Halloween How I Loath you

Yup, that's right, I may be one of millions of people in the country who don't like Halloween, but it's the truth.(in fact, of the 372 blog entries I had in my reader account, 365 of them were all about loving the wretched holiday, even the wedding blogs were about Halloween).

I don't like the holiday one bit. I don't like haunted houses, I don't like scary movies, I don't like most candy, I don't like scary things yet alone people dressed up as other scary people. In fact, sometimes scary things and movies make me physically ill and they turn me into a mental head case. Seriously, I get scared to go into rooms by myself, I get petrified walking my dog (I mean, Minne is ferocious but let's be honest she weighs less than 20 lbs). Moral of the story is, Halloween turns me into a crazy sick lunatic.

When I was little it was fun to dress up (not in scary outfits but you know the pretty ones with sparkles) but as I got older, I realized you can throw a themed party any time of the year and avoid all the creepy dirty stuff that comes along with Halloween. So I do just that. And on today's wicked little holiday I plan on treating it like any other day. I'll be doing laundry, catching up on some recorded TV and perhaps watching a holiday movie...you know, one that leaves you with warm fuzzies instead of creepy tingles....is it Christmas time yet?

 I should make a side note that some of my friends have special reasons for loving this icky holiday. One of my college besties and her hubby in particular. Halloween is the day he asked her to be his girlfriend and on this same holiday he proposed. For her, it's one of the best holidays a girl could ask for. So the only thing I will do to celebrate this icky day is to congratulate them on another special day.

PS...I don't judge you if you love Halloween, just know we all have our things.

Doc-Tober

Wow I am behind on my personal email....but since it's no surprise that my husband is a huge Phillies fan I thought this was worth a post. I'll let the email speak for itself.

Oh wait I should throw out that most of my college friends were from Indiana, Illinois or Ohio. With that being said they are either a Cubs fan (like myself), a Sox fan or a Reds fan since there is no Indiana major league team. For my Cincy friends, I am a tincy weency bit sorry that the no-no happened during the Phillies Reds math up...just a tincy weency...

Amber Waves of Grain

Some people may find driving through the midwest flat and boring but when you see sights like this, how can you not be in awe. Check out the amber waves of grain and what about the wind generators? Together it's amazing how so much power and energy comes from these fields.

This was just some of our sights on our drive to visit Purdue University. Stop one on our college tour this past weekend.

College Visits

This weekend the hubs and I are taking this little one on some college visits. We should have some great photos come next week.

I can't believe she is already a junior in high school! Time really flies.

PS I think the hubs is more excited about tailgating then the actual college visits. Although, he looks for any excuse to visit his Alma Mater - Purdue.  

Are you doing any thing fun this weekend?

Fall is Coming

via Katherine Salvatori

This weekend was all about college football and the weather certainly made it feel perfect. It was sunny but cooler which means the leaves will be changing before we know it and fall will be here. Weekend photos to come soon, in the meantime, don't you love this beautiful fall photo from one of my faves?

Sister Night With Al

Yesterday was a great day with my baby sister, who as it turns out isn't so baby anymore. Just about a month ago we celebrated her 16th Birthday and I hadn't seen her since our family dinner. Before my crazy busy work schedule starts back up and she starts school again i really wanted to try to get a sister sleep over on the schedule. So we did just that yesterday.

I picked Al up and we went to a local farmers market to pick out some yummies for dinner. We made our way home and started to prep dinner. We baked the potatoes for the twice baked potatoess. Neither of us had ever made them so it sounded like a fun thing to try together. (They came out delish but we may have over stuffed the skin because the potato stuffing ran all over the baking pan, oops. They were still good though).

After we had the baked potatoes prepped we decided we had better make the log cake (also known as a chocolate icebox) if we were going to try to eat it since it takes 4 hours to set. Our goal was to make it look as much like a log as possible. I think we did pretty good. What do you think?

After most of the dinner prep was done. The hubs took us girls to the driving range. In the past the hubs and I have played a lot of golf in the summer but this summer has flown bye. He has a work golf outing coming up so we figured it was time to hit some balls and why not teach my little sister how to.

She was nervous but the hubs helped her out. She took instruction from him and she learned a lot. She had quite the stance and stroke on her first try! She was also the first person i had ever hit balls with that preferred the high number clubs opposed to the big ones. 

Most of her balls went to write about here....

Post golf. We went home and prepped the veggies for the grill while the hubs worked on the chicken. We had a great dinner and we followed it up by a round of Kings Corner (my favorite card game of all time). We also spent some time looking into a weekend to take her on an Indiana College visit.We finished the night with some log cake. It was perfect!

Happy Birthday Jess!

Happy Birthday to one of my good college friends. Since living in the same hall Freshman year at Butler, we've shared some really fun times together and celebrated some great Birthdays together. You may recognize her from here, and if you do you know how totally awesome she is and you know a lot about her passion for calligraphy and all things wedding. She has always been a great late night McDonalds buddy and a friend that could always guarantee a fun night. With all the stresses of house hunting in the Chicago market and not seeing many friends lately, I am totally missing her right now.

Hall of Champions Pre-Party!

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?