Chicago- Memorial Day Weekend 2009

A month or so ago Melissa and I were chatting as usual when we came up with the excellent idea to get together in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend to meet up with our dear friend, Josh. Next thing I new, I was in Chicago for some tasty food, fun music, rooftop excitement and great weather (the rain literally held off until THE minute Melissa and I were departing the city.)
Thanks to you Josh for being an entertaining and generous host, can't wait to do it again!!



Our lovely host for the weekend outside one of his favorite neighborhood bars, the Clark Street Ale House.


Two half-way decent-looking girls (lol) outside Stop & Drink!



Roof top fun, day one.
(The Hancock Building behind my head.)









Definitely one of my fave pictures...
At Kingston Mines Blues Club in Lincoln Park. I've wanted to visit this place for over 5 years. We had a great time, perhaps even too good of a time! :)


Had to include this one, it's such a great shot of me!
"Here, guy trying to take our picture, let me make sure you're doing it right!"






Ellie and Jaish, dancing fools!




While laying on a park bench outside the bar I was inspired to take a picture of this tree branch.



Day two-
Josh, Zach, Zach's girlfriend Becca (taking this photo), Melissa and I hopped in Becca's car and headed down to Matt Schumacher's apartment in South Loop to have some hot dogs and watch the Red Wings play the Blackhawks for a spot in the finals- Red Wings won, which Chewy was thrilled about!


View from Chew's balcony, not too shabby I say!




Way to go Melissa, who finished all her wine (a bottle and a half) like a good girl! :)


Love this shot of the Sears Tower, unfortunately I was unable to crop out the ugly (and innacurrate) date stamp on the bottom.



Back at Josh and Zach's I decided to try and take a picture of the view from Zach's bedroom window- this was the best I could get- it's kind of cool looking though.
I slept in Zach's room while I was there and got to wake up to a pretty sweet view of the Sears Tower! Nice!



Relaxing back at Josh's after running around the city all day, before Melissa and I headed out for a late night on the town... although we only made it to one bar! Poor Jaish wasn't feeling too hot so he decided to stay in for the remainder of the evening- a bummer, but it's always nice to have some one on one time with my lady MC. :)



Day three-
Lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. This place has some yummy food!



We had to make a stop at Sport's Authority so Melissa could purchase some apparel for her upcoming birthday Cubs game in D.C. this July. The Cubs will be playing the Nationals (and they'd better win, they haven't been doing so hot this season.) So now Melissa has a cute tank top and Cubs hat to deck herself out and represent our Cubbies!
Of course we had to snap a photo with Michael Jordan's hand prints. Those are some BIG hands!



Josh and Zach's street.


Josh and Zach's building, Chestnut Towers.
Keep in mind, that roof top was where we took all of our fun pictures!



More roof top fun... day three.





There was a storm brewing behind us- south of the city... I think it looks way cool, especially in this picture!






The end to ANOTHER awesome trip to Chicago. Thanks for the kisses guys! Love you both tons :)

Spring Fever!

Ah ha!
I have finally found the inspiration to create my very first blog post. Spring has officially become my favorite season... although summer is a very, VERY close second. I absolutely love it when the snow melts away, the sun starts to shine, the flowers begin to bloom and the next few months promise to be warm warm warm and fun fun fun! Not to mention the anxiety that comes with horrible winter driving weather disappears.
These photos were taken on Saturday, May 2nd in my mom's back yard. I was on my afternoon break from Mama Mia's, the sun was out and I couldn't help but notice how pretty it looked down in the creek, all sparkly and coming to life! Just beautiful to me... so I brought the dogs outside with me to snap some pix.



The elusive, wild Shih Tzu... scary!!
My mom thinks he looks like some sort of mountain goat in this picture. I can't stop laughing... too funny!

Poor Gracie had to stay tied up due to her uncontrollable desire to chase animals (squirrels, dogs and such). She had a close call last year when she took off after a dog walker on the bike path... on the other side of 50 mph Fruitport Road! She was lucky she didn't get hit by a car- and I'm lucky I didn't have a heart attack! Needless to say, I learned my lesson.
We did get this pretty picture of her in front of this flower bush- poor girl had the sun in her eyes though, but she's always happy just to be outside!