Happy Friday!

I went shopping for Halloween costumes for Matt and I today (talk about waiting til the last minute!) Is it just me or are the women's Halloween costumes made for midgets??? I know I'm tall, but I have shirts longer than those dresses they call costumes! It's like they took every normal costume, put the word "sexy" in front of it and cut off about a foot of fabric. There was even a "sexy hobo" costume... really? Yeah, being homeless is hot!

I managed to find something for Matt and I to wear. I really hope he likes his costume! I figure if I got him to wear what he did last year, I think he'll wear just about anything! Although he says he "hates" Halloween, I think he secretly loves it! : )

Have a great weekend everyone!

Slacking

I realized the last post I made here was over a week ago. Oops!

Let's see... what have I missed...

My fall volleyball league started back up, which I'm very happy about! We always take the summers off because everyone is so busy and we're always searching for subs. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of beach volleyball.

Matt and I refinanced and we closed last Friday morning. I'm now officially on the mortgage. Awesome. Pretty easy, lots of signing my John Hancock. I hadn't actually ever signed my new name with my middle inital. It was totally throwing me off. I think my signature looked different on every page!

Also, this past Friday, it was Halloween party day at my company. So, everyone brought in their kiddies all dressed up. They trick-or-treated around the office. I still have leftover candy, which taunts me every time I see it. "EAT ME"... "YOU KNOW YOU LOVE SNICKERS!!!" Yep, I'll probably finish the rest off myself. Awful.

On Saturday, we hung out at Kari's place to watch the Iowa game. We had lots of great snacks and we did a few Hawkeye bombs... but, Iowa couldn't pull it off in the end. Then we hung out with Andy, Michelle and Sam. Michelle made some super tasty chicken and dumplings and we played Scrabble. Fast fact: It was the first time Matt had ever played Scrabble in his life! I'm not even sure how that's possible.

Oh, the guys even tested out the 'quarter trick' with a few cans of beer. My uncle Chuck swears that if you shake up a beer can and then put a quarter on the bottom of it when you open it, it won't explode. Andy decided to not only shake the beer cans, but throw them full force onto the metal balcony. One can ended up totally flat on one side (that takes talent)! : ) I think one can exploded all over him, even with the quarter.

Sunday was 'catch up on everything' day... cleaning, laundry, organizing. Fun times, I know you're jealous. Matt grilled out turkey burgers = yum! We watched the Bears lose.

We've hired a cleaning lady... I'm very excited about this! I don't know why it's taken me so long to pull the trigger on this one. She's been cleaning a friend of Erin's house for over 8 years and has been cleaning Erin's place for a while now, so she comes highly recommended. She stopped by last night to take a look at our place. She starts Thursday!

The current discussion at our house is... what are we going to dress up as for Halloween??? I'm forcing Matt to go to the Halloween party we go to every year. It's at Witt's and it's for charity. Plus, everyone gets really into it and I love seeing what clever costumes people come up with. So, the costumes are TBD. I'm sure there will be numerous pictures taken!

Well, I think that gets me caught up!

Great day for a game

Matt and I went to the Bears game today. Unfortunately, they didn't win, but we had a fun time! The weather was beautiful... of course, we were in the shade so it was a little chilly for us.

We met up beforehand at Eleven for brunch with a friend from work, Bridget, and her boyfriend Jim. Good food and awesome Bloody Marys.

Not vegetarian! There's a hunk of salami in there!

Go Bears!

The line for the men's room = super long!

The line for the women's room = awesome! : )

Matt and me at the game

Sammy Weekend

It was another great jam-packed Sammy Fund weekend! : )

Matt and I drove down to Rochester last Thursday night to get a jump start on the weekend. We drove over to Quincy Friday morning. After a quick lunch with Chuck, June, etc., Matt went golfing and my Dad and I stopped off at his lawyer's office. We also swung by to visit my grandma.

Friday night, there was a party at a friend of Chuck's, so we met up with everyone over there. We filled bags with tees and ball markers and then had a few beers.

On Saturday morning, there was a run/walk through some beautiful streets in Quincy. The weather was gorgeous!

As is tradition, we headed over to Jed's Brewhouse for chili dogs and beer after the run. We sat outside in the beer garden... so nice!

Cheers!

Dan, Matt and Chuck

Me and Matt

Erin and me

Saturday afternoon, we had a baby shower for Erik and Caroline. They'll be welcoming a little girl, Madeline Louise, in about 6 weeks! We played a few games and watched Caroline open some super cute gifts!

Erin, Kelly and Grandma at the baby shower

I think Erik is cheating at the game!

Caroline opening her gifts

Frozen yogurt cake = yum!

After that, the guys headed off to a Texas Hold Em tournament. They all did pretty well and had a good time. We hung out at the bar at our hotel, Tony's Too, after that for the night. I may have had a few too many glasses of wine at the bar. I was just trying to catch up with the husband!

Boy, we look sober, eh?

