Goodness Me, Where to Start?

So this past weekend was a little crazy, but it was so great I have to tell you about it. (Pictures to come when I'm home on my own computer)
Friday- I went to the Taste of Chicago. I go every year, but this year (like last) was a bit of a disappointment (2nd smallest on record). Since we were done early, my friend Leah and I decided to knock something off my Life List and go to the observation deck of Willis Tower. Yeah, we went on the ledges and I have the pictures to prove it (like I said, I'll post them next week!)
Saturday- almost time for Jamie's wedding!! Met some friends for brunch then got mani/pedis at this place at our mall. I'd never had one before, but I'll swear by them now! Seriously, the chair was a massage-y chair and the lady got my feet all skin colored and stuff! Plus- it was only $29 (which I was told was cheap, and it was totally worth it). Then I finally got to meet the groomsmen at the rehearsal dinner. I kind of loved the best man, he was awesome (don't get excited, he has a long-term girlfriend, whom I also loved).
Sunday- Wedding day!!! Pictures and longer post to come next week
Monday- Fourth of July is my favorite holiday, I love everything about it. Hope you enjoyed my patriotic videos and had a safe and awesome holiday!
Tuesday- It's my birthday! I turned 29, got my first massage (oh was that nice!), and got to go out with some of my best friends for tapas. Afterwards my friend J drove me home, and somehow I was concerned that we would have nothing to talk about (we've never spent any time alone, yet I count him among my closest friends!), but of course we had fun and found things to talk about.
Wednesday- BORING back to work
Thursday- Goodness! I went out for supper with Sarah, but the creperie we intended on going to was closed (sad!) and we had to go somewhere else. Which worked out in our favor when we got to sample free new muffins they won't really be releasing until next week. It pays to be a picky, regular customer apparently!

In Honor of Kristin's 28th Birthday

I will continue my photo challenge. Challenge Two is "a photo of you with the person you've been closest with the longest". Obviously (since I'm doing it because of her birthday) my person is Kristin. We had a great time tonight. We went out to a pub (actually my favorite place to eat!) here in town, got supper, and participated in the Wednesday Night Pub Quiz. It was super awesome for several reasons. 1. It was Kristin's birthday, and both her brothers came out with up, which was nice because I know she's been wanting to spend more time with them. 2. The meal was fantastic. 3. I enjoy the group of people we were out with a great deal. 4. Out of 18 (we think) teams, we came in number FIVE!! So now we have to do it again so we can try to beat that. Go Team Meese!!!

This picture is from my birthday in 2009 (when I turned 27). I had just graduated AU and was unemployed (meaning I'd been out of work since the school year started September 2008), so I didn't have a lot of money. So for my birthday Kristin and I went to Jamie's apartment after the fireworks and spent the night with her. Then on my birthday we went to Krape Park and played there for awhile before Kristin made grilled pork and potatoes for my birthday dinner.

Challenges...Part Two

Nearly two weeks ago I wrote about needing to challenge myself. And I’ve written almost nothing since, because apparently all I had to do was ask. Wednesday was “Spring Fling” at my work- it’s kind of like a fun fair, but before all the fun we have kindergarten graduation and a spring sing. We’ve spent the last two months teaching all the children four songs to sing for their parents, and all the hard work (mine and theirs) showed- it was awesome. But it was the kind of awesome that exhausts people. My boss asked me to make a slide show of our kindergarteners over the years they’ve been at our school so that was hours worth of assembling pictures and organizing them so they’d appear random but weren’t clumped and had good shots of every kindergartener. Also I had to help my kids find ways around the inevitable stage fright (yeah, six hours practicing in our sanctuary with anyone and everyone I could find to come “watch” us helped). Then for some reason I decided to teach my kids some basic yoga poses, and that has been a challenge to them and now I’m working out four times a day more than I usually do, so I’m sore just about everywhere. Plus almost every weekend has been something (mostly getting ready for Jamie’s wedding) and there was family drama I can’t talk about. Thank goodness for the long weekend- and for my travel plans. A few friends and I are going up to the house we rented for vacation last year for a long weekend of wine tasting, (hopefully) swimming, boutique shopping, and relaxing.
Apparently it was a matter of “ask and you shall receive”. Dare I ask for a new challenge now that spring fling is over?

30 Days of Song- Day...Whatever I'm on now

Cause I'm not going to bother looking it up since I know the question.
Song I want played at my funeral- Kellie Pickler's "Going Out In Style"


So today I went to Jamie's wedding dress fitting. It was super fun, but the plan was to go to the fitting, then do some mother's day shopping (not me, I'm done, but Kristin wasn't), then lunch. After that I suggested going to see Jamie's new house (she's moving as part of getting married, they're renting in Winebago). The next thing any of us new, we were at her old apartment (in which much fun has been had) packing things up because she's moving in a week. After that Kristin and I plopped on her bed and made Jamie try on all her clothes so that we could make her get rid of stuff that didn't look good on her. Which was great because we made score cards (like in ice skating) and rated her clothes' performance!

