All Souls Day (better late than never) and a trip to Chicago

 I wanted to post this while I was on a bus going to visit my daughter in Chicago.  I had 5 hours to just play here on the web but to my dismay we did not have wifi connection that day.  My trip was to packed spending time with her so I didn't want to take time to post while there.

so

I saw on another of my blog friends post that today is All Souls Day so I'm late for the USA but you can still enjoy the decorations I did for my book club!

 I chose to use a Poe theme and use book print to decorate where I could.

 I put the Raven the typewriter and made the portrait a zombie.

 I saw cookies like these on Pinterest

well,

not exactly like these,

theirs were much better

but for a first try I was very proud of myself.

These are most of my friends in my book club along with our guest author Katrina Kittle. She is kind of in the center in black at the end of the couch.

We read her book The Blessing of the Animals

very good book and we enjoyed her so much.  We invited her to join our book club! LOL

If you are a reader I hope you will check out her books.

Now for some images from my trip in Chicago!

I know you are dieing to see my vacation photos ;o

 This is the Lake on Tuesday.  We were on the bus on the way to the Art Museum when we saw this and I told Liz we had to get off and take photos!

 This was no easy task.

We were not close to the lake so we had to walk

FOREVER

to even get close

The walkway under the road was closed but we went anyway.

I didn't walk in the freezing wind for 20 minutes just to miss the opportunity to photograph the lake this angry.

 This is Liz walking in front of me along the beach area near downtown. 

I hate all the damage and devastation Sandy left but the creative person in me just had to capture these waves.

 We ate breakfast both mornings at a wonderful bakery called Lovely 11

Their mocha's were awesome and very pretty!

 I loved this pattern the mocha left.

 Tea bag Liz has hanging in her window. Loved these patterns also and the colors!

 The stairwell in her building

 Train

Beautiful plants all over the city! 

I was glad to have a couple of days just to hang out where she goes and meet many of the friends she has made over the last 4 years.  This wasn't a tourist trip and I got to see the real Chicago. 

I liked that better!

Our Collage Graduate

After 3 full years of classes our oldest Daughter Liz graduated from the International Academy of Design and Technology with a bachelors in Fashion Design!

She has had quite a lot of moves through the last year but she finally got her own studio apartment in North Chicago.

The ceremony was very nice.

Luckily it wasn't a huge school so they only had around 200 graduates. Everyone was extremely glad to receive their degrees.

The guest speaker reminded the students of the difficult times they are graduating in but encouraged them to press forward and not loose hope. I thought that was a good approach and he was very wise in his other advice.

It's a hard thing to have to do, speaking to college graduates when 9% of Americans are unemployed.

He should be commended for taking that job on!

He did say "if women shop for clothes like my wife the fashion students should be OK. No woman is going to go around out of style."

Family

Liz with her sister who leaves to start her freshman year at Johnson and Whales in 2 weeks in Miami Fl. and Mom and Dad who are looking forward to being alone again for the 1st time in 21 years!

My Awesome girls! I am so proud of both of them

Aunt, cousins and grandparents who all took the trip to Chicago to witness this great day.