FROM KEVIN Hey Naperthrillers! Hope everyone is having a great summer. My family went to the Plant Parenthood event in Lockport last weekend and had a blast! Really great vendors and it was my first time in Lockport. Neat little town with some good breweries and a really nice little riverwalk. Highly recommend! |
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HEADS UP West Nile Virus turned up in 3 city mosquito traps this month, including 2 weeks running near Sportsman's Park off West Street and on Genesee Drive, so dump any standing water sitting in your yard this week. The city has already sprayed those areas, but the standard advice holds: DEET after dusk, long sleeves if you're outside with kids at evening sports, and check your window screens. |
Naperville's National Night Out runs Monday, August 3 and Tuesday, August 4: the YMCA at 2120 95th St. kicks things off Monday at 6:30 p.m. with bounce houses, a magic act, food trucks, and a free movie at sunset (bring chairs and blankets), and then Tuesday the block-party version spreads across 36 neighborhoods from 5 to 8 p.m. with ice cream, cookouts, and city trucks to climb on. Check www.naperville.il.us/nno to see if your neighborhood is on the list and what Little Friends needs for the donation drive. |
The Naperville Public Library is running a virtual tour of the Maine North High School filming location on Thursday, August 6 at 6 p.m. at the 95th Street branch, 3015 Cedar Glade Dr. It is free, and seats go through napervillepl.librarycalendar.com. |
| THE READ John Summit grew up here as John Schuster, graduated from Neuqua Valley in 2012, and carried an accounting degree from the University of Illinois into a CPA job at Ernst & Young. He ran both lives for a while, spreadsheets on weekdays and club sets on weekends, and then in 2019 he quit the firm to go all in on music. "Deep End" landed the next summer on Defected and became the longest-running number one on Beatport that year, and he has not really come back down since, through Coachella, Tomorrowland, and a label of his own. His mother, Tamara Schuster, still lives in Naperville. He turned 32 on Wednesday and headlined Grant Park the next night. |
| THE ROUNDUP Someone on the BNSF got tired of opening the Metra app and built a better one: chicagolandrail.com shows your next 2 trains, live delays, and the actual fare for your trip, flips direction automatically in the evenings, and installs to your home screen like a native app. Free, no ads, no account, works offline, and it runs on all 11 lines, so UP-W and SWS riders get the same thing. |
 Twenty-four hand-painted dogs (plus one extremely smug cat) are scattered across downtown right now, free to find along the Riverwalk, Main, Water, and Jefferson through Labor Day weekend. Voting for your favorite is open through August 29, and the Instagram account has a tour map if you comment a dog emoji, which is either very charming or very 2019 depending on your mood. |
| THE EAT  Cantigny's McCormick House is running a Thursday-through-Saturday cocktail-and-small-plates evening called Girl Dinner, 4 to 8 p.m., with drinks and food ordered from Freedom Hall. Registration is free and walk-ins are welcome. Most of us only ever see that house from the outside on the way to the gardens, and this puts you inside it with a drink. |
| THE WEEKEND The Forecast Friday's a washout. Showers are likely most of the day, starting early and sticking around through evening, so keep rain gear handy before you leave. It'll hover around 70 to low 80s, so layers you can ditch won't help much; just accept you might be damp. Saturday is worse. Thunderstorms are likely throughout the day with a 95% chance of rain, so plan indoor activities and assume anything outside gets postponed. It stays cool and gray, mid-60s to low 70s, which is almost insulting given the weather. Sunday clears out. Morning's in the upper 60s but sun takes over by midday and pushes it to mid-70s by afternoon, so start in a light layer and leave it in the car. This is your weekend day to actually do something outside. |
This is the Touch-A-Truck that got pushed off July 18 when the Canadian wildfire smoke shoved the air quality into the hazardous range. It runs Saturday, August 1, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., included with regular admission or membership, so there is no separate ticket. Front loaders, hydro excavators, sleeper trucks, and a mini muddy car wash are on the lineup. It goes rain or shine, but the outdoor pieces cancel for thunder or lightning, and Saturday's forecast has both, so this one may come down to the morning radar. |
Rotary Hill kicks off its outdoor movie season Friday, July 31, and the opener is Homeward Bound, which means someone in your crew will cry and pretend they didn't. Movie Bingo starts at 7:30 p.m. and the film rolls at 8:30 p.m., but the forecast is working against all of it, so check the Park District's page before you load the car. |
 The Comics, Cards & Vinyl Market is back at Noon Whistle Naperville on Saturday, August 1 from noon to 5 p.m., and it is the rare Saturday plan this forecast cannot touch. Free to get in, all indoors, beer available, and about 27 vendors including Gigawatt Coffee and a solid chunk of artists from around here, so your wallet is genuinely at risk. |
 THRIVEFest takes over Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium on North Central's campus Saturday, August 1, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with 50-plus vendors from around here, drop-in fitness sessions at all levels, a salt therapy lounge, and a kids' zone called TinyThrivers. Tickets are at thrivefest2026.eventbrite.com and the complimentary treatments come with admission. It's an open stadium and Saturday's forecast is thunderstorms, so watch their page before you drive over. |
 The 50th National Beep Baseball World Series lands at Stuart Sports Complex in Aurora August 2 to 8, with teams from across the country playing more than 100 games. Beep baseball is the game adapted for athletes who are blind or visually impaired, and this is its national championship. Volunteers are still needed, and the sign-up runs through the Discover DuPage Instagram bio. |
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YOUR TURN Running an event, or know something happening around town? The best stuff out here spreads by word of mouth. Be the word, we read every submission. |
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