We didn't do a darned thing this year for NYE!  In fact, I think I slept most of the evening and woke up within an hour of midnight.  And Brandon didn't roll out of bed until a couple minutes before midnight!  That's okay though.  Who needs NYE excitement.  ;)

Afterwards, we stayed up and watched movies until the wee hours of the morning.

Happy New Year everyone!

Yesterday we went to Famous Dave's to celebrate our birthdays.  In attendance:  Me, Brandon, Uncle Ken, Gma, Clayton, Teresa, Al, Jacob and Kim.  We had a lot of fun and got some pretty nifty gifts for our birthdays.  Here's a few pix:

Apparently Al and Flynn called each other before dinner so they could dress alike.

Teresa thinks she's a funny lady.  And of course, she is.  LOL

The obligatory Get Fuzzy calendar from Teresa!  Yay!

New stereo system for his iPod

Brandon is in a daze from all that cash...

Back in August, I went through a photo shoot with my Acadia for GMC The Magazine.  The fall issue just came out, so now I can post the pix that we took during the photo shoot.  Yay!  :)  We did this over at Flynn's mom's house since it was secluded and had good scenery.  My dogs were involved since I mentioned them in the article, but they didn't behave much for the picture taking part... *sigh*

First arriving at the photo shoot...

First shot.

Enter: the dogs.  2nd shot.

The guy on the left is trying to make Caleb and Mason look at the camera.  LOL

The uncooperative dogs.  They eventually disappeared into the truck and that's when we realized that we left the open container of treats sitting in the back seat.  Ooops!!!

Repositioning for the 3rd shot.

After an hour of taking photos...

And here's the actual article and picture that they ended up using for it:

It's a picture I wasn't even posing for!  LOL  I think that's one where he was telling me to be about 4 inches shorter.  So was had to kind of bend my knees and duck for the picture.  I guess it turned out okay though.  :)  It was a fun experience!

I took the kids to Apple Holler today to pick out pumpkins for Halloween.  We were originally going to pick apples too until I found out how damn expensive that was.  The pumpkins were no day in the park price-wise either!  Needless to say, I will not go back there for my pumpkin needs in the future.  We did have fun, found some good pumpkins and I got some good pictures.  Even if I did end up having to pay a dollar for one of those pix!  *rolls eyes*

Brandon and Emily

Our new "Myspace angle"

Awww... so cute.  :)

The Pumpkin Kids

Waiting in the pumpkin checkout line.

Psycho Brandon driving us back home...

Gma carves her pumpkin!

This would be the picture I paid a dollar for.  Whatever.  LOL

Gma is also in charge of the pumpkin seeds.

Ewwww... pumpkin guts!

The final result.

A couple weeks ago, I finally got around to painting Brandon's bedroom. The colors he chose were lime green and dark purple. It turned out awesome! Here's a picture I took of him on his first day of school, in the new room:



And today I am finally going to get my living room painted. It's currently a lighter brown/tan called Pecan Sandie. The color it's going to be when I'm through is a very dark brown called Chocolate Sparkle. I know, it sounds yummy. LOL I'll be sure to post pix when I'm through.

And so, I begin my new career as a painter...
 

Some of you may find this kinda silly, but I'm pretty excited about being chosen for this interview. 

As many of my Myspace visitors probably know, I bought a GMC Acadia in March 2007.  Shortly after, I joined an Acadia forum that had just started up. A couple days ago, through the forum, I was contacted by a staff writer for GMC - The Magazine.  They want to interview me for their Acadia spotlight in their Fall issue.  They'll do a phone interview this Thursday and then arrange to send someone out to take pictures of me and my truck.

I recently achieved "Acadia Freak" status on that forum for having 1,000 posts.  That's part of the reason I was chosen, since nobody else on the board (4,000+ members), except the Admin, has that many posts.  LOL  I'm not certain what that says about me...

