Mini House Church Reunion

So Lindsey set up dinner because it had been so long since we had all seen each other. We met at Denny's which was a regular hang out after house church back in the day. I had already eaten at Bob Evans that morning after church so I was frequenting all of the senior citizens establishments yesterday! It was great seeing everyone and I hope we do it more often than once every three years! :-) Josh facebooked me from the table asking me to blog this dinner, so I hope I did it up to your standards Josh! I explained that they only way I post is if I have pictures so if wanted this on my blog, we were going to have to take some photos!

The first thing Luke said to me was, "Tara, I don't know if you remember me or not, but I was in your house church!" I did remember him but he was a lot more talkative at dinner than he was in the two times he came to house church! :-)

In our email trail, we decided to do dinner yesterday because I was leaving for Cali for three weeks, Josh was going to Hawaii for 2, so Amanda and Chris said they were going to Australia for 7 weeks and Jerrod said he was visiting the international space station. Lindsey believed all of us. Only two of us were telling the truth! :-)

I'm always enlightened when I'm around Jerrod. He's a wealth of knowledge. However when I said that last night it came out "I'm always enlightened around Jerrod. He's a wealth of knowledge that you'll never use in a lifetime" or something like that! I didn't mean it the way it came out!

We discovered that Luke is one of those people that falls for all the gimmicks! Gets store credit cards for the 10% discount, buys F&I products at dealerships because the dealer told him he was getting a deal, getting a transmission flush at the oil change place because it was "needed" and buying a bowflex off the tv because it might really give you a six pack! We got a good laugh out of him. Not to mention his most outrageous thing he's ever done.......jumping out at cars when he was 8 with his friends asking if they loved Jesus! He was a real rebel child! :-)

Great seeing all of you! Hope you enjoy all your vacations and space station escapades! :-) Let's do it again soon!

Marissa's 30th Birthday

Marissa's 30th birthday is Tuesday so we celebrated Saturday night at Alexanders in Peoria and then went out for drinks at Martinis. Marissa loves butterflies, dragonflies, flowers and anything colorful, so I tried to make it special by incorporating all those things into the evening. Down the name cards had dragonfly stickers on them. It was a fun evening. We had some great food, yummy cake and great company!

Marissa and Denise checking out the picture placemats. I took pictures from young to present and made collages and then laminated them for each place setting.

Even our waiter kept saying like 4 times that we had brought our A game. That in his 7 years of working there, he'd never seen a table like it. It was funny!

The birthday girl

Andrew and Mallory. They just set the date for their wedding in July. Andy even got recognized at Steak-N-Shake recently. Some kid yelled "aren't you the guy from the Kansas City Chiefs?"

Daniel with cutie Caleb. I kept thinking there was something different about Daniel. Well he's lost 30 pounds and changed his hair. Yep, that's what it was! :-)

Jennessa didn't feel well after dinner so she didn't get to hang out with us.

They were going for the serious pose, however Daniel kind of ruined it by trying to get food out of his teeth instead!

Poor Adair. We harass this kid so bad, but he takes it well. I walked up and asked if he'd just been to Hawaii because of his puca shell bracelet his was wearing. That end of the table errupted in laughter. Apparently, Ben had been giving him a hard time about it all evening!

Mark and Becky, he cooked her steak a little long because he said she ALWAYS makes him put it back on the grill. He said, "I don't really like re-cooking your food after I've started eating mine, so I cooked it extra long so I wouldn't have to get back up"! It was definitely cooked all the way through! :-)

Becky asked for a class of hot water to warm up Caleb's bottle. They brought her a beer glass. We said it looked like one of those car bomb shots. We were calling it a breast milk car bomb!

Andy was having a little trouble lighting the candles and then got burnt. This response was a smidge dramatic though! :-)

All the guys broke out into a Michael Smith(from The Office) rendition version of happy birthday that had everyone around us laughing!

"I hope I got that bicycle Ben was supposed to be getting me for my birthday"!

Everytime I see these earrings in pictures, they look like coasters. They might be a little large!

D went and did the Ultrabronz that day before dinner. It gives you the equivalent of three tans! On a "white" day, Denise is darker than 90% of America. Just what she needs to do is get 3x as dark! :-)

Mallory was great at rounding up bar stools from all over the place. Everytime you saw her she was collecting another one! Don't know where she kept finding them! :-)

Denise thought she needed to squat down in front of Daniel for fear that we might not be able to see his face. When he's a foot taller than you are, I think you're good! :-)

Ben and his harem. Marissa always calls me Ben's girlfriend because he and I get along so well, which helps Marissa when I think Ben is out of line because she "sicks" me on Ben as she puts in, so I can get him to straighten up! :-)

We look like a color wheel, winter, spring, summer and I don't mean our clothes!

