Pie Party

The hubs recently took a new job and we are so excited for him. Depending who you ask, he seems to have a pretty sweet job. That's right he is working in a sweet goods department which means it is time for us to do some "sweets" research, to help him get acquainted with his new product. About a week ago, he suggested throwing a little get together to encourage other people to try the products, that way he could do little samples and check out packaging without leaving a house full of deserts for just the 2 of us.

So if the hubs can dream it, I try to make it happen. We started with an invite:


Followed it up with a pretty hefty grocery trip and we ended up with this:


And this:

And about 4 more pies and cakes that came out after we had all of this set up. It was a great night of yummies and research. As an overall take away, the hubs learned alot about the product (taste & packaging & easiness to prepare). Our guests all left with full bellies but before they went they shared a little bit on their favorite items.

The pound cake, a great basic for breakfast or a starting piece for a strawberry shortcake. The perfect amount of flavor to take it along ways.
Picture found here

The strawberry cheese cake bites were a huge hit with everyone. They were easy to piece on and super yummy.
Photo Found Here

The apple pie was another big hit. The crumbling goodness was delish and everyone in attendance wanted a bite of it. Check it out here

Last, but certainly not least was the delish breakfast sweets. The Pecan coffee cake & the cinnamon rolls came right out of the microwave in only a few short minutes smelling like something we had been baking for hours. They were so soft and delicious, everyone wanted a piece of it. Pic from here

The rolls were the hubs best man's favorite, quick someone tell his wifey: Photo from here

Overall, huge success. Thanks everyone who came out to support the hubs and his new job!

I Love Surprises!

It's true, I love surprises. Especially when you come home from work and you aren't expecting them. Or how about when they come in bags that look like this


When the hubs told me I could open it I am sure my face had a huge smile with excitement and nervousness all at the same time. But I opened it up to find 2 of the best items that Victoria Secret now sells. Are you ready for it? Well the Pink line now includes the MLB line. The hubs saw it when he was browsing the MLB store site and thought of me. I am just grateful he bought me something Chicago related yet alone something so cute and for no reason, other than he likes loves me....alot!



Thanks baber, this will be much appreciated when we go to the Cubs vs Phillies series xo xo

MLS Fire Game? En Fuego!!!

Now that our Final Four recaps are done we can go over some other fun things the hubs and I have been up to.

Recently, he had a buddy in town with his girlfriend. It was great to catch up. We played some bags and enjoyed this nice spring weather. A few days before they arrived, I got offered some Chicago Fire tickets, for their home opener. Neither the hubs nor I are huge fans but free tickets to any sporting event has to be cool, right? We found out later that the hubs friend had "attending an MLS game" on his bucket list, so that is one checked off in 2010!

We arrived at Toyota Park and were a little astonished about everything! People looked like they had been tailgating for hours, and some people might have only been there for the tailgating because they didn't look like they were going into the game. The park had set up beer gardens and corn hole games and everyone there was in great moods and pumped about being part of this event.

We made our way to our seats and were astonished! There didn't seem to be a bad seat in the house and our tickets were amazing! We enjoyed some of the pre-game festivities and anxiously waited for our first Fire game to begin.




Once the game started, we were quickly introduced to the "Section 8" group. They are the Fire's amazing fans that chant and sing and cheer the ENTIRE game. They are insane. We didn't grab any photos but here's some I collected via the web:

Found Here

Found here

The atmosphere at the Fire game was very relaxed, fun but still passionate. You can see just from the few photos above and below that no one is in suits, the game is about the game. In fact, during half time, instead of paying for entertainment, they bring out little kiddo-s and let them play soccer games in front of everyone? Cool right.

Soccer doesn't have cheerleaders, or an ice crew but they do have the Fire Girls. The hubs and his buddy were very interested :)



The Fire ended up losing (seems to be a trend for teams I follow lately). However, the team played hard, did some cool tricks and some awesome head butting. I would for sure go back to a Fire game for the atmosphere, the special effects, Section 8 watching and just for the game itself. Awesome!

Final Four, Butler vs State

Looking back at Saturday of the Final Four is a little bit of a blur. Everything happened so fast and there was so much excitement, it was so hard to keep it straight. Here goes my best attempt (and I am sure the hubs will correct me if I am wrong).

We woke up and got ready for the day, but we had to make an unexpected pit stop to Keystone Mall so that we could swing by Banana Republic to pick the hubs up a new belt (while getting ready he realized he forgot this men's essential). We grabbed some lunch with our girl JD and we made our way down town Indy. Once we arrived we decided to meet some of my BU college friends/sorority sisters and their men at Cadillac Ranch. Here we watched and boo-d the State fans who tried to ride the mechanical bull. We also consumed quite a bit of beverages. Overall, it was just great to celebrate being a proud alum with other alum. Recognize anyone you may know? Check it out:


After quite a bit of fun here, we worked our way over to Lucas Oil. Remember when I said that place was a beast? Well it is. Our seats were in the 600 level! But we had a great view of the entire place:

Overall, the fan experience was ehhh-ok. There were people from the 2nd game (Duke vs West Virginia) walking up and down the aisle the entire time with no ushers to be found. However, we did have some State fans walk by wearing these lovely State snuggies, is it bad i secretly want to make a Butler Bulldog snuggie now?