They'll give me additional copies of the magazine for my own personal use once it's published.  *woot*

Once won't fly tonight...

because once, once ain't wild as twice. (to quote a little HOTD)

Possibly I'm just crazy. But when Tom Petty announced yesterday that there would be a fan club presale of tickets for a newly announced Milwaukee Summerfest show on July 5th, I only hesitated a minute before deciding I'd fork out the money to go.

My main excuse was that my brother wanted to go see Petty and I didn't get him a ticket for the other show, so as a bday present, I bought him a ticket for the one in Milwaukee.

I so hate Ticketmaster. It's so stressful. You have to have two browser windows open and keep searching for the best possible seats in a very limited amount of time. And then sometimes it comes back with no seats available, which drives me nuts because I've literally only been trying for a few minutes! But. Get this.

I HAVE 5TH ROW FOR TOM PETTY AT THE MARCUS AMPHITHEATER IN MILWAUKEE!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!

OMG. Okay I had to get that out. I couldn't believe those tix came up. Hap-Happy Day!

Okay so now I've literally spent a gazillion dollars on tickets to see Tom Petty this summer but I really don't give a damn. I am SO going to enjoy these shows.

Now, if any of my fabulous musician friends have an "in" with Tom Petty's camp and can hook me up, I'd be forever grateful. heh
 

Me, Ken, Brandon, Clayton and Heather took a ride up to the Mall of America this weekend for some fun and entertainment!  Though, the speeding ticket I got from a WI state trooper on the way up there was neither fun, nor entertaining.  Okay that's actually a lie, it was both.  LOL   We video taped it from inside the car and joked about it afterwards.  Though I did end up forking out $267 on a credit card right there on the spot to pay for it.  That part wasn't very fun.

We checked into our hotel across the street from the MOA late on Friday night.  It took us a while to unwind and fall asleep, but we did eventually.  I called Flynn when we got there to tell him what happened with the ticket, and he had news of his own (he was in New Orleans with his brother for the weekend).  Walking down Bourbon St., he was mugged!  He had a little cut above his eye from where the guy punched him out and the hospital patched it up for him.   He was out some cash that he had on him, but amazingly they did not take the video camera or his expensive cell phone.  Crikey, what is this world coming to?

 Woke up bright and early on Saturday morning, had breakfast at the hotel and wandered over to the mall.  We did a lot of window shopping, but not much actual shopping.  We played some miniature golf, rode the rides at Camp Snoopy and tried on silly hats.

Me and my little sister, Ken.

Brandon and Clayton trying on a new look.

I think this one speaks for itself.

Look, I'm a dino!  *rawr*

If librarians wore pink furry hats...

Seriously, have you seen this face?

They loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly... Hills that is.

The kids in the back of the Acadia.

For dinner we stopped at Famous Daves.  I've never been there before.  I loved it!  Yummmers!  :)  We hit the road for home pretty late on Saturday, after 9pm and rolled into Chicago around 2am or so.  It was a quick trip, but we had a lot of fun.  :)

While still chilly, 67 degrees is better than below ZERO!

Friday | January 18, 2008

Today is the day we leave for LA! YAY! (I'm purdy good at rhyming eh?) Unfortunately I had to work all day, so that meant getting up at 5am. I was in for a very long day.

Our flight is at 8:35pm out of O'Hare. Flynn, Jason and Deirdre met me at the office at 6pm. One of the perks of working here is that we get to leave our vehicles in the parking garage free of charge when we go out of town and the hotel across the street will shuttle us to the airport, also free of charge. *woot* That worked out perfectly. We got to the airport on time and without incident only to find out that our flight was delayed. DELAYED?!?! The weather was beautiful! A little chilly, but not snowing or raining or sleeting. WTF? It was only delayed by like an hour and we still got into LA in a timely fashion, so I guess it wasn't a biggie. We went to Chili's Too and had dinner to pass some time. The service there was terrible, but I had the most awesome salad ever for dinner.

