Changed my site to celebrate my favorite holiday. Hope everyone has a good holiday, and gets lots of yummy candy.
Also, as a little Halloween treat, here’s a video of Ben in his turtle costume dancing to his favorite tune, “Mony Mony”.
We had a great time in California last weekend. We were there for Dave’s cousin Cathy, who was getting married. We met her husband Marc several years ago when we went on a snowboarding trip to Mammoth. We immediately got along and had an awesome time, snowboarding/skiing and quoting Napoleon Dynamite the whole time.
We started off the weekend at Cathy’s place, with a mini reunion of the relatives. It had been a while since Dave’s mom and all her siblings had been together with all their kids. We all just hung out and watched “Dancing with the Stars” (Benjamin’s idea, of course). I got a really great pictures of Dave’s grandmother and all of her grandkids and her one great grandkid.
We were honored to have Cathy ask Ben to be her ring bearer. We were a little nervous that he wouldn’t be able to do it, so we practiced with him a lot. During the wedding rehearsal, he did a great job walking down the aisle. We practiced a million times, during the rehearsal and before the wedding. The kid had it down! He was walking like a pro!
We had a plan to have Dave be in the back with Ben and me in the front of the room, since it would be more likely that he would want to walk to me than the other way around. Dave would give Ben the cue to start walking and Ben would walk down to me. We prayed that it would go off without a hitch and that he wouldn’t throw the pillow at someone, since the actual rings were on the pillow. When the time came, they had put down the cloth aisle runner and sprinkled flower petals down the aisle. I was starting to get nervous - Ben didn’t practice with all the extra fluff!
So all the bridesmaids and groomsmen came down the aisle, and it was time for Ben’s performance. The door opened, Dave and Ben came through. As soon as he stood on the aisle, he started whining, “I don’t want to! I’m finished!” and as soon as he saw the petals, he said, “I want to play! I want to play!” He put down the pillow next to Dave and tried to pick up the petals. I was loudly whispering, “Benjamin! Come here!” But he paid no attention to me. By this time people were laughing and to me it felt like an hour had passed - I had no idea what to do! Do I go down the aisle, pick him up and drag him down the aisle? Dave eventually picked him up, to which Ben did the “i have no bones” things where he just becomes limp so you can’t pick him up, and he dragged Ben down the aisle. I took Ben from Dave, put the pillow next to the chair in front of me and we sat down, allowing the wedding procession to go on as planned.
It was a great wedding. The priest was a hoot. I was still a little anxious because there was still the moment where Ben had to bring the pillow up to the priest for the blessing of the wedding rings. He was already getting bored and fussy, and a pack of m&m’s was the only thing stopping him from starting chaos. It wasn’t a big room, so all his little comments were easily heard. When the priest mentioned the rings, I knew it was time. Time for redemption.
I stood Ben in the aisle and reached for the pillow. When I tried to give it to him, I realized that the lace on the pillow was stuck in the zipper of Ben’s diaper bag. I started pulling, but nothing happened. Dave was trying to help, too. Finally, the lace was unstuck and we got the pillow loose. I handed it to Ben and gave him a little push to send him down the aisle. Nothing. The kid was as still as a stone. Marc bent down and opened his arms and made a “come here” motion. I gave Ben one last push (some say it was a big shove, I say it was a gentle nudge) and he finally toddled up the aisle into Marc’s waiting arms. People aww’d. Some clapped. Me? A sigh of relief.
The rest of the wedding was pretty uneventful, in terms of Ben drama. Ben had a good time dancing with the flowergirl on the dancefloor as people were coming in for dinner. When we were waiting outside of the reception for the bridal party to be announced, Ben kept on wanting to go to Cathy and give her kisses, saying, "I want to go to the princess!" I was surprised that he was ok walking into the reception hall with the flowergirl without me, but I guess they had bonded throughout the weekend, so he was comfortable with her. Afterwards, he danced and had a good time, by the end of the night exhausted.
Here's some pictures from the weekend (hover near the top corners for navigation):
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This page needs more Ben!
Ben’s going to be in a wedding this weekend in California. Wanted to give a preview of his outfit. He’s gone ahead to LA with this grandparents (because he flies free with them), and I miss the little bugger. Dave’s at the hospital tonight too, so I’m on my own. I should be packing, but my DVR’d CSI is too intriguing. Anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve told y’all what little Ben has been up to.
That’s about it for now…it’s incredible how fast Ben has been growing up. These things are just a fraction of the things that Ben’s been up to lately.
Last weekend was a BUSY weekend - I knew that it was going to be a marathon, but it was seriously exhausting.
It started off on Friday with a trip to Woodfield. We decided to eat at Red Robin and ran into an old friend from college, some we hadn’t seen in more than a decade. It’s weird to run into people from college now - before when it would happen, it would be at clubs or bars and we’re out socializing anyway. Now, we’re at the mall or eating dinner at family joints and we’re introducing our spouses and kids. We then spent the rest of our time there hanging out at the Lego store.
Saturday morning I overslept, which made me off for the rest of the day since I had a plan for what I was going to do. After getting the family fed and Ben ready for his grandparents (where were taking him for the day) I was able to get ready. Dave was on call that day, so he was stuck at home while I made my rounds.
First off was Deo and Laura’s wedding. I actually got to the wedding on time, and it was a quick, beautiful ceremony. There were a lot of people from college there, it was nice to see people and catch up a bit. I got a little nostalgic during the ceremony, remembering how young we all were and now most of us were married, with kids or with kids on the way. Life goes by so fast!
Right after Deo’s wedding, I drove back home, changed into a t-shirt and jeans, put my hair up and ran back out to head out to Tall Steve’s whirlyball birthday celebration. I love whirlyball…I would say it’s my best sport. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s basically lacrosse played on bumper cars. It takes a bit for beginners to figure out how to maneuver the cars (because it’s not your normal bumper car steering wheel) and learning how to score (it’s easier to score with a gentle flick of the wrist than to whip it at the target), but once you figure that out, and how important teamwork is to win the game, you can be a master! Its a lot of fun and a great way to bring people together. We played a lot in X-Systems. Anyway, it was Tall Steve’s big “really old” birthday party, and it was nice to see old faces lugging around their new babies.
We left whirlyball early (after 1 too many games, but what could I do, we went into overtime!) to go home and change. My sisters came over and we all quickly changed, got into my car, and headed for Chinatown. We ran into some frustrating traffic on the way (why?!? it’s saturday!) but got to the Vince and Kim’s reception before too many people were there (Fata was in charge of bringing the wishing well for cards). Luckily, Claudine and I found some pretty good, legal parking on the main street. Although we’d been to Furama many times before - mostly for parties, this was our first Chinese wedding. Ten courses is a LOT of food! It was pretty much delicious (except for the cauliflower/broccoli in sauce - but veggies aren’t my thing). It was a good time, with some great music. By the end of the night my feet were aching and I was exhausted!
Whew - that was just one day!
On Sunday, we went to church, then headed home and watched the first quarter of the Bears game which ROCKED! Then we headed out with my cousin and her kids to see “Disney Playhouse Live!“. At first, we couldn’t tell if Ben was having a good time - he was so serious and intense as he was watching the show, he didn’t move at all and didn’t want to be touched. But then when intermission came, he yelled, “More!” and after we told him they were coming back, he kept on pointing to the stage and saying, “They’re coming back soon!” He was so happy and active during intermission, but as soon as the lights went down, he was back into serious statue mode. In the end, he loved it. He kept on talking about it and asking if we could go back to the show.
After stopping home for a bit, we went to my cousin Trully’s place for our annual cousin pumpkin carving night. Every year (except for last year, I think) we get together to carve pumpkins. This year was our best turnout every - we had about 16 people (not counting half people) come with 11 pumpkins carved. Carving pumpkins is pretty hard work, and we had joked that we didn’t have to use pumpkins as an excuse to get together - it was too tiring! However, I think it’s something that we all look forward to at this time of the year. We didn’t even bother with the kids - we just let them run around and fend for themselves.
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So it was a pretty busy weekend for us! I’ve got a lot more pictures from Deo and Kim’s weddings, I’ll post them up eventually. (meaning probably never, but we’ll see!)
I know that people will say that General Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama is because they’re both black. Maybe that has something to do with it, but if you look at Powell’s political record, he’s an honest man, constantly trying to do what is right. I feel that this move by Powell is also to make right a wrong that he feels he was a part of - presenting a case to go to war with Iraq to the United Nations, even when he was skeptical about the proof that he was given that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (which it was later found was inaccurate information). The Bush administration used Powell’s positive ratings and respect of the international community to their advantage. His endorsement shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise - he’s a moderate Republican, and it looks like his views are more like Obama/Biden’s then McCain/Palin’s. I say them together like that because I think that if McCain was running with anyone else who wasn’t as conservative as Sarah Palin was, he would have gotten Powell’s endorsement. I mean, come on, Powell donated money to McCain’s campaign last year - even before he was the presidential nominee! But maybe Powell saw the same thing that I did - that McCain is a good man, a man that is passionate about his country, but a man who has lost himself and his values in the quest to win. Both McCain and Obama said they’d run clean campaigns, but both sides have stooped down to fear tactics, from Obama’s camp pulling the “Seriously, do you think Sarah Palin is ready to be president?” to McCain’s camp constantly bringing up “washed up terrorist” William Ayers. I honestly have only seen about 5 commercials in the last several months that weren’t critical of the other candidate.
Anyway, I’m happy that Powell crossed party lines to give his endorsement. I’ve always admired him, and I admire him even more for coming out and stating his opinion. He also had this to say, which really hit home because I just had a conversation today about Obama and his Muslim ties:
“It is permitted to be said such things as, ‘Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.’ Well, the correct answer is, ‘He is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian’,” Powell said. “But the really right answer is, ‘What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?’ The answer’s ‘No.’”
Why are we so scared of Muslims? They’re good people. To which some people would say, “The 9-11 terrorists were Muslims.” Then I would say back, “Most serial killers are white men. Should I be scared of white men?”
Racism. Fear. I just don’t get it.
Here’s one of my last Alaskan posts…I’ll probably have an “All Ben” one, but that one wouldn’t really feature much of Alaska, just Ben hamming it up for the camera.
Alaska was incredible. I would have to say that if you ever have a chance to go there, go, and if it’s a cruise, get a room with a balcony. Every time you look out of your window, it looks like a postcard. The mountains are breathtaking. As for the glaciers, well, I never thought that I’d take so many pictures of a block of ice. It’s the coolest thing to see a glacier calf (when a part of the glacier falls off into the water) - it makes this big cracking sound like thunder and falls into the water with a huge splash, creating giant waves in its wake. Every time it would happen, the whole boat would cheer. We were also fortunate to be at the Hubbard Glacier on a clear day, something that they said was rare at this time of the year.
Gilbert point, the entrance to Russell Fjord
Looks like a small piece of ice, but look closer, to the right
It’s bigger than it seems!
More favorites - hover over the top right and left for navigation buttons
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To see the whole gallery, click here. You’ll see all of my pictures I’ve posted so far as well as some I haven’t. You’ll also see a lot more description in the photos.
As some of you may know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. My mother, who died 5 years ago, fought breast cancer twice. I try as much as I can to spread awareness about this disease that touches so many.
So for the next couple weeks, my blog layout will be switched to pink, a color I’m not a big fan of, but in this case, I’ll make an exception.
Earlier this week, I found out about the Avon Army of Women, whose mission it is to get 1 million volunteers for breast cancer research. Go to the site, check it out - Avon Army of Women. You can volunteer yourself, you can support the cause by buying a pretty pendant, or you can spread the word. I know that there’s a chance that one day, I may get breast cancer myself, so anything I can do to help, I will.
The Love/Avon Army of Women offers women the opportunity to partner with the scientists who are conducting research that will end this disease–once and for all.
Breast cancer has been around for decades, but it does not have to be our future. We can be the generation that stops breast cancer once and for all by figuring out what causes this disease and how to prevent it!
Sign up for your sister, mother, daughter, granddaughter, best friend, and the woman you met last week. This is YOUR chance to be part of the research that will end breast cancer.
It takes a just a minute to join. But the impact we will have will last a lifetime.
Please Join Me in Being One in a Million!
About 15 years ago, or maybe a little longer than that, a young girl wrote a 4 page letter, double sided and in five different colors and sent it to the Rosemont Horizon. That letter was addressed to the New Kids on the Block, and each of the colors in the letter was for each member of the group - Joey, Jordan, Jonathan, Donnie and my assigned favorite, Danny. Assigned? you ask? Well, my sisters and cousins were fans, too, so each of us had a favorite. Jonathan Knight was Melanie’s favorite. Donnie Wahlberg was Claudine’s. Jordan Knight was Marian’s. Joey McIntyre was Fatima’s. So I was left with Danny Wood. Not that there was anything wrong with Danny…he definitely was cute. But I think if it was left up to me, I would have picked Jordan or Jonathan. Nevertheless, I was a good fan to Danny. We hung their posters on our walls. We got their albums as soon as they came out (cassettes, of course). We sang their songs together. We watched their videos. We were hoping that one day, we’d be their “Covergirl”s. (I’m rolling my eyes at myself for even typing that last sentence) At night I would lay my head on my pillow, nuzzling my face on my NKOTB pillow case.
Aaaanyway…I don’t really remember what I wrote in that letter - probably that I loved them…I only know that I had written to them and sent it to the Rosemont Horizon because I was going to their concert later that week and a little bit of me was hoping that I could bypass writing a letter to their official fanclub and risk it getting lost among thousands of other letters, and they would get it when they landed in Chicago and that during their concert they would say, “Christine, we got your letter…come up on stage!”
Alas, it never happened.
Since that letter, a lot has happened in my life. Had my first boyfriend. Graduated high school. Went to college. Graduated from college. Got married. Had a kid. Every now and then I would get reminders of them - Joey’s solo hit, Donnie’s appearance in “Sixth Sense”, Jordan’s one solo hit, and the pale, pudgy, creepy Jordan in the Surreal Life. Outside of that, life had moved on after NKOTB spurned me in my youth.
Until earlier this year, when I found out about the New Kids on the Block reunion, and saw their publicity photo, realizing that they had aged pretty well.
Then I found out that they were having a reunion tour. Didn’t really think much of it since I’m not a concert going person anymore. However, I believe it was my cousin Kathy that brought up coming to Chicago to watch the concert with the gals. How could I say no to a visit from my favorite Texan?
I was surprised that the Chicago concert sold out in several days - they had even added a second show. I didn’t think that people still cared. Truthfully, I was looking forward to a fun night with the girls, and to reminisce on a long gone time of my life. I wasn’t really expecting a lot from the concert.
But I’ll be the first to admit that it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. When we got there (security made me return my DSLR camera to the car - there was no security check when we went to the American Idol concert) there was a massive line for t-shirts…it took about an hour just to get to the front of the line. Also, the average age was about 30, and there was about 100 females to every male. It was fun to see what people were wearing, from t-shirts and jeans to some skankalicious club tops and high heels to the 40 year old women wearing New Kids shirts from 15 years ago (admittedly, I would have worn mine if a) I could find it and b) I’d fit it).
The opening act was RnB star Colby O’Donis (who? yeah, that’s what I said, too) who sang his only hit as the last song of his act, and that’s when I was like, “Oh, ok…he’s the guy who sings THAT song…” The second opening act was a treat - Natasha Bedingfield. She was definitely incredible. Her voice (which was obviously live) was strong and she sang all her hits. It’s great to hear someone sing live well. Anytime the opening acts would mention “New Kids on the Block” the arena would erupt into high pitched screams - but what I would realize later was only a mere fraction of the ear shattering sound it would reach later than night.
Before the show, the screens next to the stage asked people to text messages to a number to get moved up to the front row and get backstage passes. During the intermission after Natasha’s set, it was fun to read the messages that people sent in, because they put them on the big screens. “This time the concert isn’t after my bedtime” and “It’s been 15 years since I went to your last concert and my seats are no better now than they were then” and “I wish you had Debbie Gibson as your opening act!” and “I still fit into the NKOTB shirt I had when I was 12!”.
Finally, the lights went out, and the stadium went crazy. After several fake-outs by the band, the New Kids finally came on stage, and let me tell you, the audience went apeshit out of their minds. I was thinking my eardrums would pop out! Of course, I was screaming too, because it was just so crazy. They started off with one of their new songs, but later segued to “My Favorite Girl”, a song that I totally forgot but the lyrics came back to me quickly, which was something that happened often throughout the night. They had a good mix of old songs and new songs, and we all sang along with the ones we remembered, which was a lot. By “we” I mean the 18,000 fans that were there, shouting out the lyrics. There’s a weird thing that happens when you’re singing along to “The Right Stuff” with an arena full of estrogen screaming at five men in their mid-thirties. It became like a timewarp, and we were all giddy 15 year olds at our first concerts, who had begged our parents to let us go, who came their with our best friends and saved our money for months to pay for tickets, a t-shirt and program. We screamed, we looked at each other and giggled, I even waved my hands in the air during “Hanging Tough”…
So yes, it was one of the best concerts I have ever been to. I was with the best people possible - Melanie, Kathy, Claudine, Fatima and Kim, who were also transformed into squealing fangirls. There were definitely some highlights in the show, and I’d have to say that the most surprising thing was….and if you don’t want spoilers you may want to skip down to the next paragraph…the most surprising thing was Jordan Knight, coming up in a white button down shirt, unbuttoning it to reveal some INCREDIBLE abs (click here for proof). Those of you who watched the Surreal Life may remember him as pudgy and a little creepy, but man, it was incredible. I was giggling and screaming at the same time and just about lost my mind. We were transported to a time when we didn’t care about work, our kids, paying bills, the economy, or the election - a time when we were happy and didn’t have a care in the world.
What also made the concert so great was how the guys have matured. They’ve all aged pretty well - to me, Danny probably aged the best - he’s got this hard edge to him now and has grown into his strong facial features (and incredible biceps). Jordan is no longer a pretty boy, he’s just plain hot now…not sure what happened to the fangs he used to have before. The rest of them look pretty good - makes me laugh that Donnie’s still wearing hats on stage. There was some swearing during the concert and definitely a lot more crotch grabbing than I remembered from 15 years ago. The guys (except for Jonathan, but he gets a pass) seemed a lot more at ease on stage, a lot more confident and dare I say sexy. They’re no longer babies - they’ve been around the block, and it was obvious by their charisma and how they played to the crowd. They seemed just as amazed as we were at our reactions.
Anyway, it was a great time. At the end of the night, Donnie thanked the audience, because their comeback tour would have been really crappy if no one bought any tickets. I think it was a surprise to everyone how quickly the tickets sold. In the end, though I have to thank the New Kids (it makes me laugh to say that because come on, they’re not kids) for giving all of us a carefree night with 18,000 of my best friends, singing my heart out without a care in the world.
Time for my weekly Bokeh Wednesday shot…
This one was taken at Claudine and Redpac’s place during their 4th of July shindig. I don’t think I’ve posted pictures from it yet, hopefully I will someday.
I’ll probably be posting my massive New Kids on the Block post sometime today…you know you want to read it. 
…but never really got it.
Yesterday’s VP debate was quite uneventful. I was hoping for a train wreck, given who is running for Vice President. Sarah Palin, who reads ALL newspapers and magazines, but can’t name one specifically, and Joe Biden, who talks before thinking and has been labeled “the gaffe machine”. I was hoping to laugh and maybe wince at times.
But it didn’t happen. The debate was ok. Sure, the candidates talked around some of the subjects. Sure, there were some things that were said that weren’t factually correct. In the end, though, both candidates did well. Sarah Palin seemed charming, didn’t get that “deer in headlights” look and when she didn’t want to answer, skillfully changed the subject to something she knew (most of the time it was energy). Joe had the facts and made sure not to look like he was attacking or talking down to Sarah, though sometimes he restated numbers too many times.
In the end, I think Sarah did MUCH better than I expected, but I feel that Joe had the upper hand. Whether or not he was the clear winner is debatable - I’m sure Sarah’s demeanor and straight talk is what some voters want to hear. But I feel like Biden had a good understanding of what he was talking about and he would make an excellent Robin to Barack’s Batman.
To end this, I’d like to post a picture that Redpac sent me that completely tore my shit up when I saw it. I have no idea why, but I totally laughed out loud.
If you have no idea why I find it so funny, google “rick rolled”.