The game was intense. My nerves were all over the place and my battery was drained. This was probably a good thing because I don't think that I could handle the pressure of everyone elses nerves via text or facebook updates. As the final seconds approached and Butler won, we were able to snag some decent photos:

After the game ended, there was so much joy in Lucas Oil for every Butler and Indianapolis fan. Beating State was a huge game and even most State fans were wishing congrats to the dawgs (man I love the midwest). The hubs and I decided to celebrate with the rest of Indianapolis, so we made our way for the elevators down to the first level (remember I said we were on the 600 level!). All of a sudden we saw a rush of State fans selling their championship game tickets at the fan exchange booth. The lines was ridiculous so it looked like people were taking their own liberties to sell them on their own. Check out the chaos:


As we got outside, the roads were insane. Everyone wearing Butler attire was giving high fives, handshakes and I think there were even some fist pumps, no joke. We ran into the hubs old roommates from the Indians and then made our way to a few different bars before we ended at Rock Bottom to meet up with another girlfriend from college and her man.

We had some more friends who said they were either in Boradripple or headed that way so we figured we should jump on the B-ripple bandwagon. It's not every weekend I get to see so many friends so we had to capitalize on it. We met up with JD & her brother and headed to her car but first a quick stop at Victory Field, home of the Indianapolis Indians. This spot is huge for us because it is where me and the hubs met and it's where our friendship with JD began. If only we had taken some better more errrr serious photos?


We loaded in JDs car and headed north. As we were sitting in the traffic the hubs looks at me and says hey look is Clark Kellogg. After that awesome Butler win, I had to ask him what his thoughts were for the next game but my words got jumbled. I think I ended with something like this "Hey Clark, now that Butler took out State, will you be routin' for them" (yup I said routin, sometimes I pick up a little slang while I am in Indy, it drive my sisters crazy).

Clark looked at me with pointed fingers and said "Young Lady - pause - I can't cheer I can only cover the games." The next morning my husband was still talking about how I yelled at Clark Kellog, I feel a little bad looking back at it. I probably looked/acted like a fool, but when else would it be ok to yell like that?

Whenw e arrived in Boradripple the hubs was a little confused. Many new bars had moved in and some old ones out. One of hsi favorite little cantinas was now closed. Sorry pacos

At this point we realized our friends had bailed. It's hard to really blame them, those sort of festivities are a lot for a person to handle. And lets be honest, not everyone has the super strength of my husband. So instead of calling it quits we made one last stop, at Landsharks. The hubs ended up running into an old hs friend. Say hi

After that, we were ready to go but we realized we hadn't eaten in quite some time. There was no line at the Hot Box Pizza so we figured it was a great time to put in an order as we waited for our ride home. Here we ran into one of my younger DG sisters who now is on a local Indy morning radio show. Meet Hot Box & Monica of Radio Now


We headed home and crashed because the next day was Easter Sunday. We spent most of that Sunday playing with my Indy family kiddo-s and spending time with my Indy mom. We then headed to the hubs family's house and had an amazing Easter Dinner put on my his mom and his sister. It was a great way to finish up an amazing weekend and a great way to prep for an awesome championship game, Duke vs Butler.

Unfortunately, here's where our photos started to go bizerk again. We don't have many photos from the Championship game but we did get a few.

Since we were on the 600 level, the screens were a good shot for some of the player intros.

At halftime they did a special for some of the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame that was presented during the Final Four. What was really cool about it? Well being from Chicago and working for the United Center, seeing Scottie Pipen was awesome. You can meet the entire class by clicking here or checking out this photo:


Some of the game


Despite the loss to Duke, I still don't feel like there was any real loser. Butler held their own against a very strong team and they ventured grounds they had never seen before. The overall experience was amazing and I am so glad that the hubs was so encouraging. It was great to experience something so cool with someone I love so much (even if he isn't a Butler Alumn).

Final Four; Bracket Town, well sort of

I write this post with a lot of discouragement. You see, the hubs and my sis-in-law left Butler and headed downtown to enjoy some of the Bracket Town festivities. We took over 100 awesome photos and almost all of them from today came out like this:


I am trying not to get to down on myself because we did end up with a few other cool photos, so here goes the rest of our awesome day.

As we left Butler we were able to catch a glimpse of the Butler excitement outside of campus. Buildings had special notes and signs and some even made their own Final Four decorations:



We found some great parking and made our way into the convention center to check out the Final Four festivities at Bracket Town. The hubs and sis were able to play lots of pop-to-shot, we checked out the new 3D LG TV, ate lots of junk food and took many silly photos ::frown:: but we did have to spend time finding all the statues that represented our schools.


