Yesterday was my nephew Dylan's birthday! It was a carnival theme party with a popcorn bar and games. Dylan wasn't too interested in opening his presents. But I think he is making a good competitive eater in training because he totally went to town on his cake.
Last Sunday was MK's birthday...which meant we totally celebrated it and didn't sit around all day watching football...
But anyways.
Friday he had a get together at his house. Which meant I had to drive to Bolingbrook. Which meant I had to dig out my car...It was kind of buried under a foot and a half of snow and had a mound piled up behind it. After spending a half hour scraping and shoveling I got it out. Only to get stuck in the alley. But then I managed to shovel out some snow from under the tires and finally was on my way.
I got to MK's around 8. And he was kind of drunk when I got there. It only got kind of worse...
Julie and I drank a bottle of wine and I had some Ecto-Cooler inspired somekindadrink and we all played with the nerf guns and helicopter.
I may have accidentally texted JoeW's parents house from MK's phone "I Love You"...did you know that if you do that it will call the person and leave a transcribed message? Oops.
And did I mention that MK was pretty wasted? But shhh, don't tell anyone!
I left around 2 which meant at around 3am I got stuck in the alley and had to shovel myself out. And then still kept getting stuck trying to park so I gave up, got stuck again, had to drive around looking for a free spot that wasn't covered in snow. :( And my back hurts again now.
But anyways.
Happy Birthday MK!
Heather's birthday was...
...dinner at Riverview Tavern - nacos and mushroom pizza. And mango martinis.
....pool and darts and juke box albums at Four Treys. And a random dog.
.....a final drink at Four Moon.
......cake (by special request - white cake from a box with vanilla frosting) and wine and snuggie wearing back at the apartment.
Happy Birthday Heather!
Heather and my birthdays are only ten days apart. Which kind of makes January a super-awesome month for partying. We celebrated my birthday on my birthday on Tuesday. And we will surely celebrate again for Heather next Friday...but there was nothing stopping us from hosting an event in between!
Last night we had an amazingly awesome party at Lincoln Karaoke. After a quick stop for Guatemalan food Heather and Jeremy and Alyssa and I headed over to Lincoln Square to meet up with about a bazillion other people. We got to Lincoln Karaoke at 9 and a few were already awaiting us. The place kind of looks like a cross between a dentist's office and a red light district brothel. You walk in to a plain white office-type space and then the guy leads you through some non-descript hallways into a room. Not everyone was there right at 9 so we were ushered into a small room which we quickly knew would not cut it for long. The karaoke machines were cranked up and we sang songs to the background of random Korean music videos and nature scenes that really had nothing to do with the song we were singing.
I loved the space for so many reasons. First you got your own room so you saved the embarrassment of singing in front of anyone you didn't know (or at least you semi-know everyone). Not that I get embarrassed my horrid karaoke skills. 2) Since you get your own room you don't get to experience that put your name in for a song and wait an hour until they call your name thing that happens at regular places. 3) There were several mics. So basically it was more of an everyone sings along if they know the song instead of one person stands while everyone stares.
We ended up with a pretty large crowd. Definitely over 30. I didn't even try to count. I was so excited that some people I hadn't seen in a long time came out and some people from Urbana. So they moved us into a much bigger room to finish off most of our night.
I don't really remember how much I had to drink. But the good thing about it being your birthday is that you can demand people bring you vodka cranberries all night :)
And then the owner made me do a shot he called the "Rocky Mountain Bear Fucker" which I managed to take in only three gulps with a lime as a chaser. How many times have I mentioned that I can't do shots here? At least I didn't throw up on myself though :)
We ended up staying until three in the morning and we sang everything from everyone. ABBA and System of a Down to Skid Row and Radio Head and Madonna and Pearl Jam and Ace of Base everything in between. And it was amazing. Well, a lot of the singing was awful. But that is what karaoke is. Awful singing
It was such a blast singing until the wee hours of the morning with tons of close friends and new friends. Thanks to everyone who came out and sang or didn't sing!
Why is it that I can go weeks without having anything really to do and then everyone seems to plan everything for the very same night? What do you do when one friend is having a housewarming, another is having a birthday, and it's all on the same night as your high school reunion that you're not even sure you want to go to? Well, you try as hard as you might to squeeze everything into one night!
Joe and Meredith's Housewarming
When I woke up on Saturday I hadn't been planning on going to their housewarming as it started at 6 and my reunion was at 7. But then as I was gathering directions for the day I noticed that their new place was only a mile from the reunion bar...so of course I had to go! Of course, I got there around 6:30 and left by 7:15 so I came and went before any other guests arrived, but I am happy I got to see their place! And ONE of the closets in their bedroom is bigger than my entire bedroom. And I got to taste one of Meredith's little wieners...which did not mean going upstairs with Joe ;-)
High School Reunion
In all honestly I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to my high school reunion. It was really a matter of while I didn't necessarily want to go, I didn't want to not go. And it really didn't help that none of my friends wanted to go so I would have to venture over all by myself. But I decided to brave it alone as really, it's one night in ten years that you get to see a bunch of people you went to school with long ago.
