asks every week when he can go fishing again. Fortunately for us, Chicago Parks do offer some fishing opportunities and these opportunities landed us at a lake on Sunday. OK, maybe not a lake by Minnesota standards ... more like a glorified pond ... ok maybe just a pond, but it was exactly what the boys had in mind. We rented Kiddie fishing poles, bought 36 crawlers and were waived the Il fishing license since the fishermen were under age 7.

Jet is a natural with the rod and reel. He cast to mid-lake every single time. The woman with 5 poles, a pack of Salems and a cell phone wedged into her ear saw Jet cast and asked him to do hers! Charlie ... well our Charlie was not so much of a natural. Oh he found the lake ... yes feet first in ... not once but twice. His idea of fun was not sitting, waiting and catching a fish ... but throwing rocks, mulch, twigs and grass into the lake. "Charlie don't do that you are scaring the fish away" "Ok mom" ... two seconds later "SPLASH" ... it was either the pole, a rock or Charlie. Good news, depth was only six inches by the shore.

So to cap off a perfect morning (minus Charlie falling in), we headed to the Chicken Basket - off of Route 66. It must have been there since the route was thriving. Chris was thrilled to see a resteraunt that had a honey bottle on the table to go with the homemade biscuits (yum yum). It was homey. The fried chicken was not the "southern' variety. It was fried chicken that I grew up on ... you know ... the shake and bake variety. I enjoyed it but Chris was a bit disappointed, first in the chicken and second that the gravy was "brown" not southern style gravy. Oh well, you can't win them all! A good weekend all the way around.