"4 Doors Down" Concert

So Ash hooked us up with tickets to the 3 Doors Down concert. They were in a suite and everything. As Tim put it best, "you know we would be the type of people that would go and watch a concert in a suite when none of us really are that big of fans of any of the bands"! I couldn't have even told you in advance a song that 3 Doors Down plays. I mean I knew I would recognize their songs but couldn't name any off the top of my head. The concert was fun, just a lot of opening bands. 3 opening bands for a group that you're not THAT excited about is a little much! :-)

They started out at Maguires for food and drink before the concert. Ash and Holly ran into Susan from 101.5 in the bathroom and Holly said she made a joke about the old paper towel dispenser like "What's with the 1984 paper towel dispenser?" Holly was like she stole my joke! I always say stuff like 1912 called and wants that back! I said, you make comments about the victorian era a lot?! :-)


Poor Jen, she didn't feel well that night and had to leave a couple songs into 3 Doors Down playing.

Ash and Jen were telling everyone that they were going to the 4 Doors Down concert. People were asking them when the 4th door was added!

Ash thought it was a little cold in the suite so she broke out the gloves. She thought it was because of the ice rink, but I think it was because of the ice cold drink in her hands! :-)

Luke thought that Hoobastank was called Oopastake. We pretty much butchered EVERY band name!

Yes, Jen really is trying to climb on top of Ash! :-)

Tim and I caught up on some Jessica Simpson celebrity gossip. I was so impressed he knew so much! It must be his new wife's influence! :-)

Holly and Ash really getting into "Sleether" as Denise called them, or their real name Seether!

3 Doors Down

This was shortly before the main singer jumped into the crowd and crowd surfed.

We had a great time even though we couldn't get any of the band names right. We had SafetySuit that Ash thought was the Red Cross, Hoobstank aka Oopastake, Oobastick, Hoobastink, Seether aka Sleether, and 3 Doors Down aka 4 Doors Down!

Hols and I liked the first pictre better. Ash and Denise liked the second one better, so I posted both. You decide! :-)

So you had to have a "suite" stamp on your hand AND on your ticket. We were told that EITHER one would get you in and out, but NOOOOOOOO.......the 80 year old nazi woman at the door required that you have not only the stamp on your hand and your stamped ticket if you wanted to get in and out. She ran a tight ship! I'm pretty sure we could have taken her but we decided to just be nice! :-)

Water Street

We(well it was my first time, the rest of them had been there before) tried out a new fondue place in Peoria. It's called Water Street. They don't have meat fondue yet, but apparently that is soon to come. It was great catching up with these girls. There was a lot of PCS talk that brought back a lot of memories because I remember spending countless hours at Marissa's house with Marissa and these girls at times hearing about all these classmates. Felt like old times!

The window seat they were sitting on looked cute but wasn't quite as comfy as it was cute!

If ever a lull in conversation, Courtney and I always have plenty of reality tv to talk about! :-)

The fondue was very good, but we all agreed there could have been just a bit more cheese!

Valentine's Day Coffee

Ashley and I(more Ashley than me) had a Valentine's Day coffee at her house for all of our friends. It all began with some heart shaped valentine's cookies that Elsa had and didn't need. I was glad she did! It was great to get everyone together! It was even better because Margaret was there and did all the set up and clean-up which allowed Ashley and I to mingle the entire time.

If Amy hasn't noticed this on Facebook yet, she will probably kill me that I put this picture on my blog as well. However, I don't think she ever takes a bad picture!

Candice doesn't like her picture taken either but she doesn't have Facebook and it doesn't sound like she's on the computer a lot, so I'm good! :-)

Ash's cousin Georgia said she needed some new cute jeans after being around everyone at the coffee. Too cute! I thought her jeans looked just fine!

Haley had just gotten back from Florida!

Katie and Carmella, Katie made this awesome salmon egg salad things! Not sure what all was in them(well obviously salmon and egg salad), but they were good!

Kate was loving the fact that Holly was totally washing her out!

The pink was totally planned, but the picture of the girls in pink was not. They were just all coincidentally all standing talking together!

Allison is showing off the cookies that inspired the whole coffee.

Haley waited as long as she could before she had to leave to go feed the baby!

Old buds

Ashley said that if you can see the skin between your eyebrows then you know the picture is too close, and I think that is a good rule of thumb to live by! :-)

Yes, Heidi, you do look like Sarah Palin with the bangs and glasses, but I still like the bangs! :-)

How is it that I was wearing flats, Ash is on heels and I'm still a foot taller than everyone?! I think Holly was slauching! :-)