Dinner with the Dietrich's 5-20-09

The Dietrich's came down last month to see me. They wanted to see the happening town of Bloomington-Normal and see why I think this place is so much cooler than Bourbonnais! haha I took them to Biaggis. Italian is always a safe choice. I don't think Karen would have agreed to come if I had chosen Mexican! Just teasing Karen! :-)

It was a little tight on their side of the booth. Tiff was having a little trouble seeing her entire menu!

Lydia was so good! She even missed her nap, but she was so cute all night! Such a good sport! She likes girls night out too!

She loves her Grandma. Hard to believe she's a Grandma! She looks like she could be her mom!

Lydia is such a ham! Always cheesin for the camera!

Tiff decided to move to our side of the table. It had a little more room! She and I were like two peas in a pod on the ride home sharing in the same views on child rearing.......not currently wanting any! :-)

It's a rarety that my sisters actually think me or my clothes are cool enough, but this night was the exception because this was my shirt Kate has on! haha

Lydia wanted to talk to her brother. She was a natural on the cell phone. Watch out mom! She's going to need a lot of minutes! At one point I heard her said, "I already did! I did it like clean up, clean up......." She's 3 going on like 18! :-)

Night in Bourbonnais 5-15-09

So I spent the week in Vegas for our National BHPH convention. The trip home was pretty eventful seeing that I found out the night before that you CANNOT fly standby on any other day than the day you are supposed to fly home. I ended up having to buy a one way ticket home since my original flight was supposed to get home on Monday instead of Friday. American quoted $400 dollars and I wasn't about to pay that for a one way ticket home when my flight out was less than $250. So I opted for looking for something myself. That left me with a flight home going from Vegas, to Cleveland, Cleveland to Indy and Indy to Chicago. Not exactly the most ideal trip home. I figured I could fly standby on one of the flights to take out a leg but the morons at the airports weren't getting what I was saying or helping customers look up every flight combination to Amsterdam so I took the puddle jumper flight home. When I got to Indy they had cancelled my flight due to weather. At that point, I would have just had someone pick me up in Indy, but seeing that my car was still sitting at O'hare, and I was supposed to hang out in Bourbonnais, I had no choice but to get a rental car and drive to Bourbonnais. So $460 later, I made it home. Expensive early return cost and at that point I'm sure the American Airlines customer service rep was laughing at me since I spent more flying all over the country and re-enacting Planes, Trains and Automobiles when I could have spent $400, had a straight flight to Chicago and left out all the extra drama!

Even after the all over the country travel, I still made it to Bourbonnais about 20 minutes after Denise! If I had trusted my instinct on the directions to Bourbonnais, I might have gotten there even earlier, but I followed someone else's directions(they shall remain nameless :-)) and got stuck in construction traffic for at least 30 minutes!

Matt, Keith calls him his farmer friend. He was trying to prove that he had friends, so the joke of the evening was that he paid Matt to hang out with us all night. I think the evening was twofold: he had to prove to Matt that he had fun friends from Bloomington and he had to prove to us that he had friends in Bourbonnais.

We gave Keith a hard time all night about EVERYTHING! This is him saying "what now?" He was a really good sport though!

Matt was a pretty decent pool player. He however was not impressed with my skills! I did not help out our team much!

We still won both games but not really because were awesome but because Keith and Denise have a tendency to scratch on the 8 ball!

They were good sports about losing and even treated us to a victory shot!

Keith and Matt got D good. She left her wallet just sitting wide open at the restaurant so they took her drivers license. When she went to buy a drink at the next place, she totally panicked not knowing where she had left her license. It was pretty funny to see her scramble!

He was trying to shove me out of the picture! We went to this martini bar. It was a pretty happening place.............FOR Bourbonnais! :-)

Keith was ready for the photo even though he looks like he's been put on pause in this picture!