We also made a stop to the huge Bracket Town Bracket, the hubs and sister had a little trouble finding their schools on the map (Purdue & Indiana) but don't worry, Butler was easy to spot:


After we saw everything that we could, we made our way over to Lucas Oil Stadium to check out the Senior All Star Game. We saw this guy a few times throughout the weekend:


Before we made it into Lucas Oil, we made a quick pit stop by the hotel where our friend was staying. We helped her carry in some of our items. It was here that the hubs was carrying in one of our friends dresses. Butler player Veasley told the hubs that he didn't have the legs for that dress (ohhh burn) It was funnier than I write it, I promise. On our way out of the room we ran into Coach Stevens who looked exhausted. He asked where we were headed and when we told him back out to the streets he warned us of the craziness. From there, we continued to the All Star game.

It was our first time in the new stadium. The inside was as big of a beast as the outside, check it out:


We made our way to some empty seats and started watching team Reeces take on team Herseys. Obviously, we had to cheer on team Reeces since the hubs player was representing, check the stats for Kramer below. It was also nice to have a little time with a dear friend and the sis.


During the halftime performance, we got to see a little dance off between the Indiana mascots.


Butler got knocked out early but Purdue Pete held his own. He made it to the finals where he lost to what I believe was the ISU mascot?


After the game we were pooped but we did manage to find a hubs look-a-like, or so he thinks anyway:


We drove the sis back home but had to make a dinner pit stop at the hubs favorite dinner location, Chilis. We consumed lots of their famous skillet queso dip. Fromt here we made our way to a friends house to dog sit and prep for the big game the next day.

Butler University President's Perspective — April 2010

As I struggle where to go next with my blog about the Final Four experience, I thought I would share an amazing email that all the Butler students & Alumni received today. I know there is lots of laughter and jokes about my expensive Butler education that float around our house and their are financial struggles every day but reading this confirms everything I believed in as a student and now as an alum. I couldn't be happier to be part of Butler University and I can only hope that people feel as connected to their Alma Mater as I do. I may not have played for this Butler basketball team, but that's ok. I feel just the same and I feel like the connections that Dr. Fong speaks of I can relate to in my own Butler Way. You can see the entire page by clicking here.

Excerpt from Dr. Bobby Fong:

"at in the midst of this week’s pandemonium you still attended classes has become a byword of how excellence in athletics and academics is compatible. College presidents have written about how your example stands for all the schools that seek to do right by their students. Commentator Pat Forde wrote this morning, “But Butler wins, too. And the maligned sport of college basketball, a greasy enterprise in recent times, wins a renewed level of nobility. And every small school wins the license to dream Butler dreams.”

"And finally, you have permanently altered the profile of your University. Vice President for Enrollment Tom Weede said, “One hundred percent of students will never apply to a university of whom they’ve never heard.” Going forward, far fewer people will ask, “In what state is Butler located?” Because of what you have done, Butler has become an example of academic and athletic excellence. Because of what you have done, in the years to come, many more students will aspire to come to Butler, some to be athletes, others to be artists, and scientists, and educators. Because of what you have done, more people will better appreciate achieving difficult things by doing the right thing, by doing them the Butler Way. "

Final Four, 1st Stop BU!

The hubs, Minne and I drove back down to Indiana Thursday post work. I say back because we were just there the weekend before, I spoke about it here.

We woke up early Friday and the hubs, my big sis (in law) and I headed to Indy to meet my girlfriend and her new beau! I just realized I didn't get any photo of this occurrence which instantly made me super sad ::sigh::

After some yummy coffee at Starbucks, the hubs, his sister and I made our way to Butler University. I should add, my hubs went to Purdue and his sister to Indiana University, so we are Team Indiana School all the way. Our first stop once we arrived on campus was to visit the Butler Bookstore. Licencing for Butler gear is strict so finding items to suit our needs could only be done here. We did quite a bit of shopping as you can see here (you would be amazed at how many items can fit into each of those big bags):



Outside of the Bookstore was an awesome good luck banner for the Bulldogs, I had to sign it:


Right after we saw the banner we notice a boy setting up a table with lots of Bulldogs "decorated" and some plain. I asked what they were doing and he said that they were in a business class working on a business project. I looked at the hubs and said, can we buy one? His response was that we just spent lots of money in the bookstore so did we really need a stuffed animal. I obviously said yes, so we ended up with BlueGirl:


The last time the big sis was on campus, she recalled the star fountain, so we made a quick stop there. To our surprise we saw that all the fountains were filled with blue water! It was fun till the wind kicked in and the hubs and I got sprayed, hence the super goofy photo. When we brought Minne girl down, all she cared about was the food she could smell from Atherton, hahaha:



The next stop at Butler was a "Butler Have To Do" we made our way to the bulldog statue in front of Atherton to get some photos. Minne girl didn't make the trip down with us Thursday, but over the course of the weekend she got her photo op too:



From here, we crossed the street over to the Kappa house, since my sis in law was a Kappa at IU, it was only fitting to check out the Butler chapter. She immediately fell in love with the Kappa Bulldog outside the house:


While we were at Butler with Minne, we went to try to get a photo with one of the custom bricks that Butler sold when they did the construction on the new rec center.My awesome parents got me one as part of my graduation gift, cool right? Unfortunately, it started pouring so we didn't get the brick photo and Minne didn't have many photo ops on campus. However, she loved looking out the window as we drove into campus, especially at the TKE house. It must have been those loud boys hahah