So I got to the bar around 7:30 and was immediately greeted by Michelle who I haven't seen since high school but admitted that she stalked my website (hi!). And I felt good about my decision to go. But I think seeing Jeff again solidified my decision because he called me about 5 years ago and my social anxiety kicked in and I never called him back. So it was good to catch up finally! Mat finally came too. And I had lots of wine.
Alyssa's Birthday
I left the reunion shortly after ten and headed to Innjoy to see Alyssa for her birthday celebration. There were drinks and 80s music and some weird movie on the TV that we couldn't figure out. And I had lots of rum. Awesome.
Happy Birthday Chelsa! Last week was Chelsa's birthday which of course meant we celebrated all week! Of course she would say that NONE of the activities were in honor of her birthday but I think that everything you do in your birthday week is in honor of your birthday!
Monday
After work we headed out to get some Mexican food. Yum. She was going to a Mozart concert that I was invited to but after driving to Tennesee and back on no sleep I knew I wouldn't make it.
Thursday
CHelsa and JennyS and I met up in Evanston to get some Flat Top and go see I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. The movie was good and funny but not amazingly funny. I am so not a feminist because I think as a woman I was supposed to be offended by the movie/book or something. Instead though I just laugh at the women who fall for that kind of shit.
Friday
Friday Chelsa had a game night at her place! She taught me a two-person solitaire game which I was doing really well at until she figured out that she forgot to tell me one of the rules...and I finally played Apples to Apples for the first time ever. Seriously, there have probably been 50 occasions in my life where someone has said we were going to play and it never happened. We also played a lot of catchphrase...and I was laughed at for giving the clue "black lady who wanted to sit on a bus." It works right?
Tabitha brought over some massively awesome cookies...
And Ryan got a makeover...
AND! I found out he's a big fan of competitive eating as well! Awe-some.
So we ended up staying out until...oh...5am...playing games and drinking and being loud because we could be.
Saturday night we went out for JoeJoe's birthday. He picked a sushi place near him that turned out to be delicious! We got tons and tons of it!
Including a special...bacon bomber! Sushi with bacon? Amazing!
At one point during the meal it was brought up that Meredith's bachelorette was the night before. SO at the end of the night they brought out a cake for her and JoeW...he commented that they brought them a cake on JoeJoe's birthday...so they brought us another one! Lots of cake? Awesome.
Last week Meredith celebrated her birthday. Friday we all met up at Kona Grill for dinner. We decided to get some delicious sushi as an appatizer so we could get both entrees and sushi. That was a good call. We also got onion strings. Yum. The ordering process was actually pretty easy as Alina, Meredith, and I all got the macadmia nut chicken, Joejoe and Joe both got the meatloaf and Maureen was different and got a salad. Then we got a chocolate brownie and a white chocolate cheesecake. And Meredith got a drink that came with rock candy which was awesome.
After dinner we headed back to Meredith and Joe's place and tried to figure out what you would do with a huge stack of scrapbooking materials and tried to convince Meredith that she should make a totally innapropriate scrapbook from her honeymoon.
Saturday was Alina's birthday!
A bunch of us headed out to Bucca di Beppo where we had waaaaay too much food! It was all yummy. But there was a lot. But I still ate as much as possible because it was yummy.
There was a Apple Gorgonzola Salad, Ceasar Salad, Bruschetta, Fried Calamari, Fried Mozzarella, Prosciutto Stuffed Mushrooms, Spaghetti with Meatballs, Penne Basilica, Gnocchi al Telefono, Proscuttio Stuffed Chicken, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Italian Broccoli Romano, Tiramisu, Double Dark Chocolate Cake, Homemade Cheesecake, Apple Crostata...
...and 2.5 litres of wine!
Yum!
Although we weren't at the creepy pope table, we were sitting by a giant picture of a spaghetti-eating contest, and a picture of the bear! (It's a bear damnit!!!)
Fun times!
After dinner we went back to AlOe's place and played some Mario Kart and Guitar Hero and watched Mickey Mouse Fight Club for JoeJoe!
blah. my last week has been blah-y.
but starting Friday I will be crazy busy with tons of fun stuff for the next week!
Friday: Jen's in Chicago? maybe something?
Saturday: Baby Shower Part 2 and then heading to champaign for Lindsay's party
Sunday: Naperville for a Super Bowl Par-tay
Monday: Hopefully launching the site!
Tuesday: 24 night?
Wednesday: 5-hour opera
Friday: Fantasy of the Opera!
Saturday: Lighting class
Busy bee!
Since I haven't been very fun over the last week, here are some more pics from my birthday that I stole from Emily's facebook page:
