ILL-INI

So we've been talking about going to an Illini game all year. Brian has been to two already but I haven't been able to go. We were actually going to pass up this week(for reasons I didn't understand) as well, but last minute got some good tickets so we decided to take advantage of them. The game was at 11am so we had to leave by 8am?! Nothing like drinking beer at 9am! haha JK I didn't have any. Just Coke! We met up with Brian's friend Jeff whose dad is a State Farm agent in Champaign. He got us free tickets and also into the State Farm tent for free food. How can you pass that up? :-) It was a great day for football! Illinois played miserable but we had fun anyway!

Jeff was pretty sure he had told his dad to call him when he got there. He didn't! And Jeff didn't let him forget it! He kept saying, I must have missed that call from you dad! :-)

Brian with his brother Mitch and sister Kaitlynn. Mitch loved the free food so much, he had three plates! If I wasn't embarassed, I would have gotten another myself, but I refrained! haha

Mitch and Kaitlynn's first U of I football experience. Unfortunately it was nothing to write home about but they were just excited to be there!

I FINALLY got to wear my new U of I shirt! I'm so glad I didn't go buy like 6 different U of I shirts. Like one for every home game(because that would so be something I would do! haha), because this may have been the only game I get to see all year! :-)

He REALLY likes that Wyffel seed corn hat! He's a little bit country.......I'm a little bit rock 'n roll! JK Well actually he does think my style is a little wild as he calls it! :-)

It was one of the few touchdowns we saw all day. I had to document it!

About the only time the ball was on our end of the field and it was the last couple seconds of the game! :-(

The Birthday that Keeps on Giving!

This has truly been the best birthday I've ever had! Everyone did so much and I felt so loved with all of the stuff going on. Well Whit had told me that she wanted to do something for my birthday with just Whit, and Kate and me. She told me to be ready at 2:30pm and we were going to leave. She got home a little late so she was racing around telling me to get going. She handed me a cup from Fusion Brew and when I'd ask what it was she kept saying it was fall in a cup! I didn't know what that meant but it was good! She put me in the car and made me wrap a scarf around my head. She wanted to make sure I couldn't see or hear anything so she gave me her Ipod to listen to as well. My left eye was stuck shut but I realized a little down the road that I could see slightly out of my right eye, so I was able to kind of tell where we were at. She circled a neighborhood and then headed back to our house. I figured at that point that she was picking up Heidi, but then I started feeling bad that I was peeking, so I quit looking! haha From there we went to Arftul Designs, Fox and Hounds and Reality Bites and then back to our house for games. It was such a fun day! Truly a great birthday week!

I couldn't wait to get that scarf off because it was itchy and not being able to see with Whit's erratic driving was starting to make me feel sick! I told her later that my eye mask might have been easier to use a blindfold. I can only imagine what people passing us along Veteran's thought!

I walked into Artful Designs to see Tami AND Heidi. It went something like this: "Surprise, ok were going to paint, but were on a time crunch so we don't have a lot of time!" I said, ok. Whit are you going to repaint me my mug you busted? "I probably should, but not today. We don't have a lot of time. Were actually all going to paint the same thing." I said, oh ok, looking around trying to figure out what to paint. Whit was like, "you need to hurry up! We have to be out of here in 15 minutes!" Ohhhh, ok! I quickly grabbed a triangle plate. We decided to paint it like a candy corn. The next thing I know, Whit is paying for the plate, all the paint is at the table and the four of us are going to town on the plate. We painted it in 10 minutes flat! That has got to be some kind of record! haha

The finished product! Later Whit said we painted it in the wrong order that we should have put orange at the bottom. I told her that wasn't right. She and Rebekah insisted that they eat candy corns and the bottom is their favorite part and it's ALWAYS orange at the bottom. I wasn't buying but went along with it so I didn't sound like a know it all! Later I looked it up to prove them wrong and then text them my findings! haha

Heidi set up pedicures at Fox and Hounds and Whit had brought cookies from Janet's for our afternoon. It was so nice to have a pedicure where you can actually understand the person giving you the pedicure! :-)

After pedicures it was on to Reality Bites! All six of us ate for $54 dollars! They trusted me to just order for everyone! If I know one thing, it's good food, so I was honored that they trusted me to order for all of them. We just got a bunch of different stuff and shared it all! It was awesome and you can't go wrong at my favorite restaurant!