Picking up the rental car at Thrifty also went pretty smoothly… until of course we decided to go with the Chrysler Sebring convertible. You just don't put 4 adults and a bunch of luggage into a tiny little convertible, especially when one of those adults is unusually tall. ;) I kept thinking "We'll appreciate this tomorrow when we get to put the top down!" But honestly we didn't even really use the car until Sunday and even then we only had the top down for a little bit. *sigh* Oh well. Live and learn, right? :)

Here's our crappy rental...

Our hotel is on Western Ave between Sunset and Hollywood Blvd. A fair location and actually a really nice hotel at a very reasonable price. I will definitely stay there again. By the time we were all checked in and settled down, it was nearly 3am (5am CST) and I decided to just crash.

Our hotel was awesome, here's the kidney bean shaped pool in the courtyard:

Saturday | January 19, 2008

Happy Birthday Jason! He was grumpy about being 31 today. So that afternoon, Flynn and I ventured out on our own. Did some shopping for soda and snacks. Then walked down Sunset to Vine, then over to Hollywood Blvd. and took some pictures at Hollywood and Vine. Of course, I had that Samantha 7 song in my head the entire time. LOL Here we are at Hollywood and Vine. Note the "myspace" angle. heh

Here's Flynn tired of me taking "myspace" angle shots:

After that, we went over to the mall and did some shopping, grabbed a bite to eat and whatnot. My dumbass wore heels for all this walking. Not necessarily uncomfortable heels, but by the time you've walked a few miles in them, yeah, they're just not that comfy anymore. My calves and thighs were KILLING me by the time we walked all the way back to the hotel. OMG I was in cartoon pain. *ow ow ow*

Back at the hotel, we got all purdied up for the show. I was going to wear this amazing lime green and black outfit, but Flynn thought it was a bit too much green. So I opted for a short black skirt, pink/black hoodie, fishnet tights and these killer boots that I recently bought. Though… nobody got a picture of the killer boots, which is disappointing to say the least. :( We drove our darling convertible to the show and actually got parking nearby.

Another one of me and Flynn (note cheesy smile due to being sick of pictures...):

Jason and Deirdre:

The Whisky is not at all what I was expecting. I don't know what exactly I was expecting, but it wasn't this small of a club packed to the gills with people. OMG, nuts. There were SO many people there! Good for the band, bad if you don't want to be pushed around constantly by others. After attempting to find a place to stand around, we ended up buying a VIP table for the four of us. It was a $100 minimum and we figured we'd probably drink that much anyway, so we might as well sit and enjoy it. LOL

Prior to that though, while standing around upstairs, I was approached by boB! Now I've known boB through the LAG camp FOREVER and a day now, but this is the first time we've ever met. Very cool. :)

I sent a text to Phil to let him know we'd arrived at the club and he texts me back with a note to come upstairs. OK. So I go upstairs. Nada. So I text back again – where exactly upstairs? Hehe Then boB came up with me to show me where the entrance was to the backstage area. Turns out I needed a wristband to do so. Shortly after I had my wristband and ventured upstairs to say hello to the band. That's when I discovered who the surprise guests for the evening were. *woot* Also met Eric (LAG MySpace Eric). I hung out for a short while and then went back downstairs to eat since I had ordered food earlier.

Not too long after that, Stephanie and Silke showed up. And Sheila. And Rose. And I'm sure a host of others whom I either wasn't introduced to or just don't remember their names. I met Sis during the show when Stephanie and I were right up front waiting for the band to come on. We were probably about two or three rows back from the stage, near the center. Not a bad location.

boB, me, Stephanie and Silke:


The show was fabulous! The band looked great. Flynn later said that the guitar and vocals were drowned out by the bass, but up front, it sounded okay to me. And I wasn't even drunk. HAHA At some point during the show, Stacey whips out this new guitar. Phil says "Whatcha got there Stace?" and Stacey replies "My new guitar bitch." HEHE… I found that friggin' funny. Maybe you had to be there. I don't remember the set list, but I do remember that they played Crystal Eyes. OMG I TOTALLY LOVE THAT SONG. And I have never gotten to hear the entire thing live. They used to just play it as a teaser into Jayne. Toward the end of the show, Adam ( Hamilton ) joined them on stage on geetar. Don't ask me to remember the song they played, because I'm pretty bad at that. And then for the last two songs (I think it was the last two), Kelly (Nickels) joined them on stage on bass. It was so awesome! What a friggin' cool ass 20^th anniversary gig.

Scott -

and another one of Scott -

Steve -


I love the color in this pic of Phil -

And here's another one of Phil -

Scott and Adam -


Even though it's a little bright and out of focus, I love this picture of Stacey -


And another one of Stace -

Kelly and Scott -

And another pic of Stacey...

Steve isn't usually very easy to get pictures of, but I managed to get a few -

I guess I took more pictures of Stacey than I realized... This one is blurred, but so cool looking -

Phil and Stacey -

Steve -

Kelly -

Stacey saying g'night to the crowd... that or offering them a drink. Possibly both -

The one downfall of the evening was when some moron decided to get on stage and then jumped out into the crowd. People mostly stepped aside and let him hit the floor, but he managed to take Stephanie down with him, hurting two of her fingers on her right hand. She beat the living daylights out of him though. LOL That was awesome. Go Steph! Hopefully he felt that the next day. I hate stupid people.

After the show, we went back upstairs. Security was giving everyone a hard time and ushering them out of the venue. The band was attempting to sign stuff at the merch table. Friggin' security was yanking stuff right out from under Scott's pen while he was signing! WTF? How rude. Kelly joined the crowd over by the merch table, so I ran over to get Stephanie so that she could meet him since she never has before. She got to say hello and whatnot. Then we went back over by the stairs and waited to see what was going on next. This is kinda funny… we were telling Silke about how Stephanie got to meet Kelly, and then he walks past us. I think Flynn said something about if she wanted to meet him and Silke said that she did not need to. Loud enough for Kelly to hear her while he was heading downstairs. And we were laughing. He came back up the stairs and wrapped his arms around her in a big bear hug. LMFAO That was awesome.

Security was getting feisty and I was the only one with a wristband, so I hung around a little longer to see what was going on. Phil told us to meet him back at his and Junko's place. So we followed Stephanie and Silke there since they were his houseguests for the week. :) We hung out there for a while drinking and talking. Phil, Junko and their friends joined us not long after. Stacey and Lisa arrived as well. Phil has these crazy cats. Or at least one of them was crazy. She kept chewing on Stephanie's skirt and attacking my feet. LOL We stayed until about 4am, said our goodbyes and were on our way. Thank you Phil and Junko for inviting us over! Their home is very cozy and inviting. I love it. :)

Sunday | January 20, 2008

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! WTF did we do on Sunday? Oh right. We got a bit of a late start on Sunday. It's the day we got to put the top down on the car for a while. Yay! Convertibles are cool. But not comfortable. Remember that. And Sebrings are POS cars. I would never ever buy one or even rent one again. Anywho, we drove around a bit. Passed by the Whisky and the Cat Club -

Ended up back on Hollywood Blvd. Shopped some more since I had to pick up souvenirs for the family. We went to Mel's Drive-In for dinner. I had this fabulous Sunset Burger that was absolutely delicious. Then we walked around a bit more.