Fun Times & Day 21

I got off work early today and went to pick up the menus for Jamie's shower. I had been told they would be ready tonight, so I drove 25 minutes to pick them up. Only to be told they weren't ready and I can go get them TOMORROW night. Uh...gas costs $4.39 (at best) in my town, I don't really want to be in my car for almost an extra hour. When I go back tomorrow, I'm going to try to convince the nice manager that he wants to comp me some corn chowder for the hassle.
After that, I met Sarah for supper at Panera and then a shopping trip to Michael's. Dinner was great, they have this new chicken chowder I really liked. I had fun shopping with Sarah too. I'm a terrible shopper, I like it so much that sometimes I forget that others might want to wrap it up, so I wondererd through the whole store at a snail's pace (we were in there an hour and a half!) picking out wedding stamps (to make cards for my friends). Plus somehow, buying things for my class and some stuff to make a necklace for Kristin's mom for mother's day. Yet, despite the fact that I had fun, I might have had more fun if we had done what we usually do (hang out at McDonald's) becuase then we just sit and talk, and it feels less like trying to run errands and "fit in" hanging out.
30 Days of Song- Day 21
A song that you play when you're happy- I am generally pretty happy if there's good music on, but one of my favorite not-angry songs is "Haven't Met You Yet" by Michael Buble. The music is so bubbly and happy, and even the message is a happy one. I don't know, I just really like it.

Can We Slow This Ride Down A Little?

Because my weekends are goingby in a whirlwind of crazy and have been for weeks, and will continue to do so for months to come. Yesterday for instance I had brunch with the Olsons (my favorite family), drove to Aurora for a stampin' party with Sarah (hosted by another high school friend), and worked on stuff for Jamie's wedding shower.
Today, my mom and I took Nick, Nataly, and Mandy to the zoo for Nick's second birthday. Wait, just in case you didn't catch that, let me say it again- NICK'S SECOND BIRTHDAY. Like, seriously? Because I'm pretty sure it's been about six months since I graduated from AU and he was two weeks old when that happened, so...somebody screwed up their math, and for once I don't think it was me! But we had a lot of fun at the zoo. We got to see the rhinos (Nick was scared of them), the okapi (Nick loved her), the bison, the lions (they were awake, which is rare), and a bunch of other things. Then I spend $37 on hot dogs for lunch for five people! Also, when we were looking at the camels, the tram went by and the guide said "Over here on the right we have Christina, a breeding female [camel]." I was standing on the right between the tram and the camels. Awesome. We also went to the farm zoo (which we'd never done before) and the kids and I petted some goats. Then Nataly said "I want to go back to the grown up zoo" so we left. I would show you pictures, but when I'm done with the song thing, I'm going to do a picture challenge, so you'll have to wait.
30 Days of Song (Days 17 & 18)
Umm...did I mention how busy I was this weekend? So I didn't post the yesterday. Sorry.
Day 17. A song I hear on the radio alot- I actually don't listen to the radio very much, because my commute is litteraly four blocks, and if I'm going anywhere else, I listen to my mp3 player, but I do feel I've heard Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" quite a bit lately, so I guess that's my answer.

Day 18. A song I wish I heard on the radio- Again, I don't listen to the radio much, but one song that I really enjoy that I wish I did hear on teh radio is Katy Perry's "One of the Boys".

Painted Wine Glasses

Kristin and I are throwing Jamie's bridal shower in June. Despite the fact that a few people HATE our plan, we're it in a local restaurant and asking people to buy their own lunch, because we are both pre-school teachers and thus have very little money to spend. Our invitations are made (and awesome), and so we've moved on to making our favors. We decided we wanted something nice since we're asking people to pay for their own food, so we decided to fill wine glasses with pink and silver Dove hearts. We also decided to decorate the wine glasses, to give them a little pizzaz. We thought what we bought to do the glass was glaze, so we thought it would be fairly thin and we would just splatter paint them and call it a day. The paint turned out to be fairly thick, so we actually painted each of 25 wine glasses today. And they turned out COOL!
The enamel we used is Folkart Enamels in metallic silver, engine red, and wicker white which we bought at Hobby Lobby. We had to make our own pink which we did by combining one jar of red with two jars of white. This took longer than we had anticipated and involved some trial and error. What we eventually decided was that it wasn't really worth putting the enamel back in the jar after we mixed it. Also, we achieved peppermint pink after about a 1/2 jar of red and couldn't get it much darker even when we added another 1/2 jar of paint.
We flipped the glasses upside down and painted them with fairly small paint brushes (liner, 1 and 2 point brushes mostly). Once they were all painted, we let them set for about an hour, and then started baking them to make the enamel set. To prevent breakage you put them in a cold oven and then turn it to 350 degrees. Once the oven achieves temp. bake for another 30 minutes, then turn off the heat and allow the oven to cool before removing the glasses.
Overall, I think the enamel was really easy to use, and worked out if not exactly how we thought, exactly how we wanted. What do you think?

