Architecture in Chicago

Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie house. Built for Fred C. Robie in 1909 (actually finished in 1912, but that didn't stop people from living in it). This was essentially the beginning of Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie style houses. There were three different families that lived in the house within only 10 years, and after that it was turned into a dorm. It was almost demolished twice to build a bigger dorms building before a private buyer bought it and saw to it that it was put on the historic registry.

Mr. Robie had a very specific idea of what he wanted with this house. The high terraces and planters give the house a sense of privacy from the street without having to have shades or curtains on the windows to obstruct the view out.

Kara in front of the main entrance to the Robie House. FLW wanted people that were visiting the house to experience the building as they approached it, so from the driveway you have to walk all the way around the front of the house to get to the main entrance.

This is the Carr Memorial Chapel on IIT's campus designed by Mies Van der Rohe

Interior of the Carr Chapel

Close up of the altar

Nice job on this one Mies..."What? We need two bathrooms?...Oh, that's ok, we'll just make them both half the size"...REALLY?! I'm no scientist, but this doesn't seem to work.

Kara lounging in the altar area. There weren't any signs, but I don't think this is allowed.

We have furniture!!

It may surprise you to know that the computer renderings I posted of our apartment a while ago were very true to life as we actually had absolutely no furniture. Well, that all changed this week with the arrival of our Ikea shipment. I wasted no time in assembling our bed, dressers, couch, and a couple of tables. IKEA is a beautiful thing.

It was like Christmas...and I got to use the new screwdriver I got at Walgreens to put it all together.

You'll notice the centerpiece of the living room allocated in its proper location by the window.

You can tell these weren't done on the computer because there's messes all over the place. We haven't quite found or gotten used to having a place for everything.

Long Time No Post

Well it has been a while since I've posted. TFA pretty much took over my life for 6 weeks and decided to run away with it. Good thing I have Nate to keep me pretty grounded. However this past week has been awesome, because it is my first and last week off before school starts. So we spent a lot of time watching arrested development on netflix, sleeping, cooking yummy food, and doing touristy stuff. It's been really nice. Here are some of the pics of the week.

We went to Navy Pier, which is a really touristy area of the city--it's the harbor closest to down town.

Pretty view.

While there, we saw some idiots who thought it was cute and funny to tube in the harbor. So dumb:

100 yards away from anything else? I think not.

Then we went on the ferris wheel at Navy Pier in honor of the first ferris wheel being built in chicago for the World's Fair in 1893. The original was torn down after the fair, and the metal was used for a bridge somewhere in michigan.

Before Riding

View from the top

Us at the top!

Then we went to the zoo! The zoo is particularly cool here in chicago because it is 100 percent totally free. Amazing. Nate has been wanting to go really, really bad since we got here so I finally caved!

Here we are in the Lion House!

This Jaguar was pacing and angry about something.

Now he's eating his dinner...all better.

These little black balls are Gorillas. They enjoy eating their own fecal matter. No joke. All of the monkeys--apes, gorillas, chimpanzees, spider, etc. ate their own poo. I witnessed all of it. Our favorite was a special chimp who would catch the droppings on their way out or as Nate so elegantly put it--"he would extract the substance from himself", climb up to his special corner, smash it against the wall, and then proceed to suck it off the wall. There were many splatters in his corner so we assumed this was a daily ritual. I believe we were to enthralled with this behavior to even think of taking a picture. Sad that our favorite memory about the zoo is only etched in our memories and not public domain.

We ended the day with the flamingos, and this picture reminds me so much of Mom that I couldn't resist putting it up! How many pictures do we have of her with her eyes closed? I think a better question would be how many do we have of her not with her eyes closed? I apparently get my good looks and picture taking skills from her. LOVE YOU MOM!

Well we miss all of you so much and wish you would all hurry up and come visit us! Love to everyone.