Lets Get Nautical

This weekend was a fabulous weekend all about a beautiful upcoming bride, who I spoke of here. It was great to see college friends, especially some of my sorority sisters. One of which, the lovely Jessica from Penned & Pretty made for quite the Skipper aka host. She planned a wonderful evening based on everything nautical. Case in point, check out the awesome invite she did - I had to put it next to one of our college shirts because...well it was just nautical and very fitting.

We started at the hotel, for a "private shower" if you will. There were presents, nautical colored drinks and fish snacks of course, and by fish I mean cheesy delish goldfish. From the hotel we cabbed over to Bubba Gump Shrimp for some yummy sea food delight.

While we waited for a table to be ready, we made a long hike to the end of Navy Pier to see one of Chicago's largest anchors. Since I was in the photo I don't actually have anything to show here, but I promise I will insert something soon.

Once we made the cold hike back to the restaurant we started the night with some drinks. We were only missing some Gamma for this Delta.

Isn't the bride to be beautiful and totally nautical?

Ok ok so I might have a slight obsession with work...but really how cool is it that Navy Pier is completely decked out with Blackhawks banners?


Post dinner is where I start to lose focus and apparently stopped taking good photos, well photos at all. We went to a teeny tiny karaoke bar where we waited forever to do a group song of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" to celebrate the new bride to be. From there, we went dancing. (PS Laura may kill me for this photo)

After the bride had clearly had "too much fun" a few of us helped to take her back home. However, we made it like the college days and had to have the cab make one quick stop before we called it a night. Yum the Golden Arches, I think this may be my favorite photo. Come on, what is more classic than the captain with their skipper in line at McDonalds around 1am?

Weekend Itinerary

This weekend is such a busy weekend for the hubs, Minne dog and myself. For the sake of your time, I'll keep it short and simple - that's the only way my hubs can comprehend schedules

Friday night - family night in Elwood/ Cheering on the Boilers at Team Indiana is half way to the Elite 8, Boiler Up! Minne girl is sure to enjoy playtime with cousin buddy:



Saturday morning - meet new baby! One of the hubs best men recently had a baby and I am dying to take lots of photos of the little guy! Photos coming next week.

Saturday mid morning/early noon - visit with my Indy family! The photo below was taken at our wedding, unfortunately one of the boys and the dad is MIA.



Saturday afternoon - celebrate one of my friends/DG sisters bridal shower. I am especially excited to meet up with friends Jessica and Laura. Cheers to the bride, she'll make a lovely bride won't she?

Photo taken from FB

Post Bridal Shower, watch Butler in it's first appearance at an Elite 8, woot woot - Bu-tl-e - R U A bulldawg?


Saturday evening - dinner with Indy friends, we're hoping to see as many Indy peeps as we can, here's to hoping! Lots of photos to come!

Sunday - head back home to prep for the next week. Sometimes being an adult stinks but at least we were able to make a trip back to Indy to see some family and friends.

Sorry had to end it with one more photo of my nephew Buddy, this one is from his first physical!

500 days of High School - You Must Have a Past Before A Future

500 Days of Summer Movie Poster

There are a lot of negative things I can say about high school. Mean girls, MEAN BOYS, bad rumors, first relationships, consequences and the list goes on. I am reminded more and more how much I despised high school as my teenage sister tells me stories. Which is why I wish I could fast forward her life and place her right in college, which to date still remain some of the best days of my life.

Unfortunately, I can’t. So before I talk about some of my favorite college memories I figured I should go back just a few years earlier and quickly thank high school - lil sis you can thank me later. Here goes:

Thank you for teaching me time management and discipline (the rest of that thank you goes to my parents), some days it seemed like college was way easy. I think being an active club member and athlete also played a huge role in this.

Thank you for teaching me boundaries and allowing me to be disciplined accurately even though I probably cursed you out for months, ie, underage drinking at high school dances will get you suspended during finals, it will cause multiple groundings and lack of a HS “social life.” Looking back I can see the error in my ways, but I think I managed to stay out of big trouble in college just because I did learn boundaries and restrictions in high school. Don’t get me wrong “Crazy Candice” still came to town at BU but she knew when enough was enough (you can read more about her later).

Thank you for teaching me how mean girls and BOYS can be. Honestly, I probably hated you the most for this very reason. It started in junior high but escalated after the first few months of my first semester in high school. Looking back it was stupid I spent so much time being upset about something so little, but the pressure of peers in high school can be just nasty. Thankfully, after having some really bad relationships, I was able to find some really great ones. Some of which I am blessed to remain in contact with today. While other relationships may have fallen through the cracks, I am still thankful for all they have taught me. Without them I wouldn’t value the friends I have today which most (not all) of whom I met during my time away at college.

Here’s what I am going to say about first relationships, they are awesome till they are over. When they are over you hope for them to be ok but sometimes they get worse. But every relationship after that gets better. You may not realize it till you look back but you start to demand more in a relationship of your partner and yourself. I don’t know exactly how “500 Days of Summer” ended but I suspect that if there ever is a sequel the main character will marry Autumn and will live a life time of happiness because he’d learned so much from his parents lack of a relationship and Summer. Or maybe it won’t work out with Autumn because he really just needed to meet Winter. You get the gist. I think without past relationships neither my husband nor I would be in the relationship that we are in with the friends and family that we surround ourselves with today. For that, high school I thank you for giving me the best most worse years of my life.