Iowa or Bust!

A couple of weeks ago my girlfriends and I had planned to hang out this past Saturday prior to us planning our vacation in a couple weeks. When we had everything booked, I realized that if I did not go home this weekend, I wouldn’t be seeing Mom & Dad until March! I quickly thought that I better make a quick trip home (plus I needed my hair did as well!) When I mentioned to the girls that I would have to cancel our plans I threw in a quick – or you can come to Iowa with me! Low and behold – the both said OKAY to my surprise!

So... Saturday afternoon we headed down. Despite the bitter cold it was a bright sunny day perfect for the commute. Now understand that all of my friends in Illinois are well aware of my love for people AND things in Iowa. On our way to our friend Aimee’s house, we stopped in at one of my “Loves” – Whitey’s. Now I don’t care what anyone says – I have NEVER had ice cream that can even come close to how good Whitey’s is. Surprise – surprise.... the girls wholeheartedly agreed. SEE? Mind you, we are used to walking around and avoiding the tourists in Chicago. I wonder what the people in line at Whitey’s were thinking when we had to stop and pose for this picture before we left! HA!

We headed to Aimee’s house and loved every minute of snuggling up with baby McCartney. She’s SO gorgeous and such a sweetie. She smiles and talks constantly!!! Although I can certainly see both of her parents in her – she is beginning to look like her daddy more! (This pic is not from this weekend – rather a cute “thank you note” for her Bears attire Uncle Bryon and I sent her awhile back – but it is SO flippin adorable!) I wish I could just take her home with me!
Next we went to Love #2 – Happy Joes. We met up with Aimee and Darren sans McCartney, Lori and Tiffany as well. The girls got to “experience” Taco Pizza. Although they couldn’t really comprehend what was so special previously, I think they do now realize it doesn’t taste like any other Chicago pizza at all! YUM!!!

After stuffing ourselves we headed over to Rookies for drinks where Mom & Dad also met up with us. We spent the majority of the evening laughing our ass off at Tiffany and her “normal” antics. My cheeks hurt so bad and I also nearly lost my voice from talking over the music all night long.

We have been dying to go out dancing forever. (The last time we were dancing together was in July at my reception!) We headed downtown Davenport as this is the only place we could think of. We thought we’d give the Carriage Haus a try. We should have known we didn’t belong when the bouncer didn’t really even ask us for our IDs. (Well except of Lori of course.) I can’t believe that I used to know about every person in there just a couple years ago!!! I assume they are all at home with their kids nowadays. I can’t believe these kids! We were in AWE. These kids are making out all over the place – looking like animals humping each other on the dance floor. It was rather disgusting. Tiffany thought it would be a better idea to cross the street to Shennanigan’s where she swore there were people more our age. Yea – maybe two. It was the same sort of scene. We laughed for probably about 10 minutes at this chick dancing with herself in the mirror. It was hysterical. I think we are just too damn old. Of course we did bust out a tune when Pour Some Sugar on Me came on... course everyone else stopped dancing. Hmmm? The best part of the night when a “stumbly” Lori asked the cop at the door if she could - “See his flashlight”. Classic.

Regardless of the inappropriate bars we visited, we all had a great time! My mother – you HAVE to love her – left us snacks to munch on when we got home and of course made a fantastic breakfast featuring Belgium Waffles with fixings, bacon and fruit. So yummy! And of course both girls left with their own personal bottle of Stewart Cellars wine!

I’m so glad the girls joined me – we had a ball – and now I feel much closer to them now that we have all seen a Pileated Woodpecker. Who knew?

PS – Did you know that Woody Woodpecker was modeled after the Pileated Woodpecker? Damn I learn something new every day! Just thought I'd share the knowledge!

XOXO
T

Chin Up Kid - It's Really Not That Bad

So lately it seems like everything has been so blah. From the blizzards to the bitter cold... really what has there been to look forward to right? That’s how we’d been feeling anyway. And then we had a series of unexpected events where it just made us feel like everything just seems to go wrong and not according to plan. For instance, last weekend we had to shell out $1,000 for a new refrigerator for the rental house. Not for US but for someone else. That makes it worse. Then, the next day my wonderful husband breaks my “more expensive than the fridge” laptop! Hence, the lack of posts in the past few days. Now I know he didn’t MEAN to, but still it made me very upset as it is one of my most prized possessions and something I utilize every single day. *Gasp* You mean I can’t blog on my lap? I have to sit at a computer desk? Anyway, these are just a couple of the more serious things that were not going our way as of late.