They later came up and told us that another reservation was waiting on our table. Psssh, seriously, we were only there for 2 1/2 hours! How rude! haha

Last stop, our house for games. Whit had gotten individual cakes from Janet's and then we played Things! We laughed and cackled all night! It was soooo fun! I love spending time with these girls!

Then we played Quelf. It's a game of randoms and it is just that! Heidi had to balance a book on her head and walk backwards 20 steps.

Rebekah had to do the chicken dance. We had to show her what it was first! :-)

Whit had to blink wildly, march in place and slap her knees and hum a song that she thought was annoying. We never did guess the song! Guess we need to brush up on our praise songs because, These are the Days of Elijah was not on the tip of our tongues! haha

Rebekah got all the crazy action cards. She had to stuff her shirt with anything and everything. For every four items, she got a point. She wasn't sure all that work was worth the two points she received! haha

The Party Continues.....

Wednesday, my actual birthday, Brian took me to Seven in Peoria Heights for dinner. I wanted to try out something different and he works in East Peoria anyway, so it was easy to just meet there for dinner. I've heard great things about Seven so we decided to try it out. Glad we did! It was great! Just nice to try out new places occasionally.

We both had the seafood bisque. It looked so cool I had to take a picture! They write their name in your soup. I think that's so you don't forget where you came to eat! haha

Brian got me some shoes for my birthday. He listens very well! I talked about them once and he found them at Von Maur without any help! They were out of my size so they had to be ordered! He took a picture of them and sent it to me to prove that he had found my crazy heels, as he called them! He thinks my taste is a little wild but he still likes my style.....most of the time! haha

He remembered that I don't care for flowers and that I'd rather have a card. He wrote in it all the reasons why I'm special to him. It was really sweet! I actually got teary eyed! He was like, usually you're so tough! I said, I know! But what you wrote was really sweet! :-)

Nippers and Scrumpdeliocious!

So not only did my friends plan me this huge surprise party, but they also took me to Chicago for the weekend and wouldn't let me pay for anything. It was a great weekend for shopping and it was even more fun to do it with some of my closest friends. Kate was cracking up all weekend at Ash's made up words. I don't even notice it anymore because I'm so used to it but Kate thought it was hilarious when Ash thought it was "nippers" outside or if the food was "de-lish" or when she called the weather "poop-ola" or when we decided to eat at Melting Pot and she said it was "scrumpdelicious"! By the time we left Kate was getting in on it and using the same phrases! haha

Heidi is dedicated! She could only be in Chicago for about 3 hours but she came up with us anyway. It did help that she drove 90mph the whole way there. I think that gave her about an extra 15 minutes to be there? Ever made it to downtown in an hour and 45 minutes? Me either! :-)

This is the shirt that Brian hates. He walks up to me swishes the sleeve and is like, "what's going on here?" I said what? They're just sleeves! He says, "yeah, but why is there so much of them?" I said, you just don't know style! This is in style! People are wearing this kind of thing! He's like, "who? Gradma's?" He's no longer allowed to give his opinion on my wardrobe! haha

We shopped downtown and made it to about three stores, two of which were Forever 21. The next day we hit up our third Forever! We came out with a haul! haha Ash is displaying one of her new purchases!

Thank goodness we were near the bathroom! Kate broke the seal early and went to the bathroom like 10 times during our hour and a half dinner! No joke!

They gave us champagne for my birthday!

They actually gave Kate one too. Apparently Melting Pot isn't too concerned about underage drinking! haha

Ash kept talking about how cute Whit, Kate and I looked, but she was the smart one because we all had swollen feet by the end of the day! We should really be more worried about function rather than form these days! haha

Kate and Whit were walking to the ATM before lunch and a homeless lady asked them for a dollar. They obviously didn't have any cash, hence the ATM. When they said they didn't have a dollar, she said "yeah, you guys look skimpy and cold!" Huh?!

The Ultimate Surprise!

