Thursday, January 29, 2009

Office Night turned into Texas Hold Em

Denise is at a conference this week and Jon and Bekah weren't able to make it, so it was just Jill hanging out with us for Office night. The Office must not have been on because it didn't record on my DVR tonight, but we decided to play poker instead anyway. We were supposed to play on Tuesday night for our sister night but we all were tired and never played, so we made up for it tonight. Jill has 7 brothers so we made her our honorary sister for the evening!


They were all gloating over their chips because I got out first, which is a rarety when we play games. All the more reason they were gloating! :-)


I was trying to act sad about having no chips but it didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped. It looks like there is two of me and that I'm flapping my hands really fast!


Our family photo, perfectly staggered!


I did have cards in my hands before Whit ripped them out of my hands. I wasn't just that excited about the picture!



Can you see Kate's chips flying through the air?! They look like they are part of Whit's sweater!

Dinner with Friends Part 2


Haley and I grabbed dinner tonight. It was the 4th night this week that I had eaten out! Yes, that means that I ate out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday! Crazy I know! Can't believe I'm not 300 pounds by now!

Haley and I go way back to our early high school days. Marissa introduced me to her and her sister Jessie and we spent countless hours at the Kruse's over the years. There were pyramids and guys spraying us down with shaving cream after we found our cars covered in flour and hamburger meat, fireworks on the river, trips to California with Amy and Haley on a jet ski and screaming at every turn, and many cookouts and hanging out at our house. Great times in the young group.

As we've gotten older, we always just pick up where we left off but have come in and out of each other's lives. With her three kids and growing photography business and you know my rotation of dinners :-) we just haven't always been able to stay in touch, but we always have a great time when we do. It was great seeing ya Haley! Looking forward to doing it again!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Dinner with Friends

So my friends tease me all the time about getting on my "rotation" for dinner. Somewhere along the line, I started doing regular dinners with friends to try and keep up with people better and now it's to the point that I could be eating out three to four days a week sometimes. I love every minute of it, just sometimes gets difficult working around sister night and Office night.

So anyway, last night was dinner with Kristy Kaeb. I think we figured out that until New Year's we might not have seen each other for close to 10 years! Is that nuts or what? In a little over three hours we caught up on what's going on, but we didn't really graze the surface with what we were doing from 1998-2003. That will have to be another dinner! :-)

Kristy and I ran around together in the young group before I could drive. She was a blast and I have many memories of ice skating, road rallies, sleepovers, snack food, and girl's nights between my house and hers. Definitely made my junior high and early high school years!

It was great to see ya Kristy! Can't wait to do it again!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Hangin' with the Zellers!

Before I graduated college, I lived with Luke and Ash and again when I moved back from California. These roomies were some of my favorites! We always had such a good time! Ash would make some kind of dessert every night after dinner, whether it was milkshakes, skillet cookies, or just making pillsbury cookies. I'm pretty sure I gained 10 pounds just from the desserts. One of the things we always did is we watched shows together and Bachelor was one of our favorites. We would all gather in the basement with our drinks and desserts and watch the show together. As I moved out and their family grew, we don't get to do that near as often but I always love it when we do. Now the snacks have gotten a little more gourmet like Luke making us carmels last night and the background noise has risen multiple decibels, but it's still something I always look forward to!

Last night was one of those nights. I picked up Chipotle and brought it over to their house. Ash and I ran to Walgreens for wax paper while Luke manned the carmel bowl stirring constantly! Then we watched The Bachelor and had some amazing carmels about halfway through the show!


Ty ate all his fruit but was not a fan of the corn. He decided to throw it all over the floor and all over Harley who was waiting at the base of his highchair for all the scraps that were being dropped!

This was Chase sh0wing me his muscles. I was teasing Ash that I always get these pictures from her of Chase and Ty and Chase ALWAYS has clothes on but whenever I come over, this is how he is......in his undies! I think it's a conspiracy. I think she only dresses him for the photo op and then let's him go back to his underwear! :-)


Ty kept choking on the corn and his eyes would water but he'd have this grin from ear to ear the whole time. It must have been the corn, because even Harley was choking over it!


This was the beginning of the carmel process. It is quite a precise process. There is no room for mistakes according to Luke. He was going for a specific texture one that is a little hard on the outside but as you bite into it, it softens. They were a little softer than his liking but Ash and I loved them that way! I think I ate 20!



A rare moment that Ty was actually sitting on my lap, however he was looking for the cereal that was sitting near me!


I put some in my hand so he could eat them out of my hand......



But instead of eating them out of my hand, he just nose dived into my palm for an entire mouthful!


And then they were all stuck to his face when he lifted his head.



This process went on and on.......



And each time more stuck to his face!



Then Harley was there to clean up whatever Ty missed!