Um, Matt get out of the picture!

That's better!

Jean and Mom

Sunday was the big golf tournament... this year's team was me, Matt, Ross and Erin. The weather was gorgeous! We finished 3 under. Luckily, we had Matt to keep us from coming in last place!

Sammy Fund tournament is about to start!

Folks, that's not really sweet tea!

Matt and Ross

Brett and me

Erin and Matt

We let Matt and Ross share a cart (so they could share their "sweet tea")

Erin and I taking our own picture!

It was a long drive back home to Chicago Sunday night... especially with Matt passed out snoring in the passenger seat!

I loaded a few add'l pics to our Shutterfly site... you can check them out here.

Worst?

So, I found out that I live about 1.5 miles away from the most dangerous neighborhood in the US, based on some study done by NeighborhoodScout.com. Well, that's just awesome.

But I have to say, those 1.5 miles make a world of difference!

On a completely different topic, today I took the red line into work because I dropped my car off up north to get the oil changed. I thought riding the bus was bad... but, wow. I am SO glad I don't have to take the EL  anymore. What a zoo!

Weekend in review

We had a nice relaxing, productive weekend at home and it was great! : )

On Friday night, we went to dinner in Greektown at the Greek Islands. Love that place! I always suggest Greek food and Matt always says "no", but Friday he caved.

I spent most of Saturday going through the closets and finding lots of stuff I don't wear, use, need anymore. I ended up with probably about 8 garbage bags full of stuff. I think I got rid of over 20 pairs of shoes. Somewhere Matt is cheering about that!

And in true Duesterhaus fashion, I fell off the step ladder I was using to get to the top shelf in the closet. I was stepping down and my ankle totally twisted and I came crashing down, while also twisting my body and hitting my back on the corner of the wall in the closet. Matt was in the living room and heard the commotion and came back as I was laid out on the floor. He's like "um, are you ok?" As far as I know, nothing is broken. But the right side of my back is really sore. My ankle is fine, though.

On Saturday night, we went out to dinner at Quartino with some friends. Good food, good wine, good company! I thought it was funny they put us in the farthest table back in the corner of the restaurant. I wondered if they thought we were going to be loud?!? Quartino has an awesome dessert drink that I'm going to have to figure out how to make at home... it's called a Sgroppino... it's made with lemon vodka, lemon gelatto and prosecco (Italian champagne). So good!

Afterwards, we headed up to the PO to watch the Iowa game and the Florida game. Erin and Ross met up with us there, too. Erin and I got into a fierce competition of Scrabble... we're tied 1-1. : )

On Sunday, I had a list a mile long of things I wanted to get done. Matt's list was "watch the Ryder Cup". Actually, he did spend some time going through his closets as well. My first stop was the Salvation Army to drop off all those bags full o' stuff. I also hit Target and Best Buy. Target is such a zoo on Sundays. I was picking up some stuff for the baby shower we're throwing my cousin, Erik, and his wife Caroline, next weekend in Quincy. The baby section in Target is full of crying babies. Go figure.

Matt got Blackhawks tix from one of our bosses at work, so we went to the game Sunday. The seats were great! We were 4 rows from the ice by one of the goals. The game was pretty exciting, because there was a lot of scoring and also because we were so close to the action. The Hawks won 4-3 over the St. Louis Blues.

The Madhouse on Madison (aka The United Center)

Watch for flying pucks! Matt says to me "I bet you get hit by a puck"!

Our seats were awesome!

Goal! Cue the song!

The Blues stopped an attempt at goal and one Blues fan in the background is going nuts! Funny!

The "Ice Team"... Matt's favorite part of the game???

Yay for Friday!

Day 5 at the new office and things are going swimmingly. I have WAY more space then I know what to do with, which is ok. Matt told me my office looks depressing because I don't have any pictures up or any decorations. He's right. I should really bring in a wedding picture or something.

My bus ride today was annoying. The 20 gets crowded in the am and people get crabby when a bus is crowded. Today, when I was trying to get out of the bus at Franklin, some guy was grabbing all his groceries from the front where he had left them and he was taking a long time. Also, people in the front of the bus weren't moving to let him grab the groceries either so it was a double whammy. Some girl behind me either didn't realize this or was just pissed and starting yelling "coming out please", "coming out", etc. I almost turned around and said to her, "he's getting there, calm down". But, as soon as I got annoyed enough with her to do it, he moved off the bus and we were able to get out. Of course, this maybe took all of 30 seconds. As I get off the bus and go to the corner, the grocery guy goes out of his way to come up to me and tell me that "he can only move if people in front of him move, blah, blah, blah" (ie, he thought I was the one yelling at him and he was giving me a piece of his mind). I told him it wasn't me yelling and he just gave me that "yeah, right" smile and walked away. Ugh. Getting told off by random strangers is a great way to start off your day.

On a brighter note, my old boss who retired is in town today and my group is meeting up with him for lunch. I'm looking forward to that!

TGIF!!!