New Year's Eve

This weekend Jamie gathered a great group (of which I obviously a part!) of people. First it was bride’s maids and their significant others to pick out our dresses for her wedding. So we went to David’s only to find that the color she had picked mere weeks earlier and had been carting a sample of to florists and such, has been discontinued so she has to pick a new shade. At first the David’s lady tried to sell us as a group on this shade of pink

But the maid of honor is Kristin. Who you may know has skin approximately this color.

She would have looked naked. And based on the dress we wound up picking, she would have looked like she has a weird shoulder growth. Instead Jamie picked this shade (which I like significantly more than the original actually).

After that minor drama, we stood around a picture of the dresses David’s offers telling the lady which ones we like and she just keeps saying “No, that one doesn’t come in the color you picked.” Jamie had pre-selected three dresses for us and only one came in the color she picked. We wound up trying on the one she picked and two others and unanimously agreeing to the final dress we tried on. It looked the best on the most people and everyone looked great. The one I tried on even fit me correctly, although the sizing chart said I should be wearing (depending on the body part) one-two sizes larger, I ordered the one that fit.

After dinner, we went back to Jamie’s apartment for the rest of the holiday weekend. Actually one bride’s maid and her husband went home and the rest of us went back to Jamie’s, but that’s okay because the next day other friend’s joined us, and sleeping arrangements were already tight. Games were played in which we split into groups like “White Sox and Cubs” (those wearing white socks and those wearing a color) and “Techies and Luddites” (those who own a Nook and those who do not).

Friday we split up to see a movie. Team Awesome (the boys plus me) went to see The Fighter, which was A-MAZE-ING! Except for the part where I kept having to shove my fist in my mouth to refrain from yelling at the screen for Mickey to, a-hem, beat someone up (because of course I was not in fact so into the movie that I was swearing at the screen. Honest.) Team Lady-parts saw Tangled, but I don’t know if that was any good because I didn’t see it.
And then, finally, what I’m sure you really wanted to know about, the New Year’s Eve celebration began. And it was awesome. Something awesoemly ridiculous was said at one point, and I said I was going to use it as the title of this post and then only include ridiculous pics and no words for the rest of it. Alas, I cannot remember what was said, so instead I included all of the above words. But I shall include the following pics as well...
Jenna and Justin
This is all of us playing a game (I think Finish Lines) and that is, of course, mearly juice in the Martini glass.
At some point we took a group picture, which turned out nice since I had never used the self picture option on my camera before (good job Chris!)

John brought peppermint schanpps and chocolate syrup so we could take a shot and then have chocolate syrup squeezed down our throats. Somehow, this was far messier than it sounds :)

But, it was also delicious (I hear, I of course have never taken a shot nor drunk even one drop of alcohol!)

John really could not understand why I was taking pictures.

But he seemed to finally get into the spirit of just being weird and enjoying it. I'm not really sure how he'll feel about the appearance of these on my blog actually.

Aww...aren't Jessica and John adorable?

Hockey kicks baseball's butt!

I’m not going to say anything about my car search just yet. I’ll let you know stuff once it’s set for sure. However, I do have some things to say about the weekend.
This weekend was AWESOME!! Kristin and I went out to Rockford where Jamie’s fiancée lives. From there we stopped first at David’s Bridal to look for a wedding dress. Jamie bought the second one she tried on and it was perfect. I have pictures, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to share them here. So…no photos will be posted unless I’m told otherwise.
After that we went Christmas shopping and I got several people knocked off my list. Then we went to an Ice Hogs game (minor league hockey). I love hockey, but I hadn’t been to a game since my dad died because he was always the one who took me. We crammed five people in Chris’ Focus and headed to the game, parked, and then were informed that no one really knew where we going, so for the fourth once again we busted out something we nearly always say when we go to Rockford “Follow those people!” Good thing people in Rockford are pretty nice or we would have been drowned in the Rock River years ago! So we get to the game and I’m sitting there screaming my head off cheering and cursing and basically acting like any sports fan who’s really into the game and I think Kristin was quite surprised by my behavior. Not that it was out of line, but she just didn’t realize how much I like hockey, and had never seen me like that because she’s only seen me at sporting events I didn’t understand. Also, when the players started fighting (dropped sticks=fights) Kristin thought it was poor sportsmanship and couldn’t get into it until I explained that it’s allowed in the rules of the game.
We stayed the night and shopped a bit this morning, but no matter how much fun the whole weekend was, eventually it was time to head home. We got in Kristin’s car and we started off but less than five minutes later her car was bouncing and making a flapping noise. Of course we figured it was a flat tire, but the tires all looked fully inflated. We debated, but decided to go back to Chris’ apartment. Good thing, because as Kristin was calling her dad to ask his opinion, she ran out of cell phone minutes and my phone battery had run out the day before (despite having been fully charged when we left). I tried to get her to write on the note she left for the mechanic “My car is making a noise like ‘flappa flappa flappa clunk’ and bouncing like a lowrider over train tracks” but she didn’t think that would be very instructive :(