Ty's little wife beater! It looked so cute on him!





Monday, January 26, 2009

Weekend in Bourbonnais

So I headed back to Bourbonnais this weekend. I tease Brandon that they are about 10 years behind because they have less restaurants and stores than we have in Bloomington, which in turn makes Bloomington better! :-) Here are some things that they don't have or just got:

Don't have:
Chilis
Biaggis
Logan's
Chipotle - this one makes me VERY sad
Qdoba
Cosi

Just got:
Hobby Lobby
Super Walmart
Culvers

Besides the fact that his town is lacking, we still managed to have a good time! :-) His parents invited us to this charity event for the community college in town on Saturday night. Sunday we just hung out, went to church, grabbed lunch and went bowling.

Before he got up and left me this time to get drinks, he would at least ask if I wanted to go along! :-) We left early because if you didn't play cards, gamble or plan on getting trash with the open bar, there wasn't a lot to do!


His mom invited us to go bowling Sunday after church. This is Brandon's younger sister Tiffany and his little brother Nate. However, Brandon spelled her name Tiffunee, Nate's name somehow got messed up on the screen so his name turned into a telephone number and I was Turaaaaa. Nice! :-)



It was cosmic bowling in the middle of the afternoon and the music was a random array or wedding songs, Disney music, 80's music, jock jams and some 90's rap, including but not limited to: Who let the dogs out, Macarena, Cha Cha Slide, Superman, Part of your world, and Sk8ter Boy(not by Avril Lavigne but by some other little teeny bopper). Tiffany was showing off her moves to all the dances but refused to get up and dance with all the 10 year olds that were dancing! I can't imagine why not? :-)


So we played three games. The first game I bowled a 158 and Brandon got a 101. I WON! Second game, I fell apart and got like 108 and he bowled in the 130's I think. So we were tied
1-1. So of course we had to have a tie breaker to see who would be the reigning champion. My game started out a little rough so he didn't take it seriously thinking he could just coast to the end and in the last three frames, I came on strong and ended up beating him in the 10th frame by 7 after getting a strike. So this would be me gloating about my win and him showing his disgust! :-)

Monday, January 19, 2009

"Ringger" Dinner

So it all started with a cookout with all of my married friends this past summer. I didn't get a chance to hardly talk to David and Kate, so we set up a dinner to get together. That was in July and since then the group has grown and now it's a monthly dinner that I conveniently refer to the Ringger dinner because it's easy to remember that way. This month we went to Lucca Grill and went back to Holly and Tim's for dessert. It's always such a fun group to get together and we always have such a good time getting together and catching up.


We needed to do separate checks, but I went in with Ben and Marissa so I asked our waitress if they had an ATM. She said, yes there's a unisex one upstairs. I looked at Ash and we both kind of laughed and said, aren't they always?! The waitress said, you asked about a bathroom right?

Ben moved our pizza over and dumped Dr. Pepper all over Ash's lap. It was my Dr. Pepper that she drank out of but everytime she wanted more she kept telling me to ask the waitress for a refill! :-)


Holly and Tim spent the day unpacking their house. Trying to bring together two homes is a challenge. They keep finding that they have multiples of everything. More than one coffee maker, toaster, waffle maker, etc. And don't even get them started on clothes and tools! :-)


Alex was showing us his scars from when he flipped over his four wheeler years ago. I about passed out for the second time when he told the story!



They were kidless for the evening and taking advantage of Chris' handicap tag. Luke had to limp a little to make it more believable! :-)




Ben was blinding us with his bright neon green sweater. He also had to buy Ash a cosmo after dumping pop in her lap! We all shared spinach and artichoke which Ash explained as some of the best she's had. It even had crab rangoon material for dipping as she put it!



We sat there for hours hoping that the fountain would start to work. You had to be careful that you didn't get your "poker" stuck in the auger at the top otherwise it would send chocolate flying. However that's where the chocolate was the best. Luke described it best as gritty with little flavor bursts of peanut butter!



Holly had "yellow" pound cake which she thought was a special kind but we were struggling trying to figure out when we've ever had anything but yellow pound cake! :-)


Brandon was a good sport. He had just worked an entire day at the dealership and then drove to Bloomington in snowy weather and then had to meet all my friends. He was exhausted but didn't complain a bit!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Sister Night

DISCLAIMER: These are not flattering pictures of us, but I thought I would post anyway!

So when Whit and Kate moved in with me a year and a half ago, my prerequisite was that we needed to do "sister night" to be able to spend time together, otherwise I knew I would never see them and that seemed to defeat the purpose of living with them if I didn't get the chance to get to know them better.

So we originally did Wednesday nights because Whit didn't work on Tuesdays or Wednesdays but that started conflicting with Kate's schedule to the point that Kate was never there. So we switched to Tuesdays.