Yes these things are total bummers, but in the grand scheme of things – it isn’t the end of the world and we need to step back for a second and realize our good fortune. We were humbled a bit this weekend by news of some unfortunate events in the life of one of our friends. I don’t need to go into detail, but I feel horrible for this friend and what she has had to face and endure in the past few days. We continue to pray for you and your situation.

Now – most of us (myself included) sometimes complain about things that really are of no importance in our lives whatsoever. They may make our lives a little bit more inconvenient – but oh heavens what will we do?? It is of course human nature I believe to do so, but sometimes we need to step back and check ourselves. We did a bit of that this weekend. First and most important, we are alive and healthy as are our friends and family. We also have the unconditional love of family and friends. The people in our lives are the most important thing to us. We continue to be employed in this very shaky economy. Should we not be any longer, we have quite a bit of time that we will be just fine before we would even have to change our lifestyle. Next, we have said lifestyle. Not that we have everything one would ever desire, but we have one would ever need. And then some.... a lot more actually. We could make do with a lot less than what we have. We are, afterall, typical Americans and that’s how we live. I hope this economic downturn has at least made us consider how very lucky we are.

On the other hand, beginning with yesterday’s Inauguration and promise of change, I hope the economy will be on its way to recovery along with the State of our Union as a whole. I hope we will have reason to stand proud once again. (In Illinois too!!)

Okay... now I typically don’t write such deep blogs! What the!? On a much more positive note – I DO have something to be tremendously thankful for!!! In two and a half weeks, we are heading out to Breckenridge for our annual ski trip and staying at our kick-ass timeshare. I cannot WAIT to sit in our private hot tub having a drink while it’s snowing. Now typically I would say I could do without the snow, but I’ll take it because after 5 days in CO, we are heading to Cabo San Lucas for the next 5 days! Again, through our vacation ownership club we are staying at a ridiculously beautiful resort!! AND it will be warm! I swear I haven’t yet gotten warm this YEAR. I can’t wait to be hot! And more than anything – I finally get to go whale watching after years of missing the season with every adventure we have taken!

I’m seriously glad there is a happy ending.

XO
T

Ugh.

This weekend was pretty uneventful due to a couple of reasons: we had a hello of a week at work this week and were not really "in the mood" and also the incremental weather that I am absolutely OVER. This past week I returned to work although it seems like it was a month ago.

We found out on Tuesday that our boss was pursuing other opportunities. Unfortunately, he didn't know he was doing so. Our entire office is very angry and upset, especially the two of us. I'm not sure what how announcement is actually going to affect us, but it will big time. Friday night we both worked until about 7 pm and were completely mentally exhausted, so we drove to our favorite $2 movie theater to see Role Models. Oh my god - it was hysterical!!! We laughed our asses off! It was just what we needed!

Saturday, Bryon got up and headed into work (year-end) and I headed to the gym. Thank god he had made a couple of passes with the Excursion down the driveway so I could get out. We got 12 inches of snow! After working my butt off at the gym and running a couple of errands I came home only to get my car stuck in the driveway. We had just determined our snowblower was broken - so I broke out the shovel. After I shoveled out the end of the driveway THREE times thanks to the snowplow, (Yes mister, if I am standing at the end of the driveway with my shovel and you KNOW I just cleaned up your last mess - do you think you could pick up your blade!?!?! @$$) I continued to work on the rest of the driveway. By the time Bryon finally got home from work to takeover, I had already shoveled 175 feet. Yea. OW. So basically I worked out for about 4 hours on Saturday... 2 1/2 of them I hadn't planned on!

This is my car...and about 1/3 of our driveway.

Finally after this, we headed to our friend Chris and Julie's daughter, Maria's, birthday skating party. It was really cool that they rented out the entire rink and had lots of food and fantastic cake from Costco. I think the last time I had been in a rink I was about 12!! We did indeed strap on skates - although I don't have a picture to prove it unfortunately.

Bryon and the birthday girl!

The Birthday Girl took a picture of us too!

Today, I cleaned out a good majority of our basement. I guess I was on a roll, as I cleaned the entire upstairs as well. We took time out for lunch at Mr. Allison's - our favorite breakfast place, but by the time we got there it was way too late for lunch!! The most important feat of the day - we have a working snowblower in our garage just in time for the next foot of snow that is well on its way already. I hope something happens very soon to improve our excitement about going back to work tomorrow and the upcoming snow... as of right now... so not looking forward to the week!