So my 29th birthday is this Wednesday and I just assumed that it would come and go like most birthdays do. Boy was I wrong! First, Ash and Holly broke a surprise to me that they were taking me to Chicago for the weekend to shop for my birthday. They spoiled the surprise because Brian had a ticket for me to go to the U of I game with him and they were worried I'd be mad if I missed the game. Secondly, they had said we should go out to dinner for my birthday Friday night. I thought that sounded like fun, so I told them we should go to Reality Bites. Ash said great and told me who she thought we'd invite. I asked if I could invite Ben and Marissa as well since they were part of that whole Ozarks group. She said the more the merrier! I don't think she meant for me to take that literally. So I went and invited Adam and Amy, Tyler, Denise, Heidi and Jarod and couple others. All of which had plans that night. Strange! :-) Little did I know that their plans were coming to my surprise birthday party! It was the best surprise ever! Ash called at 6pm to tell me that Reality Bites didn't have our reservation down and so she had called Biaggis in a panic and they ironically had last minute cancellations and could get us in. Brian had told me that he had gotten sick at work and was pretty sure he had the flu so he wasn't going to be able to make it. I was bummed thinking, the first year I have a boyfriend on a birthday and he's going to miss my dinner. But I took it all in stride. It was on my way to dinner that I started thinking about stuff and thought, you know if they really wanted to get me, they could have changed the restaurant and have more of my friends here and Brian's not actually sick, but I kept thinking, no they wouldn't have done that. Don't hope for that or you might get disappointed when you walk in and there's just the 8 people that you knew were coming to dinner and Brian's still sick! :-) But I just had this feeling walking in from the parking lot that there was more to this. That maybe Heidi and Jarod and Adam and Amy's plans were for my dinner, but I just kept shoving it aside only to walk into a room where 35 people are yelling surprise FOR ME! It was such a buzz! I looked around the room and saw so many friends and family. All people I care about and mean so much to me in my life! It was awesome and meant the world to me that they had all come and that everyone had gone to so much trouble to pull it all off, especially with me trying to "help"! haha It was a great evening and I can't thank everyone enough who was there and who helped plan it all! Truly one of the best birthdays I've ever had!

Ash and Hols were panicked with how many people I had told about Reality Bites. They kept fielding phone calls from people trying to figure out if the plans had changed. Apparently planning a surprise party for a planner is not easy to do! haha

He got me good! I was planning on taking him soup and crackers after dinner because I truly thought he was sick! He just wanted to be in on the surprise as well. It worked! :-)

Whit wanted to borrow my shirt because her and Isaac had dinner plans. When I asked where they were going she didn't know. I thought that was awfully odd but I was too busy getting ready I didn't think much of it!

They nailed it all! I love zebra print and I love bright green! They paid attention to every detail! They invited over 85 of my friends to be there! Talk about an undertaking!

They didn't think they could pull it off for my 30th so they got me a year early!

I kept trying to convince these two to get a babysitter for their kids so they could come to Reality Bites! Ben was so confused on the plans he didn't want to say anything about if they could or couldn't come so he just played stupid! He does that well! haha

They even tracked down people from my old small group to be there! Such a special night!

Kate was trying to throw me off by asking me a thousand questions through text as to where I was, what I was doing, what Brian got me for my birthday, if I wanted to hang out after dinner, etc. I had no clue she was sending them all from Biaggis!

The masterminds behind my party! Great job guys! Love you two!

I had been texting Amy all week trying to convince her to change her dinner plans to come to my birthday dinner. She kept ignoring me! Suspcious! haha

Laundry Treat!

Brian had a tv delivered to his house a week ago, so I told him I'd work from his place, so I could sign for it when it got delivered and then he didn't have to worry about tracking it down or having it sitting on his front porch all day while he was at work. While I was there I figured I'd help him out and do some laundry. It was pretty much selfishly motivated because he spends half his weekend doing laundry so I figured if I helped out, he'd have more time to spend with me! haha Either he's a slow laundry doer or he just doesn't do it all at once because in an afternoon I had ALL his laundry done, plus sheets washed and put back on his bed and towels washed and put away. I also had time to drop his shirts off at the cleaners. He was so blown away by all that I had done that he said he was going to treat me for all my hard work, so we went to Jim's Steakhouse for dinner. I hadn't been there in years but you can't go wrong with their augratin potatos and their Brittany dressing. Sooooo good!

