A lovely visit to Kenosha

Yesterday (Sunday), we went to visit Chacha's brother Alex and his family in Kenosha. Her youngest brother, Ali was there too. We had a great time. Alex and his wife Aleksandra are exceptional hosts. Alex made chicken covered with vegetables and rice (served separately). He loves to cook and entertain. Melody is only a couple of years older than her cousin Sara and they play together really well. Emily likes to hang out sometimes with the other kids and sometimes with the adults. She spent a lot of time blowing bubbles with her three-year-old cousin, Michael out on the patio. The weather was perfect.

Topics of conversation included plans for bringing Chacha's mom over from Iran and all the logistics that entails. We also talked some politics: The war on terrorism, the occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration. I have a lot of differing opinions. Ali is definitely behind the military action against the former Iraqi regime. Alex is very skeptical about the motives of the Bush administration and thinks that the failure to provide security to museums and other facilities was calculated to make the Iraqis look like savages. That opinion seems a bit too cynical to me. I just think the lack of security is due to poor planning and incompetence. If War is Hell, then occupying another country is like purgatory--with the accent on the "purge".
Inspite of our discussion of politics, no one's nose was put out of joint. Mutual respect overruled controversy.

Alex has a kareoke system which we put to use. He and I sang a gospel song. I tried to do harmony and we had fun. We brought the Sunday paper and looked through the ads. Ali, Alex, Emily and I went to Best Buy and Emily bought the soundtrack CD to recent movie "Freaky Friday". I looked at laptops and there was a toshiba laptop that alowed the user to write on the screen. Fun.

Our host's patio in Kenosha. Photo from a bit later time but same season. 

We left just late enough to get home and get ready for Monday and get to bed by around 10 pm.

Today I over lunch I picked up the Sept./Oct. edition of Campus Life magazine. It featured a comic by Kevin Frank who is an artist that I had commissioned to do some work for one of the products I design at the publishing company where I work. I had told Kevin of my cartooning class and he was gracious enough to send me some of his original sketches from that comic. So now I can show my students both the original pencil work and the printed comic.

Tonite was a quiet evening. Chacha had to go into work early so it was just the girls and I. They did homework and then Chatted with friends for a while on AOL IM. I had a dentist appointment mid evening and got a clean bill of dental health. I was fitted for a mouth guard, however, to help me avoid grinding my teeth at nite. In a week I'll pick it up. The girls have just gone to bed. I have some chores to do before I turn in (folding laundry, straightening up).