I need a pep-up!
T

No I've Never Felt This Way Before....

Yes I swear...it's the truuuuuth.... and I owe it all to my husband! For buying me and my "date" Tiffany Dirty Dancing tickets. I know right - so very cheesy, but so was the movie. And I loved every minute of it in 1987 and I still do when it happens to be on TBS. Deal with it.

The show was amazing, taken into consideration the above thoughts. It followed the movie very closely and although Broadway critics would therefore criticize this, fans would absolutely love it!!! The set was incredible! I can't believe all of the props they had for the various scenes. Imagine... a show on stage and they can DO the practice lifts in the water. You'll have to see it to know what I mean!!

"Johnny" did dance and appear just like my other husband Patrick Swayze, however, his accent just didn't work. He was constantly trying to supress his English accent and ended up sounding Irish. Now I LOVE ME SOME Irish... but not Johnny Castle O'Connor. WTF? Because of the strange voice, some of lines seemed to have the incorrect emphasis on words. It just seemed weird. Oh well... he was great to look at. "Baby" was great... funny, dorky and just perfect as in the movie. The sister "Lisa" was hysterical in the show - better than the movie. I laughed out loud more than once.

The surprise of the show was not the reenactment of the movie or the phenomenal dancing - "Penny" was smoking hot and had the legs of a gazelle - it was the singing and on stage musicans. In Act 2, Cousin Billy and some random ensemble player belted out "You Don't Own Me" then he sang an incredible rendition of "In the Still of the Night" AND then they blew "I've Had the Time of My Life" out of the water. I couldn't decide what was more worth watching - the dancing or the signing! I would have liked to see more of the singing! All it all - we had a FANTASTIC time. What kind of dork actually starts to tear up when they start singing - "Now I've had the time of my life....."? Yea. Me. LOSER! :) Thanks Tif for driving to join me... Bryon is I'm sure so NOT sad he missed it.

Oh yes... and we also went to dinner at Rosebud beforehand. Tif had the Baked Ziti and I had the Chicken Vesuvio! SO YUM!

I don't think my meal could have been bigger??!?

Today I took down Christmas decorations and got one helluva massage. Now...it's time to go to bed as I must get up for work tomorrow. RATS. Not looking forward to that.

Lotso love,

BNT

Happy 2009!

In early December, we typically stress about a plan for New Year's Eve celebrations. This year we decided instead of trying to trek into the city and trying to come up with a plan on how or how not to get home, we decided it would be a great idea to have a very safe and fun NYE by hosting at our lakehouse in Lake Geneva. My parents, along with my best girl Tif, drove in from Iowa. Our friends, Gina and Dave, came up from Hawthorn Woods. Bryon's parents, cousin Jimmy, friends John, Sherri and Dieter all joined us as well. We enjoyed a lovely dinner at Cafe Calamari right on the lake in Williams Bay early in the evening. It was very tasty, but some of the portions were a bit small (which typically seems to happen - the more you pay - the less you get!) Several of us, however, had pasta dishes which were very large. I shared mine with the less fortunate. :) We also stopped at Chuck's for a drink on the way home. Once back at the Crowley Casa we enjoyed a number of spirits and snacks while playing games and watching the ball drop. Once the noisemakers were passed out, I was astonished to find out how amused adult men are by these. (Watch videos below...) We had a load of fun welcoming in the new year with our pals. We stayed up WAY beyond our bedtime, but it was worth it! Mom helped me with breakfast for our guests, breakfast snackies, biscuits and gravy and fruit. I think they had a belly full upon departure. I was sad to see everyone go. I didn't want our event to end. Cousin Jimmy hung around to watch the Blackhawks game at Wrigley with Bry, while I cleaned up the mess. Now, we finally get to do our favorite lakehouse activity... snuggling up on the oh-so-comfy couch!!! YIPEE!!!

Dinner at Cafe Calamari

Mom & Dad - adorable as ever
Tif, Me & Gina

Gina & Dave

Gina didn't like the sound of Bryon's horn!

Watch Bry go! This is hysterical. We were crying laughing so hard. These guys were blowing their horns until 12:30!

HAPPY 2009!!!

May the best days of 2008, be the worst days of 2009! Cheers!

XOXO

BNT