And here's another funny thing…

We're in this store that sold clothing, jewelry, etc. Underneath the glass case are tons of pictures of I'm assuming the store owner with various stars. I'm standing there looking at this picture of the guy with who I'm thinking is Stacey Blades. It looks an awful lot like Stacey. I was waiting for Flynn to come over so I could ask him when my phone rang. I look at the caller ID and guess who it was? LOL Stacey! I pick up and we're all like "what's up…" and I said "I think I'm looking at a picture of you. How weird is that?" Turns out it actually was Stacey. *cue twilight zone music* So anyway, Stacey was calling to invite us to dinner/drinks at El Compadre with him, Lisa, Scott and Kristin. We were also waiting on Stephanie and Silke to join us, so they were invited too. This wasn't happening until closer to 10pm, so we had some time to kill.

We decided to check out a movie at the Chinese Theatre. Cloverfield. Don't waste your life on this movie. I guess it wasn't THAT bad, but it wasn't that good either. And if you're feeling slightly dizzy or sick to your stomach, this isn't the movie for you. The camera work is enough to make one hurl. The sound was freakin' amazing in there though. I'd love to see another movie there. Maybe a good movie. hehe While we were there, Stacey called again to confirm the 10pm meeting time. I <3 Stacey and Lisa. How sweet and thoughtful was it of them to call and invite us out? Awww…

After the show, we met up with Steph and Silke, then went over to the restaurant. Which somehow I completely managed to pass by and went way to far. I had to call Stace back to figure out where the heck it was. It had great ambience and was very comfy. We stayed and chatted for a couple hours. Scott is a very funny guy. We laughed hard and had a lot of fun. We also talked a bit about working on the LAG site. Time to get our asses in gear on that one. I also learned something new from Stacey that I'm not sure I'm allowed to share, so until he tells me otherwise or spills the beans himself, my lips are sealed. It's very, very cool though. Bet you guys would love to know what it is. :)~

At midnight, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel. I packed up my stuff and crashed for the night.

Monday | January 21, 2008

We woke up to a cloudy, rainy ass day in LA. Hollywood actually, since we were in Hollywood . YUCK. Lovely convertible weather. NOT. Stupid rain. So we got ready for the day, checked out, packed up the tiny car, loaded in and were off to Redondo Beach for some sightseeing. Originally we were going to swing up toward Beachwood Drive to get a good view of the Hollywood sign and take pictures, but the rain deterred us. We did make a pit stop by the Home Depot to get some duct tape to repair Jason's suitcase. The Home Depot has rooftop parking and elevators to get down into the store. WTH?

The drive down to Redondo Beach was long and trafficky, but at least the sky cleared up a bit and the sun was shining sporadically. It wasn't exactly warm, but only really chilly when the sun went behind a cloud. Here are some very cool pictures from Redondo Beach .

There was this jewelry shop where you could pick an oyster for $12.95 and he would crack it open right there, let you see the pearl, take it out, shine it up and give it to you. *woot* It was so freaking cool! I had to have one. So I picked my oyster and ended up with a cream colored pearl. Apparently cream colored means healthy oyster. White means young oyster. And blue/black (which are the really pretty ones) means sickly oyster. Go figure. So then Flynn wanted one. He picked his oyster and ended up with a blue/black pearl. PRETTY! Then, I figured since Weds was mom's birthday, she might like a pearl. So I picked one more for her and it also ended up being a blue/black (see pix). I guess sometimes you can get a double-pearl oyster. That would have been cool, but we had no such luck.

We also took some cool pelican pictures and pix of various other birds, etc. And a starfish clinging to the side of the wall in the marina.

Flynn made a new friend while we were there -

After Redondo Beach , we headed over to Hermosa Beach so I could find some shells for my mom. The pictures we took there turned out AMAZING! I love the "beach" setting on my lil Sony. Very cool. We found a ton of shells and a sand dollar, and a gross jellyfish. *yuck*

We had lots of time to kill, so we drove around a lot in our very cramped convertible. Stopped at In N Out Burger to eat. I'm still not seeing where it's as fabulous as everyone goes on about. The burger was yucky and over-cooked. The fries were decent though. After that we drove around to check out some casinos, but all they have are card games. Lame. Then we stopped for sushi, which was delicious. Though I draw the line at octopus. Bleh.

