Friday

Fridays are great... especially when it's a few minutes to 5pm, when the weekend is just about to start.

Nothing too crazy going on this week...

* Matt's aunt and uncle from Texas were visiting his cousin Leigh Ann, who lives out in Downer's Grove. We got to hang out with them on Sunday night at the bar where Leigh Ann's boyfriend, Billy, works. The place is called Duke's and is near Clark and Wrightwood. They have a bunch of different burger options and then you pick the meat you want (like beef, turkey, veggie, portabella mushroom, and even buffalo). Very yummy!

* Then, we saw them again Wed night for dinner and we went to Carmine's. Matt and I gave them the low-down on that area (aka the Viagra Triangle). Even though it was a Wednesday night, the area was jumpin'. And dinner was excellent! I was so full!

* I had another weird wedding related dream the other night. I dreamt that it was 4:19 and we were supposed to be getting married at 4:30, but no one was ready and we were still at my parents house in Rochester (which by the way is nowhere near the Bahamas or a beach!) To top it off, my dress hadn't been altered to fit me yet and it had these ugly red ribbons laced through the top. And, even more random, my dad was watering the tomatoes in the backyard. We finally went to where I was getting married and it was the grass field behind my old high school. Strange.

* I finished reading the third book of the Twilight series. Definitely my least favorite, but still good nonetheless. Now, onto the last book. I can't wait to see how it all turns out. : )

Have a good weekend everyone!

Happy Birthday Gramma!

On Saturday morning, Matt and I jumped in the car bright and early to head down to Quincy, IL to celebrate my g-ma's 84th birthday. It was kind of a rough ride for Matt... he was still recovering from the Cubs game. : (

We had a nice BBQ at my aunt Pat's house. My aunt, uncle and cousin from Texas drove up for the occasion, so we had quite a crowd!

The yummy cake


Gramma getting ready to blow out the candles


My aunt Jean, Gramma and my mom


Gramma with (most) of her grandkids

Go Cubs Go

Last Friday, our company held the annual RLOB Cubs outing (RLOB = Retirement Line of Business). As is tradition, a group of the guys at work all get together in the morning before the game to do a little golfing and drinking. It's now been dubbed "Manly Day". Matt was out the door at 6:20am to make the early tee time.

The weather was perfect for a Cubs game and they won, so all the better. Matt and the Manly Day participants showed up about the 3rd or 4th inning. From what everyone told me, Matt golfed amazing.

Me and Matt


Matt with some of his interns


After the game, we went to Redmond's Bar. A girl we work with had arranged a special $20 deal with the bar for unlimited drinks for 3 hours. People were definitely taking advantage of the deal! It gets a little crazy when you let the actuaries out of their cubicles! : )

Anna's neighbor, Anna, Matt and me - Anna's neighbor bought us a round of shots... which was the beginning of the end for Matt!


Cheers... actuaries doing jaeger-bombs


Dan and Bryan


Slam dancing, anyone?


Georgia and me


We didn't make it for the the full three hours of the deal... Matt may have been a bit overserved and it was a good idea to get home. We had to get up super early on Saturday to head back to Quincy, IL.

Eyes

For some reason, this past week or so my eyes have been giving me grief. Mainly, my left eye. I thought for sure that the prescription must have gotten worse, because I kept getting these horrible headaches behind my left eye.

The last time I went to the eye doctor was over a year ago. I made an appt and went this morning to get it checked out. The eye doc told me that either my left eye has improved significantly (which she said is unlikely) OR the prescription in my left eye was too strong last time (probably the case). I'm not sure why it just started bothering me so much now, but could be because I'm spending more time staring at a computer screen these days... and I've been reading a lot more than usual (thanks recently to the Twilight series).

Anyway, I'm trying out the new prescription today to see if it helps with the headaches. So far, so good. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Sunday

Matt's Dad and step-mom Marcia were in town, so we met up with them for brunch. We went to Grand Lux... that menu needs a table of contents!

After brunch, we decided to take the architectural boat cruise down the river. Neither Matt nor I had ever been on that cruise. Lots of info about all the buildings and some things we did not know. Like... q: what does WGN stand for? a: World's Greatest Newspaper. And that the Tribune tower has all sorts of pieces of other famous buildings embedded in the base of it. We saw the new glass bottom rooms at the top of the Sears (aka Willis) Tower that you can pay extra to go into (they jut out from the building). Our tour guide kept calling the Sears Tower "Big Willy".

Sears Tower aka Willis Tower aka Big Willy

Trump Tower


Me, Matt, his Dad and Marcia on the boat


Base of the Tribune Tower


Then, we dropped his parents off at the hotel and we came back and took a snooze. They came over later to our place for pizza and brought with them a bunch of stuff from Matt's childhood/high school days. We went through his old school pictures. Matt also had a box from his mom that she gave him when we were in MI with school work from kindergarten. Too cute!

A pic from the archives : )

Rascal Flatts

After Hany's bridal shower, Erin and I drove back to Chi-town... we had tickets to the Rascal Flatts concert at Wrigley Field. The weather turned out to be awesome, perfect temps and no rain! Darius Rucker opened first a little before 7pm (LOVE HIM!), then Vince Gill and finally Rascal Flatts. Rascal Flatts did one encore and brought Darius Rucker back out to sing Life is a Highway with them and the crowd went nuts! The concert was great! I had a ton of fun!

And of course, I took lots of pics!

Rascal Flatts trucks lined Sheffield


Darius Rucker opened


Erin and Ross (PMT = pre-Mai Tais!)


Brett, Matt and I


Erin with her GI-NORMOUS pretzel... with awesome cinnamon dipping sauce!


Shout-out to my mom and JCPenneys!


Me and Matt in what I like to call the "engagement picture pose"


Erin and me


Rascal Flatts put on a cool show


All good things come to an end!


Going nowhere fast


We hit up Wrigleyville North (one of Ross' favorite hang-outs) for some more live country music after the concert. Matt and I stayed for a couple of drinks and then headed home. I was wiped out!

Showered

On Saturday, Erin picked me up early and we drove to Peoria for Hany's bridal shower. Some friends of Grant's mom were hosting a shower for Hany. It was a very nice luncheon and Hany got a lot of great gifts.

Hany opening her gifts wearing a Madonna-esque headband and veil


Her "thank-you speech"... she's such a goof!


Hany and her "girls", as she likes to call us bridesmaids


Future family: Sis-in-law Heather and Grant's mom Diane


She was impressed that everyone picked the same "umbrella" theme for her shower, until Erin pointed out that it was a "shower" and "umbrellas" kind of go with that. Funny! : )

Erin helped videotape a good portion of the party, so that Hany could send a copy to her mom back in Malaysia. Grant's mom and Hany thought it would be nice to share some of the things Hany's doing in prep for the wedding, since her mom can't be here in person until the wedding.

A little over a month to go for her until the big day!

Quit calling me

There are many reasons that David's Bridal sucks. Today, that reason is that they sold my info out to LOTS of companies and now I get calls like crazy. I didn't know this at the time, but when you are filling out their information form before you try on dresses, there is a line at the bottom (in very small print) where you can opt out of them selling your phone number to other vendors. I never saw such line, but wish I would have! These vendors are relentless, too. There is a website called whocallsme.com and every time I put in an unknown number that called me, it comes up as being associated with David's Bridal. ANNOYING!

On a completely different topic... last night, I was reading Twilight before going to bed and I totally got sucked in. Next thing I knew, I had finished the book and it was 1:30am. Ridiculous! I'm looking forward to the next three books. I'm like an addicted teenager. : )

Trip to Michigan

Matt's family held their annual reunion this past weekend. We stayed in Benton Harbor, Michigan, at this place called The Darn Barn. It's basically a huge barn/house that has been remodeled with 7 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, two kitchens, a game room, etc.



Some highlights of the trip:

The sunsets
Every night, we walked over to the lake and watched the sunset. Gorgeous! Yes, that is a picture of the sun setting in my beer. Not really sure why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. While we were watching the sunset one night, Matt's cousin Kyle's little girl (Addison) went over and gave the dog a big hug... she's a cutie-pie!

The beach
There were hardly any people on the beach in the area, so it was very nice! Matt and I took a few walks up and down the beach. The sand was actually "squeaky" in some places, which I thought was strange. The kids loved playing in the sand and built castles and were full of sand by the time we got back to the house each day! So was Max the dog! I enjoyed getting some rays (too many!) and making progress on my book (Twilight!)

The campfire
Each night, Matt's uncle John built a fire in the fire pit and we sat around and had a few beers and told stories, jokes, played games, roasted marshmallows (or as Delaney would say "smarshmellows") and made s'mores.

The cow
I'm not really sure why the kids were so infatuated with this plastic cow, but it kept them busy for hours! Seriously! It had no ears and no tail and looked like it had seen better days, but that didn't matter to them. They rode on the cow, dragged the cow back and forth from the dog pen, sat the cow around the campfire with all of us. They asked Delaney what kind of cow it was and she said matter-of-factly, "an ice cream cow". Nice. :)

The food
I don't have any pictures of this, but they split up meals and everyone was responsible for part of a meal. We were in charge of ice cream sundaes on Sunday night... and they were delish! But, we had everything from hot dogs and hamburgers to chili to grilled chicken with avocado and cheese... plus, all the salads, cakes, cookies, fruit... it was all so good! YUM! Lots of good cooks in this family! No one went hungry, that's for sure!

Some not-so-high-lights of the trip:

The stairs
Ok, I mentioned that we could walk to the beach, but I didn't mention the path we had to take to get there and back. There was some debate over exactly how many stairs there were, but I think Matt counted around 220 and his GPS told us it was a drop of 160 feet from the top of the stairs to the bottom. Getting down wasn't that bad, but the hike back up was not fun. Especially carrying all the beach gear we had.

From the top looking down... you can barely see the bottom from the top!


Half way up... the sun beating down on us didn't help matters

Awful sunburn
I got an awful sunburn on Saturday at the beach. I thought I would put on some sunscreen once I got a little sun, then I would be fine. But, that plan failed when I didn't realize I was getting sun and put on the sunscreen about an hour too late. Ugh. No pictures, it's not a pretty sight!

Coming home
Having to leave this morning and come back to work. Boo!

The weekend was a lot of fun... there was quite a crowd, almost everyone was able to make it for at least part of the weekend. We're looking forward to seeing them all again soon... in about a month for David and Heather's wedding... then in the Bahamas for our wedding and on New Year's Eve for our Chicago reception! : )