it was just so warm and sunny there and i wasn’t thrilled about driving back to the cold and snow.

but i’m getting ahead of myself…before florida, there was the beginning of february, with sweet riley hanging outside as much as possible.

and then, bev and i took a short and fun trip up to chicago to see the Blue Man Group. i’d been dying to see them in their original habitat, the venue where it all began.

here we are before the show started.

it was a pretty good show…but the problem is that i’d built it up in my own mind so much that i was disappointed. when kevin and i saw it a few years ago here at sangamon auditorium, i felt it was the funniest, most wonderful performance i’d ever seen.

yeah, expectations too high.

this time it just wasn’t as funny. could it be because i’d seen it, i knew what to expect? but i feel that they did funnier things back then.

my biggest complaint with the chicago iteration is that it was deafeningly loud. when we first got to our seats, bev noticed that the kid next to her had a pair of earplugs in his lap. he told her they were free, and they were giving them out. he graciously scrabbled past the tightly-packed row of seats to get us some pairs, and he certainly saved my hearing quite a bit that night.

i know it wasn’t that loud when we saw the show here – maybe when they take the show on the road they think the small-town older crowd won’t appreciate the ear-shattering noise? or maybe sangamon auditorium is so big that they couldn’t crank it up full volume.

kevin suggested that maybe their sound people have been doing the show so long that they’re going deaf and so the show keeps increasing in volume over the years.

whatever the reason, it was annoyingly loud to me even with earplugs. at the end of the show i took them out and was amazed at how much louder it was.

we enjoyed ourselves despite this, and stayed at a lovely downtown chicago hotel. bev, because she’s a saint, drove us into the city, braving the crazy traffic, and then she decided she’d drive all the way home. nice.

so i guess this post isn’t really about florida yet…except here’s poor lester, who knew we were going to be gone and was desperate to go with us.

i love how riley looks like he’s praying here…please don’t leave us!

ok, soon, many photos and videos of florida.

g.