Our flight was scheduled to depart LAX at 11:55pm. It was nearly 10pm, so we headed back to the Thrifty car rental place and returned our tiny POS car. We didn't have to wait long for the shuttle bus. Yay! So we get to LAX and start checking in, only to discover our flight has been delayed to depart at 1:45am. WTF?!? We grumped about it and went through the check in process. I was wearing these black and purple pants with all sorts of metal do-hickeys all over them (pictured above). I *knew* that they would set off the security sensors, but didn't care. LOL Sure enough, I was pulled aside for a thorough search. The woman who did the search said I was wearing her favorite color, so she'd make this go quick. Didn't matter, we had plenty of time to kill before our flight. Boy they really feel you up to make sure you're not being sneaky. What a good time that was. It didn't take very long and we were on our way to gate 47B.

We stopped and picked up a couple movies to watch on Flynn's laptop, only to have problems with the video drivers on said laptop. So I took a little nap while Flynn tried to get Charlotte 's Web to work. Airport floors are NOT comfortable. And it appears that after midnight, they don't expect anyone to need food or drink since everything shut down at that time. I also swear I saw Ron Jeremy at the airport, but Jason said it wasn't him. Could have been his evil twin though, seriously. LOL I called my mom to check on the weather in Chicago an was informed that it had already been snowing for three hours and was still snowing. *yay* not.

Tuesday | January 22, 2008

Our flight started boarding at 1:15am. We were all tucked in and cozy. Actually, these planes are so far from cozy or comfortable, that I think the person who designed the seating should be shot. Or at least slapped in the head repeatedly. I took lots of pictures since my mom has never been on an airplane and I wanted to show her what it was like. I also took a short nap, but woke up with a wicked kink in my neck and shoulder. Stupid plane. We touched down at 7:05am. It was freaking cold and snowing like nuts outside too. No problems getting our baggage. In fact, I was sitting there wishing that ours would come out first and sure enough, mine was the first one out of the gate. Then Flynn's was third. My other suitcase was just after that. I was like "woohoo!" so then I wished that Jason and Deirdre's would be next, and it was! Tuesday must have been my lucky day. We trekked over to the Shuttle Bus Center to look for our Hotel Sofitel shuttle bus at Door 1 and there it was, waiting for us! Well not actually waiting for US, but it was there. So we hopped right on and headed back to my work. We were in our cars and on the tollway by 8am. It looked like it was going to be a long hellish drive, but it only took me about an hour to get back home. I stayed up and talked to my mom until about 10am and then crashed out. I didn't get up again until 4:30pm. I think I'm just now starting to recover from lack of sleep.

In flight over who knows where - (that's actually the moon)

As we were landing, I snapped some pix. This building is right across the road from where I work. I didn't take it on purpose, it just happened to be when I took the pic -

Touch down at O'Hare -

That's all folks -

So I hope you enjoyed the recap of the weekend and the pictures. Until next time…

p.s. while it took me an entire morning to type up a 6 page blog, it also took me another 2 hours to pick and edit the pictures for this blog. THAT is why this blog is a week late being posted.

p.p.s. This coming weekend, we are off to the Mall of America. Which is another blog to look forward to!

hey hey hey... I’m going to LA!

Our flight departs O'Hare at 8:05pm this coming Friday night. *woot*

L.A. Guns is playing The Whisky on Saturday, January 19th and I fully intend on being in attendance for the gig.  I even bought a new outfit for the occasion.

I'll have a full report upon my return, complete with pictures. C U THERE. 

The Official "Yay, I Got a New Job!!!!" Blog 

Some of you are aware that my boss and mentor of 8+ years ditched me last July to move on to greener pastures. I can't blame her. Our company was going through a merger, futures uncertain. It was an opportunity that could not be passed up. So away she went. And, guess who got stuck with all of her work for no recognition or financial gain whatsoever? Uh huh. Me. The Faux Risk Manager / Senior Risk Analyst.

I got my resume out there immediately and started looking for new opportunities for myself. Finally, one presented itself. The risk management community is large and if you know the right people, it's easy to get the word out that you're available. It was a lengthy process from the time I submitted my resume, went on my first interview, then on my second interview and then went back for testing of my analytical skills, got the job offer, went in for the drug test, etc. etc. OMG, it felt like forever. But I did it, I got the job. YAY ME!

So I gave my current employer my two weeks notice (which was actually 3 if you include the week I was off for Christmas) and preparing a transition plan. Transitioning to who... who knows. LOL They didn't replace me with anybody. I guess they're expecting our claims manager to pick up the slack. hahahahahehehehehe omg, yea. Right.

Friday, January 4, 2008 was my last day with Grubb & Ellis Company. My evil cohorts took me out for lunch, gave me a lovely going away card and signed the "white board" in my cubicle. I took a picture. They are a funny group:



Bill in particular. Fears for his physical well being. *rolls eyes* hehe I can't help it if I had to threaten him on a daily basis to keep him in line. Seriously.

So I start my new job as Risk Analyst with Reyes Holdings on Monday, January 7th. I've been so desperate to get out of downtown Chicago and finally I am. YAY! Here's the ironic thing... my first day with Reyes will be spent at a renewal meeting in... you guessed it, downtown Chicago. hehe Oh well. You can't win everything I guess.
 

Our Birthday Blog

Brandon and I chose to celebrate our birthdays on December 22nd at the Wildfire Restaurant in downtown Chicago with friends and family. In attendance: Brandon, Myself, Ken (my brother), Joe (Brandon's father), Angie (Joe's wife), Josh (Angie's son), Teresa, Al, Jacob, Jeremiah and Clayton. I think Teresa has the group picture on her camera, so I'll have to add it later.

Before dinner, we walked down Michigan Ave. and over to State Street to take in the Christmas lights and decorations. The weather was damp, but not too cold and definitely not raining or snowing. It was perfect for walking around in. Yay!

The night before was my birthday and my brother came over with presents for me. One of them was a Sponge Bob. And one of the other presents was a Cricut (pronounced "cricket", not "cry cut" LMFAO) machine that is used for scrapbooking. Awesome!!!! It is such a very cool present.



So anyway, Saturday (12/22), we got downtown around 5:30pm or so I believe. Here's a picture of me and Brandon together on State Street:



And here's me, Brandon and my brother Ken in front of an enormous Christmas tree made up of lots of regular sized Christmas trees:



And this is Brandon and his friends:


L to R: Jacob, Jeremiah, Brandon and Clayton

After enjoying the Christmas lights, we headed over to Wildfire for dinner. This was on the table at everyone's place setting (thanx Teresa. hehe):



Here's me and my brother at dinner:



And one of me and Flynn:



After dinner and dessert, they brought us out pieces of chocolate cake with a candle in it. Make a wish Brandon!



And then, they brought us THE BILL. Holy smoke. But really not bad for 12 people I guess.



Earlier, during our walk up to Michigan Avenue, Ken saw some blue lights outside Excalibur (a club) and wanted his picture with them. So after dinner, he went over there with Brandon and got his picture. Here's Ken as a "blue light special" hehe



For Brandon's birthday, on the 30th, I bought him 16 black and purple balloons and two mylar balloons. Here's a picture of his presents and balloons:



This is Brandon opening one of his presents. It was a pair of purple and black checkered pants (girls pants even).



And here he is wearing those pants:



I picked up a cake at Coldstone Creamery. It's a red velvet and double chocolate peppermint ice cream cake. It was DELICIOUS. and frozen. So I couldn't put candles in it. Instead I lit tea-lights and put 16 of them around it. haha



Overall we had a great time on our birthdays and at our birthday dinner.
 

Previous