And....

I'm back. I've been hibernating and processing and generally just ignoring the world for the last week. But I'm over that now. Back to real life!

I had a pretty busy Thanksgiving weekend and thought I'd share. First, Thanksgiving at my sister's. Mmmm...
My dad falls asleep every year either before dinner or after. And I usually take a picture. This year, it was after dinner.On Friday, my new nephew was born! William Matthew, 8lbs, 11oz. Cute as a button. :)
A rare photo of me on the blog. Little Will had to be in the NICU for a bit, but he's all better now and at home with mommy, daddy, and his two big brothers.On Saturday I put up the Christmas tree. Marbles found it FASCINATING and just the best thing EVER to rub up on.
The tree is lasting pretty well, even with curious cats. I tied it to the table it's sitting on and didn't put any breakable ornaments on, which will help.

Also on Saturday, Sadie and I went with our neighbor and her dog to get a bath.
It didn't go over that well. Water is evil, apparently.
Percy was a good dog. :)
Sunday was brunch with friends and some guitar hero. And then laying on the couch and watching TV. No pictures of that. Sorry! :)

Weekends (both last weekend and the one before!)

What a lazy blogger I've been! Here's a quick update of what I've been up to in the last two weeks.

Renaissance Faire!

Two weekends ago a group of us headed up to the Bristol Renaissance Faire. I'd never been (and frankly didn't have a HUGE interest in going) but everytime I told someone I was going, it was the same response "ooo! The Renaissance Faire! Fun!" so I knew I'd have a good time.

Talk about good people-watching! Wow. I'd say almost 50% of the visitors there were dressed up in some kind of costume. There were tons of shops and food stalls and things to do. We ate the best mushrooms in the world (butter and garlic heaven), pet zebras and goats, shot crossbows, threw knives, watched a joust, and just wandered around. Really fun.




St. Joe, Michigan!

Last Sunday I jumped in the new car (yay!) and went up to St. Joe, Michigan to visit my sister and her family. My brother-in-law's family has a lake house up in St. Joe where they go just about every weekend in the summer and this last weekend I was invited. It was BEAUTIFUL weather so we headed to the beach and then to the pool for some last-days-of-summer fun. Only a little sunburn on my part (I haven't been out in the sun AT ALL this summer. oof) Fun day--although it made me realize, I live about 20 minutes from a beach and never go. Kind of silly. Maybe next summer, I guess...

Kane County Cougar Game

Kane County Cougar Game 002
Originally uploaded by hak123

On Saturday, Bob and I headed out to Geneva, IL to go to my nephew Jack's birthday party at the Kane County Cougar's Stadium. They were playing the Western Michigan Whitecaps (which...whitecaps? In Michigan?) and won the game 5-2.

It was a fun time--Jack got a t-shirt and a bunch of goodies to hand out to his friends and they even brought him a cake! And at the end of the third inning, the whole stadium sang happy birthday for all of the birthday people in the crowd...and there were a LOT.

Jack also won a pitching challenge for his age group! He's a very good baseball player so this was not much of a surprise for our family--the kid was able to hit pitched balls at the age of 4!

I hope he had a fun birthday--we sure had a good time!

Thanksgiving

Weekend 10.6.07

Finally, the weekend! It was a long week due to lack of sleep last weekend and a full work week. Friday finally arrived and I headed out to Lemmings for our weekly gathering. What also seems to be weekly is my obnoxiousness with my camera. My friends are so patient. For that, I won't post the majority of the pictures that I've taken over the last few weeks. :) I'll even delete the ones that aren't so flattering!

I think this is the only reason why they let me get my camera out at all.

I got home around 12:00, walked the dog, and crawled into bed. and then realized that I forgot to close out my tab. Oh boy. Now, I KNOW that I could have left it for the next day, but I love this bar and really don't want to cause them any problems. And it's got to be annoying to have an open tab at the end of the night. So I put my contacts back in, dragged my bike down the stairs and rode off to the bar to close out my tab. Luckily no one was really on the roads at that time. I scared one person getting out of a cab when I sped past them, but other than that, it was an easy ride. And I closed my tab out after just a bit of teasing from Rusty (the bartender). Then I rode home and collapsed back into bed, sweaty (it was, like 75 degrees out!) and tired. And only a little drunk.

