Mardi Gras Madness!

We left bright and early Friday morning and I got settled into Jenna and Kaila's living room by noon. I could barely contain my excitement! Jenna got off work early and we headed to dinner at Lebanon's, then headed to the daiquiri shop to stock up for an evening of fun! We loaded up our light-up daiquiri mugs and headed over to the S. Liberty house. There, we put the finishing touches on our looks for the night and headed out to the parades. You should consider yourself lucky if you didn't come across this group on Friday night.

The first parade was Hermes. It was fine, but the real Hermes was not there, so there was no fighting.

The next parade was Krewe d'Etat, one of my favorites. Blago was there representing Illinois. It made me proud to be wearing my Illinois sweatshirt.After d'Etat was Morpheus. We were all a little disappointed about the lack of throws from these parades. We weren't sure why we were so unlucky, but there were some suggestions that maybe the float riders were more disturbed/disgusted than amused by our facial hair.

On our way back to Chuck and Gill's, Jenna and I stopped to get our picture taken with the Eli Manning bush. We love the Eli Manning Bush. On Saturday, it was time to prepare for the Rubik's Cube party. Jenna and I began with a wonderful breakfast at Huevos, then proceeded on to the Pelican thrift store. We found some really great costumes.

The evening began with a gourmet grill-out. So much tasty food! My friends are amazing by themselves, but when everyone gets together, great things happen!

After gorging myself with food, it was time for the real party to begin! Everyone changed into their costumes, and everyone's costumes were awesome. And they only got awesome-er throughout the night. Here, the party is starting with some serious flip-cup playing. I got in trouble for filling my cup with daiquiri instead of beer, but when have I ever been known to follow the rules?

This is pretty much what happened all night long. You never knew when you were going to come across someone taking their clothes off.

Jenna can't resist me in all my green glory! Joe better watch out! Late at night, the Rubik's Cube party morphed into a dance party in the kitchen. This was so exciting that I literally danced my foot off. Well, not off, but read on for an explanation.

Sunday was a very lazy day. Bob, Jenna and I ate lunch at Juan's, then went home for naps. We had to prepare ourselves for Pirate Day! Bacchus was pretty crowded, but Brian parted the seas of people with his pirate ship. Who would have thought that daiquiris were the pirates' drink of choice?! Menacing!We saw Creed at the parade! He was standing with some people near us.
After the parade, we feasted on Reginelli's. So tasty! I was very tired, but Caroline convinced me to meet her at Carrollton Station to hear a band that she didn't know the name of. She's very persuasive.

It turned out the band was called Dash Rip Rock, but they were posing as the Jonas Brothers. Of course, Caroline and I could not pass up the opportunity to join them onstage for a live recording for the newest Jonas Brothers DVD. But really, who could pass up that opportunity of a lifetime!

We left on Monday afternoon, but at least I had gotten my fill of Mardi Gras by then.

OK, so now about that foot injury from the Saturday night kitchen dance party.

I woke up Sunday morning and got off the futon and noticed a great pain in my right foot. I ate Advil like candy for the rest of the day while we went to the parades and figured it would either go away or I'd deal with it at home.

I dealt with the foot for the rest of this week, but decided that maybe today I should go to the doctor and get it checked out. I went to Convenient Care, they sent me to X-Ray, then I returned to Convenient Care to get the results. The CC doctor was mystified by my x-rays and had to consult with podiatry, who said there was something fractured or something. So they put me in the crazy half cast thing and now I have to have crutches for two weeks until my follow up appointment.

Annabel is pretending to be Chinese food. That was for you, Pat.

St. Maarten

Early last Thursday morning, it was about 35 degrees in Champaign. Not so wonderful, but no worries! I was off to sunny St. Maarten! We had to stop in Chicago to pick up some people, then we were on our way! The flight was uneventful and we finally got to our hotel around 5. Here is the view from my room:

We walked around a little bit, then decided to have dinner at the Sunset Beach Bar. I enjoyed a cheeseburger and an Amstel Bright as we watched the sunset. It was quite nice. Much nicer than watching the sunset while sitting under my Snuggie in my living room. Not that I don't love my Snuggie.

The next day, I was on a mission. I was going to lay in the sun all day and work on my tan. I was really good and went to the "fitness centre" in the morning. It turned out to be a small room crammed with random fitness equipment. I ran for about 15 minutes, then thought I might die of sweatiness. Also, the super-fit people doing all kinds of crazy crunches were kind of intimidating.

Once I got cleaned up, I slapped on some sunscreen and headed out to the beach. My hotel had a pool area with chairs and a swim up bar. There was also a fake beach area with some sand and chairs. I chose the fake beach area to get a more authentic island feel. Here is the view from my beach chair:
Yes, life is so rough! At first I tried to be good about flipping every so often to get an even tan and such, but anyone who knows me knows that I have a very short attention span and also am not a great multi-tasker. I got very involved in reading the Cosmo Confessions and drinking coconut rum and soon forgot about the whole flipping-over thing.

Needless to say, the combination of hasty sunscreen application and sitting in one position for hours did not make for a pleasant evening/next few days. I had quite an interesting burn, and I must admit I still have remnants of it as I write this today, five days later.

We had dinner at an Italian place called Pizza Pasta. Very clever name, very tasty food. I watched some 30 Rock and then went to bed. Or maybe I should say tried to go to bed. There was loud music outside the hotel from some night club. Then there was even louder music for some street dance performance. Then the people in the room next door started watching some TV. I can't say exactly what they were watching, but I can say that I'm glad there weren't any kids in my room because it would have been hard to explain what kind of show we were hearing the dialogue for.

The next day I lazed around my room, watched some Kath & Kim, and read some more Cosmo. I quite enjoyed the view off my balcony, as I could watch the planes take off and land over the beach. More on that in a minute. Just as I was getting incredibly bored, I decided to explore the area a little bit. I walked around and saw the sights. There wasn't too much that we hadn't seen already, but I did see a real live coconut tree. I hoped that some day my coconut trees on Animal Crossing would be this impressive.
We wandered back to Sunset Beach Bar and watched the planes land and take off. The airport is ridiculously close to the ocean so it was pretty crazy. The beach is just on the other side of the road in the picture.
The next morning it was time to head home. We only had to make one pit-stop along the way in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Evidently it was nothing major and we made it back to Chicago only about three and a half hours behind schedule. While at O'Hare, we saw Airforce One. It was very large and blue. We finally made it back to Champaign, and back to the coldness. I am looking forward to my next trip to the south.

If anyone receives a mysterious email/facebook message from me, please disregard it. It was probably just Annabel.

New Orleans Wedding and New Car Mania!

Ok, so it's been a while since I've been back and I've just been lazy.  Karman has been hounding me to post about this trip, but there is so much to say.  I don't think I can describe the whole wonderful trip.  Here are links to Gene's blog.  He did a very thorough job of describing all of the festivities with pictures and everything.  I know, I'm being lazy, but I also didn't take many pictures.  Crazy, I know.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

If you want more pictures, look on Facebook.

Gill and Brian's wedding was so beautiful, and the reception was a blast!  It was so good to see everyone from college all back in one place, and so interesting to hear about what everyone is doing these days.  I am looking forward to an encore at Mardi Gras in a week!

After its trip to New Orleans, I took the Jeep in to have its hoses checked (that's what she said) and it turned out that besides a new hose, the water pump was going to have to be replaced soon.  After much deliberation, I decided to buy a new car.  One that I would be able to drive around and not have to wonder when it will next break down/overheat.  So goodbye Jeep, you were a wonderful, fun car.

And hello CC, which is also a wonderful, very fun car, but with the added bonus of seat warmers and a sunroof!  I was very sad to let the Jeep go, but the sadness was quickly replaced by excitement.  It's so shiny and zippy!

I have a couple trips coming up.  I'm pretty excited to get to work again.  Yay!

Hibbing, Minnesota

This past weekend I had the immense pleasure of spending just under 48 hours in Hibbing, Minnesota.  It was very snowy there.  I got a little excited at first because as we were arriving at our hotel, I saw a sign pointing the way to the Greyhound Bus Museum!  Unfortunately, it is only open mid-May through September.  After more research, I found that most things in the area are only open during the summer months.  The weather was so nice, I don't know why it's not a popular winter vacation spot!

Our hotel in Hibbing was the luxurious Hibbing Park Hotel & Suites.  It was so fancy that instead of tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner and a bar of soap, they cover all the bases with this handy dispenser:

They must know how chic the olive green tiles are and how much I love the bath mats that suction cup to the bottom of the tub.  Gross.

I had dinner both nights at Grandma's in the Park Bar & Grill.  It was satisfactory.  On Saturday night, I was approached by someone leaving from one of the tables.  He was maybe in his mid- to late-thirties.  He asked me if I went to Hibbing High School because I looked familiar.  Thanks for thinking I'm 35 years old, guy.  He then asked me if I'm good at Trivia, because they were all going to play Trivia.  I guess that's what you do on the weekends when it's -10 degrees outside.

I gave Bob a call, since he's always very entertaining.  We discussed the pros and cons of the Snuggie and the ShamWow.  I really want a ShamWow.  We also made bets on how much it would cost to fly from Champaign to New Orleans for the big wedding.  It would be $900.  I will be driving.

After spending 42 hours straight in the hotel, we headed back to the airport.  We stopped at McDonalds on our way there to place our order for catering:  26 double cheeseburgers.  We finally made it to the airport to see how the plane was doing.  It was covered in snow.

The pilots set to work clearing it off while I supervised.  I also hung out with this good-looking guy:

They had to use an air blower to blow the rest of the snow off the plane, then they de-iced it.

We got the plane all cleaned up and got back to Champaign.  There was a ridiculous amount of sand in the carpet since that's what they use for traction in the snow.

I was glad to be back where it's a nice 30 degrees instead of -10.

In other big news, Medo had surgery on his cruciate on Monday.  He now has a peg leg.  Too bad he won't wear an eyepatch.  Here, he is playing Operation with his pink bunny.

Michigan and Mexico

On Thursday, I had the pleasure of going to Michigan.  It was snowy and cold.  I spent the afternoon looking at failblog and laughing to myself, which caused everyone to look at me like I was crazy.  It might be true.  That's pretty much all I have to report about Michigan.

Mexico.  I had never been to Mexico.  I've seen many pictures of Mexico.  In some, it looks like paradise.  In some, in looks like a place that would not be such a popular vacation destination.  That's the Mexico that I went to.  Hermosillo is in the middle of the desert.  There are random mountains around, but mostly it was flat.  Maybe they aren't actually mountains, but to my central Illinoisan eyes, they were mountains.  We wandered the streets and saw the sights, then we decided to check out the grocery stores.  Very interesting.  They smelled really gross.  They kept the eggs with the produce, unrefrigerated.  They had random hunks of meat that must have been some sort of animal insides, but I don't know spanish to read the label and it wasn't obvious what they were by looking at them.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a picture of them until we had already left.   We had dinner at the Sonora Steak place by the hotel.  Pretty tasty, I had some kind of chipotle steak.  I love steak of any kind, so it's hard to go wrong!

Here are some pictures I took from the hotel:

It was a very short trip, we left Monday and came back Tuesday.  We had to stop in Decatur for customs.  As soon as we landed, some kind of misty rain started.  It was only 19*F out, so the rain started freezing on the plane.  The plane got icy and the airport closed about 45 minutes later because they couldn't keep the runways clear.  ADM was nice enough to let us put the plane in their hangar and we ended up having to leave it there overnight because there was no way the weather was going to stop misbehaving.  So I guess the pilots are going to get it today.  

Those are my most recent adventures.  I don't have much scheduled for a few weeks, so unless anything comes up, I'll be trying to get Karman to keep me entertained.

Merry Christmas from Annabel!

Here you go, Sara!

Sara was complaining this afternoon about my lack of updates, so I counter-complained about my lack of trips lately.  Don't worry, I have a couple trips coming up, so maybe I'll be entertaining you again soon!

During my non-working days, I've been trying to keep busy by running lots of errands.  I've been making daily trips to Target.  I am trying to be better about making a list to cut down on my number of trips there, but there is always something to entertain me at the happiest place on Earth.  I also enjoy making lists with Ta-Da.  I like to try to make them as long as possible so it looks like I'm really busy.

I've spent a few entertaining afternoons with Morgan and Maya.  We went to see Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.  It was quite amusing.  Side Note: Whenever we drive by the movie theater, Maya yells "popcorn!"  Also, Morgan is pretty serious about Mario Kart.  We make a good team.  Maya mostly just runs into the fences, then laughs hysterically.  She is more interested in playing with Annabel, except she gets frustrated when Annabel hides from her.

This may come as a surprise to many of you, but I've also been making daily trips to the gym!  I figured that instead of watching The Price is Right while sitting on my couch, I could watch it while walking/running on a treadmill!  I've been going to evolve every morning around 10 or so to watch the pricing games and get fit.  I've been thinking that maybe I should run the half-marathon in the spring, but I'm also thinking that I might fall on my face after about 2 miles.

Here are some photos of Thanksgiving at my parents house:

Here, I am helping stuff the turkey by holding open the neck flap.

Here is the grown-ups table...

and here is the kids table.

I'm not sure why the grown-ups got the big table when there were only five of them and seven of us had to crowd around the kids table.

On Saturday, November 22, 2008 the mayor of Champaign declared it Eagle Scout Pat Bogner day.  Pat wore his costume and we all celebrated with a ridiculously long game of Trivial Pursuit.

There isn't much else going on around here.  Hopefully I'll have some excitement to report soon!

Sunrise from the sky

So I got "the call" around 10:00 yesterday morning.  There's a flight tomorrow (today) to go down to Florida to pick some people up for the Illini game today.  Departure at 4:00am, show is 3:00am.  I went out and got some doughnuts and fruit for breakfast.  I tried to go to bed early, but I couldn't fall asleep because I'm not used to going to be before like 10:00.  1:45am came too soon.

When we left Champaign it was 38 degrees and raining.  The forcast called for snow by the time we got back.  We landed in Sarasota and it was about 80 degrees.  Needless to say, I wished we had more time there.

The flight was fine and it wasn't snowing when we got back to Champaign.  Yay!  Too bad the Illini are losing right now.  Ohio State just got another touchdown.

Here are some pictures of the sun rising over Georgia/Florida that I took out the window of the plane at 38,000 feet:

Here are some pictures along the Florida coastline near Tampa/Sarasota:

The Illini just got another touchdown, but they're behind by 10 with :42 left in the game.  Bummer.