We've done ok with the weekly sister night but still trying to get in the groove with figuring out what exactly to do so we don't end up just sitting in the family room together with laptops on our laps and not talking.

The only parameters are we have to hang out together, no talking to boyfriends and no laptops or just watching tv the whole evening.

Last week we actually did something and Whit planned in advance. We weren't eating till Whit got off work at 8pm and she wanted to make cobb salads and watch Pineapple Express. I was thrilled for a plan but I had planned badly that day and had not eaten really all day, so by 8pm I was starving and about ready to eat off my arm!

By the time Whit got home, it was well after 8:30pm and we still didn't have the ingredients for the salad, so she sent Kate and I to the store. We finally at around 9:30pm and by the time we did I was so past hungry that I wasn't hungry anymore and had about two bites!

We watched Pineapple Express to which I'm VERY glad we didn't buy it. Stupid movie all about weed! So dumb it's kind of funny. Kind of being the operative word! :-)

Kate mixing the salad. Not sure what dressing actually goes on a cobb salad, but we modified. There was a debate because Whit made Brittany dressing but Kate wanted ranch. We compromised that Kate would get her portion and the rest would be tossed in the Brittany. However, Kate wasn't sure how much she wanted so she didn't know if she liked that idea very well! :-)

Whit making our pound of bacon for the dressing and the salad. Nothing like a big fattening salad at 9:30pm at night.


I have no idea what is going on with my hair that night! I feel like I'm wearing a beret! :-)

Monday, January 12, 2009

My Step-Cousin's Wedding

So my aunt Cheryl recently got remarried to a guy by the name of Rick Nichols. Rick's son got married this weekend. I went to the wedding with Brandon, who his parents are good friends with Rick and his family. The wedding was in Chesterton, IN and then the wedding was in Merrillville. We were running a smidge late and snuck in the back right as they were walking down the aisle. Nice timing! Afterwards, I got to catch up with Reid, Brittany and my aunt Cheryl at the wedding.


He joked about matching my outfit. I told him if I showed up and he was wearing a red tie to match my red shoes, I was going to make him change! :-)

Brandon with his sister Erika and his mom Karen. He took off multiples times and left me to fend for myself with his family. Thankfully they are very nice people! :-)


Hmm.....could I look anymore awkward in this picture. I'm not sure why I look like I'm hunched over!


Britt was wearing a strapless dress that in turn makes her look naked in this picture!


My aunt Cheryl was the lovely "mother" of the groom. It also looks like I'm trying to hyperextend my arm here, but whatev!




Ryan(the groom) and Brandon. These two were best buds growing up and have some hilarious snow mobile stories. Of which seem to always end with one of them crying! :-)

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Lunch with Grandma Tillie?

So Whit and I decided it had been a long time since we had gone to lunch with Grandma T, so we set up lunch plans for Friday at Mandarin. Ben called me as he was leaving work and wanted to do lunch. I said well I'm already going but you're more than welcome to come with us to lunch with Grandma. So Ben met us, but Grandma wasn't there when we arrived. I called her and she was still at home and had already eaten lunch! She forgot! We made up for it the next day with breakfast instead, but our lunch with Grandma T turned into lunch with Jorge our lawn boy Ben instead! :-)

This is a first that these two have ever been photo'd together

I love that it is January and I don't have the ghostly white complexion just yet!

We were trying to fake out the camera to throw off the face recognition. Cheap thrills!


Ben was just playing peek a boo!



We act like we don't like each other most of the time, but he's actually one of my favorite people! He takes my teasing well! And no that is not my hand through his arm, that would be his hand! :-)

New Year's Eve/New Year's Day

Holli and Andy were home over Christmas and I was not about to miss seeing them this year(I got sick last year!), so Nichole, Bridget, Leisa, Holli and I went to lunch at Qdoba in Bloomington on Monday. It was so great to catch up and even see Bridge and Leisa who I haven't seen in a while either. Holli and Andy were staying with Jed and Vicki in Morton and were kind enough to invite us all to their house for New Year's. It was great to see everyone and hang out!

Amy will probably kill me for posting this picture but I actually thought it was cute of her!

We pretty much camped out on this couch ALL night! Good thing no one tried to sit there when we were up getting food, or you wouldn't have wanted to see our wrath! :-)


Um, can you tell two cameras were going off!


Always glued to that phone.



Ryan and Denise, don't mind the cocktail sauce on his shirt. He's a messy eater! :-)


Love these girls and I want Rachel's wardrobe!


The band teacher trying her hand at Rock Band.



Kutcher is not a big fan of her carrier, so she always has to have her head popped out of the bag so she can see what's going on!


Sad day! Dropping my parents off at O'Hare! I can't wait for the day when were not separated by 2000 miles!