On Saturday, I took a quick trip on the Metra out to Downers Grove to have tea with the "ladies" of our family. Or at least a portion of them. It was at a cute little shop called Pinecone Cottage Tea House just steps from the train station. We headed in and once we were seated, Gramma had a little surprise for us--fancy hats and white gloves! We all donned our festive attire and giggled, took pictures, and ate fabulous food for the next two hours.Sunday was SUPPOSED to be a trip to buy a sleeping bag for an upcoming camping trip and then out to see Harry Potter #5, but both things fell through. Alas. The movie will be tonight (I hope) and the shopping will be next weekend. Packed between an art show (go Bob!) and Sunday dinner at Terri's.

I'm sure the camera will be out in full force.

Zoo Fun

This weekend was my annual trip to Lincoln Park Zoo with my nephew and my mom. This year, Sister & Brother-in-Law came along as well since my baby nephew, Ben, was going as well. Quite a group!

I go back and forth on whether or not the zoo is a horrible place where the animals are taken out of their natural habitat, la la la, but once a year I enjoy the fun that is seeing my nephew (now nephews!) enjoy the zoo.

For the first time in the three years we've been going (Jack's only 4 1/2!), we saw almost the whole zoo. He usually gets tired are just a few exhibits, but this year we went through just about the whole thing and even made it to the farm. Monkeys, zebras, penguins, polar bears, giraffes. Good stuff. It's kind of strange to think that these animals all live in the middle of the city next to a big lake, but they seem to be...ok.

There were two animals that were a little worrisome. One was a zebra that has seizures (we didn't see any seizures but it was laying down on it's side which was a little odd) and a gibbon monkey that lost one of it's arm because a visitor to the zoo threw something and he tried to grab it. That was sad but he was swinging around and seemed to adapt pretty well to only having one arm!

The monkeys and apes were pretty fun. I never really liked monkeys before, but this year they were neat! They were all playing and jumping around and having a good time so it made them a little more interesting than the lions that just lay in the sun all day.

It was a fun day! It makes you realize that you need to play tourist in your own town more often.

(I need to update these photos. I had a chance to edit them but I haven't posted them here yet. Check my flickr site if you wanna see more and better pics. :)

Happy Father's Day!

Another weekend, another weekend out in the burbs. I love my family, but I don't have a car! Luckily my mom's nice enough to pick me up a lot, but it's still hard to travel to the burbs all the time. And I'm going out again this weekend.

A pretty quiet weekend overall. I watched a couple of movies, Nacho Libre (Seriously? Who greenlit this?) and You, Me, and Dupree. I also cleaned out my tivo--woohoo!

Sadie and I took a few walks this weekend and it was so hot out that she had to take a few breaks to rest in the shade. The poor thing, she just can't handle 90 degree heat with her dark fur! We'd go about a block and a half and she'd find some grass and just plop down and not move. I had to bribe her with promises of treats to get her home, and once we got home, she would lay down and not move for a few hours. By the end of the day on Saturday she was hiding under my bed trying to keep cool (I had the air on!) and had no interest in doing anything outside.



On Sunday I went out the burbs for a Father's Day BBQ at my sister's house (aka cicada central). Sadie went with me this time and really enjoyed chasing and eating the bugs. So gross. Dinner was nice as well--it good to spend time with my dad and my sister outside of the big family events that go on.

The Return of the Camera

I loaned my camera to my sister about two weeks ago and didn't know how much I'd miss it. I got it back on Sunday and it's been like the reunion of two long-lost pals. I'm so happy.

And I have some pictures from when my brother, his girlfriend, and my niece visited recently. They live in Florida and it's been almost two years since I've seen them (I met Bria for the first time that weekend!) so it was a fun weekend. Seriously, how cute are these two?

They're jumping on a trampoline my nephews got from Santa and are having just the BEST time. Ben is my sister's son and they're both about 2 years old (Bria's a month older). Ben's a little peanut. :)

Shawn (brother) and Jack (nephew) also had a lot of fun together. I need to be an equal-opportunity aunt here, so here's the obligatory photo.

Oh, and the dogs had fun too. :) Although Sadie tormented Cody a bit.

I'm so glad the camera is back. Wee!

Easter

So I just had a serious scary moment. I'm in the burbs with my family for Easter (happy hoppy) and got a call from my roommate who is dog sitting. Miss Puppy got away. They are both out with his family in a northern suburb and she escaped from the yard spike she was attached to. After pacing around my mom's house for 20 minutes, I decided to go up there to help with the search. As soon as I text that I'm heading up, I hear she's been found. Which brought on more tears, of course.

She's fine. She was picked up by the cops. They can't figure out how she got away since the hook that was attached to the spike was still looped and she hadn't chewed on anything. But frankly, I don't care. All I know is that she's fine.

Oh my. I'm exhausted. Too many emotions in just a short amount of time.

I think this is an ice cream moment.