Parents in the attic, uh... arctic

On their way to Florida, Jeroen's parents made a short stop in Chicagoland for New Year's Eve. They used our loft space annex guest bedroom, which also doubles as an attic with the hot water and central heating furnace. And Jeroen's dad Jan the chemist/physicist/scientist/know-it-all was quick to analyze that hot air goes up, so it is nice and toasty up there. In contrast to outside, where temperatures started off unseasonably mild with highs of 48oF (9oC) on December 31st, but dropped to arctic conditions with wind chills of 10oF (-13oC) during the day on January 2nd. Or as Jan put it: "This is the coldest place I've ever been".

So we picked December 31st, the warmest day, to drive southwards all along the lakeshore, taking a quick stroll beautiful Glencoe Beach and ending up in downtown Chicago.

The weather held up for us to comfortably explore Millennium Park, in particular the amazing art piece Cloud Gate, dubbed by Chicagoans as The Bean. The curved surface creates nice photo ops of distorted and sometimes surreal reflections of Chicago's downtown skyline in the back and spectators in front. See if you can spot Gabriella with her arms spread wide in this picture...........

After Millennium Park, we walked up north to Michigan Avenue's "Magnificent Mile". With dropping temperatures and the After Christmas Sale going on at Eddie Bauer's, the polar hats were in high demand by the family. Some look better in a polar hat than others; Jeroen's mom Tine does not want to be found dead in such a hat, but for Jan form always follows function.

New Year's Day was mainly spent puttering indoors, but the new hats did come in handy when we took a walk on our local beach at the end of the street on January 2nd. The arctic temperatures did not seem to bother a Mexican Hairless, as long as she is dressed in her fleece jumpsuit and fire red balloon shoes - that's a topic for another post.

Jan and Tine left 4am (!) on January 3rd to a somewhat warmer Florida Gulf Coast, but that cold spell is not going to last long. Nonetheless, we're looking forward to see pictures of Jan in his shorts and  Eddie Bauer hat............