He was a really good host! He had pizza, pop, and the newest episode of the Office awaiting us when we got back. He knows the way to our hearts......a little Michael Smith and Dwight Schrute! haha

NABD 5-12-09 - 5-14-09

The National Buy Here Pay Here convention is one of our biggest shows that we do every year. This was the first year I've gotten to go. Usually we have other people that work the booth, so it was fun to be able to go and actually see our big booth. The thing is massive. Not sure it's worth the expense to haul that thing all over the Vegas strip, but it looks cool nonetheless. The exhibit hall was open only certain hours a day so when we weren't in session, I took advantage of the Vegas sun and caught some rays. Not bad for a work trip! :-) I did however have to listen to this lady run her mouth the ENTIRE time I was at the pool. I'm not sure she ever took a breath! From stories about her grandson to trips to Mexico, she was full of all kinds of worthless information!

I lured people into our booth with candy. It only cost me about $25 in candy and $25 in a 4 minute cab ride to Walgreens and back!

David, Jeff, me and Greg. I could have sworn that Jeff had an earring the last time I saw him. Maybe it was just the highlights that threw me off for an IT guy! :-)

I asked Greg if we could get a picture together so I could prove that he actually was in our booth. The big joke is he comes to all the shows but spends no time in the booth to actually work it. From then on he refused to take a photo with me. Instead he would only take one of me!

EJ was slightly height challenged. I had to take my heels off and if you can tell in this picture he's practically hoisted himself up on the table behind us to look as tall as me!

Grandma's Funeral 5-11-09

So Grandma Huber passed away in early May. She went peacefully. All her kids were in her room surrounding her. Aunt Pam and Aunt Cindy sang I'll Fly Away to her and on the last phrase of the song, she took her last breath. It was a special week for my dad and his siblings to spend the week together around Grandma's bedside. Never have they had that kind of bonding time together since they were kids. I got to spend two days with them during that week, and it was fun to be the only grandkid there hanging out with all the adults. I enjoyed seeing them interact and just laugh and giggle like they were kids again. It was very surreal to have Grandma back in her old house and my dad and Cindy sleeping in their old bedrooms. My dad said it took him back about 30's years to eat in the same kitchen, shower in the same bathroom, and polish his shoes in the same sink he did when he was a kid. He did say though that he and Aunt Cindy were wondering why Brian was sleeping in the living room(Uncle Brian and Aunt Jacki remodeled the house and turned the old living room into their master bedroom)! :-) So while we were sad to see Grandma go, we were happy for her to be able to meet Grandpa and Aunt Kathie in Heaven. Something that she'd been hoping and talking about for quite some time. I'm sure they were waiting for her with open arms and welcome home signs! :-)

Just this week, I saw one of the country stars on CMT wearing Whit's shirt in their music video. Typical that Whit would have celebrity taste! :-)

Hanging onto more than one thing at a time proved to be troublesome for little Faye!

Her little giggle is infectious!

They are checking out Claire, but can't remember what she was doing at the time. I'm pretty sure this was before her strip show! haha

These three became quite the buds that weekend! It was so cute to see them reconnect at Morgan and Kyra's wedding. It was like no time had passed. Well I guess much hadn't.....like a month! :-)

You know those newlyweds. You've got to keep an eye on them! ;-)

She had had enough of the strained carrots! She was outta there!

Rach ruined her planned escape and she was not happy about it!

Heidi thought her plate was out of the picture. Instead it looks like she's an italian beef spokesmodel! :-)

Were just so close that we stand around and chat with our arms around each other! :-)

Something about this picture cracks me up! Maybe you can guess! Yes, it's Tami's creepy glowing eyes! She looks like Superman or something!

This was when I looked around and noticed that we had all sat down in families.

Cubs Game 5-5-09

Ty was home the first two weeks of May on leave. Ironically, Tera and I both had bleacher seats for the Cubs game the same day. So we made a day of it and all went together. It was a great day! Great weather, great food, great company! We always love having Ty home because for one he's safe, he's that much closer to being home for good and he's hilarious to be around!

It was Tera's first Wrigley experience and she enjoyed every minute of it. She unfortunately wasn't feeling so good later in the day!