You can kind of see my coat hanging on my chair. Well I had that on when I got to his place. I guess you could think it was my outfit but it's a tie waist coat that has 3/4 sleeves and belled ruffle sleeves. When I got to his place, he was like you want to take off your coat and stay awhile? I said, well I thought we'd be leaving in a few minutes. He was like, oh that's really a coat? I was like yeah, what'd you think it was? He was like, well I didn't know! You have all kinds of interesting outfits that should be dresses or who knows what and they're your shirt so I was confused! He was like, don't get me wrong, I love it as a coat! :-) Boys, when you want them to have an opinion about your clothes they don't and when you'd prefer they keep their mouth shut, they always have an opinion! haha

Pfest!

Well it only comes around once a year but it's always memorable. You can't let fall go by without a trip to the Pumpkin Festival. Now besides the eating and all the mingling you do, there's not a whole lot to it. We could probably all get together once a year without all the fuss, but then what's the fun in that? This year I branched out and actually tried the pumpkin stuff. Not sure how I've been going for like 15 years and only eaten the donuts. But I will say the rest of the stuff is delicious as well. Brian had never been to Pumpkin Festival and at first didn't understand why everyone was saying stuff about "Pfest" but by the end of the evening he was using the lingo fitting in with all the rest of the cool kids! haha By the time we had run into my 20th friend, he looks at me and says, "you know I'll never remember all these names, right?" I said, no worries, I don't expect you to! He said good! I've forgotten more of your friends name than I actually have friends! haha We went up to Pfest with Ben and Marissa and then they left early and we got delayed talking to people and didn't end up going back to their house afterwards. I will probably never live that down with Ben because he had planned the whole after party just because of me! Whoops! I did honestly feel really bad!

Avery was dancing around to the music in the food tent! Such a cutie!

Brian tried to win me a stuffed animal! I was kind of glad he didn't! Not that the gesture wouldn't have been nice, but I was panicking as to where I was going to have to display my "treasure" after he won it for me! I'm not really the stuffed animal type all over the bed! :-)

He was skeptical of Pfest at first but by the end of the evening he was telling his dad and his brother that they should have come! He's always a little delayed in the enthusiasm area! haha I said one of these days you'll learn to trust me that I know what I'm talking about. Especially with food. If there's one thing I know, it's good food! haha

Pole Holding

Brian bought a Polaris Ranger and keeps it at his dad's house on the farm. He's been wanting to take me fishing for a while so a couple Saturdays ago it worked out to go out there. It was a gorgeous day and it was so hot that day that we hit up the pool first and then head out to the farm. He kept asking me if I'd actually fish. I said sure! As long as I don't have to bait the hook or touch the fish, I'm fine! :-) He's like that's not fishing, that's pole holding! I said fine! You go fishing, I'll go pole holding! And that's exactly what we did! haha His dad had made some Texas cake that we also partook of. It was awesome! I love the country! It was a great day to just relax and enjoy some country livin!

I had just learned the side arm cast here. I also love the fact that it looks like he took this with a wide angled lens! haha

Can't get more peaceful setting than that!

Not sure why I held the camera so high in the air! Makes it look like God is the one who took the picture! haha

I caught a fish! As you can see, I knew EXACTLY what to do with it when I reeled it in! Dance around, scream and stay as far away from that little slimy buggar as much as possible! haha

I got a little more daring but I was keeping my eye on him! He wiggled a lot!

Now if you hadn't seen the first two pictures, you'd think I was a natural born fisherman! :-)

Brian wouldn't let me take any pictures of his catches because he thought they were all too small to document, but I at least got this one which he still claims is tiny. There were no tall tales of the fish we caught that day. :-)

So sunglasses might have been a smart idea. I kept thinking, the Ranger only goes 50mph? Big deal. That's not THAT fast! Well it is when there's no windshield, doors and bugs flying straight into your eyes!