I love this guy! Like a brother to me and always has the funniest things to say. He's the first person I heard say "I'm out like a fat kid in dodgeball"! haha

It was a fun game but the Cubs lost. They lost the last game I went to. I'm starting to see a pattern!

Keith and Ty's cousin Jason was off that day so he came with us. He bought that hat at the game. Looked like someone had beat the crap out of it and then sold it to him. What a sucker! haha

Looks almost like ballet out there!

Darn small forehead.......let's try this again!

I really need to put my hat on in front of a mirror! I can never see how far down it is until I see it in pictures! Keith was like um, yeah, we need to retake that. You can't see your eyes!

Ty had on the rally cap a little too long! Taking one for the team in hopes they'd pull out the win! Not this time!

What is it with people?! I say, can you take a picture of us with the field in the background. I don't mean that so literal. In my mind, the field is the stadium behind us. Apparently to everyone else that means the first 10 pactches of grass behind our heads!

See now THAT's a picture of the field behind. Fall all you know in that last photo, we could have been at a high school game!

Don't let them fool you! They're both teddy bears at heart! :-)

Picking out a t-shirt is a tough decision. When you are spending a whole $10 you want to make sure you don't have buyer's remorse!

It was after seeing this photo that I realized my gym workouts could be stepped up a bit! haha

My favorite Mexican restaurant in downtown Chicago. I don't like margaritas so I opted for water, however I didn't have a lot of choice when Keith mistakenly dumped his margarita back into the water pitcher instead of the margarita pitcher. Nothing like lime tequila flavored water!

These two were BBF's.......bathroom buddies forever. They maybe had a little too much to drink all day they were like on the 10 minute rotation to the bathroom the whole game!

Old Big Blue

So my dad spent a week like I said with his siblings that last week before my Grandma passed away. Well as the saying goes, "you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy!" Same is true with my dad! He was actually excited about helping Uncle Brian on the farm. Didn't think I'd ever hear those words come out of his mouth but he really enjoyed being back on the farm and getting back in touch with his roots! :-)

I got a text from him that said, "look at the window! I'm the one that it's in old big blue!"

He even still has the farmer wave down! :-)

Eldora Iowa 4-25-09

So Matt asked him to accompany him to a wedding. I committed before I knew where. Maybe I should have found that out before I said yes. It was in Iowa and not like on the border of Iowa and Illinois....way into Iowa like through a whole lot of nothingness and five hours later, you're in Eldora! JK We had a lot of fun! I told him he'd be sick of me by the end of the trip, because I was pretty sure I'd have no trouble filling 10 hours round trip of car time, and I was right. I think I wore him out. He couldn't get a word in edgewise the whole car ride! haha

Eldora is small town out in the middle of nowhere. Our directions weren't real clear and when our turn for 12th street looked iffy, we drove on to see if maybe we had gotten the wrong road, but seriously, in a town of 500 people, is it possible to have TWO 12th streets?! No, it's not!

Matt and the bride Krystal. She was bound determined that Matt had stolen her Cubs keychain and she wanted to settle the score. He pleaded the 5th all night!

Apparently it's a pre-requisite to be named Matt to work for CAT IT. That was Caterpillar IT. When you read it like it is, cat it sounds funny! :-) Matt works in a department of like 5 Matts. It's kind of funny, especially when he specifically hangs out with all the Matts because they're all good friends!

Texas Roadhouse 4-24-09

I met up with Philip and Stephanie and Mandy at Texas Roadhouse for dinner. It was supposed to be Jon and Bekah as well, but they couldn't make it last minute because of the Cubs game. Lame! :-) Steph let us know that night that she was pregnant. Exciting news!

Philip and Stephanie are pretty traditional but when it comes to baby names they don't agree. Steph wants something a little different and Philip would like to stick with the John's, Paul's, Kristin's and Megan's. Steph was like you just named off all the kids I went to elementary school with!

Mandy and I have this pact. If we find Chad Michael Murray and Nathan look alikes from One Tree Hill we will help each other out with the set-ups! :-)