It's been a while....
It's been quite a while since my last update. I kept intending to update but never quite getting around to it.
As I said at the end of my last entry I was looking forward to "Stardust". It was lovely, almost as good as I had hoped. The one...strange... spot was Robert DeNiro's character. The change they made was an odd choice. I was pretty uncomfortable with it, there didn't seem to be a good reason to make his character in the movie (not the book) the way he was, it was a little "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" to me.
Geocaching on Saturday (the 11th) was lots of fun, a good group of local cachers met two British cachers, and their dog at Cloud Gate in Millennium Park. We had a good group and found a bunch of geocaches in Grant/Millennium Park. Even though I wandered out without sunscreen I only got a little sunburned.
The one year old's party was pretty much what you'd expect. Later that night "The Bourne Ultimatum" was just as good as the first two Bourne movies.
Sunday at Mom and Dad's went well, we made some party progress. The car behaved itself all weekend (and it still is, for now).
That was last weekend. This weekend was mostly Anniversary stuff. My brother (who is fine and just as irritating as ever) flew in on Friday and we all went out to Tribella for dinner as Friday was my folks' actual anniversary. Dinner was nice, everyone was happy with their food, no one fought, pictures were taken.
Little Bro managed to get a speeding ticket on the way there though. The cop was probably the most polite cop I've ever dealt with. But he seemed pretty focused on not giving my brother an out. He asked all these questions that were designed to remove all the usual excuses. Thankfully Little Bro didn't have to give up his driver's license as boarding a plane without it might be problematic.
Saturday morning I went out to St Charles to help with preparing the party food in the morning, then it was back east to Oak Park for our Speculative Fiction Book Group where we discussed The Raw Shark Texts. Then _back_ out to St. Charles for a family portrait at Sears. It was actually pretty painless and fast, the pictures looked good on the screen, the prints should be in in about a week, I hope they'll look good as well.
(Aside: I'm watching Monday Night Football at the moment and they just ran a Miller Lite commercial that implied drinking Miller Lite makes you an individual and sets you apart from the crowd. I have no words.)
Yesterday we went to church with my parents and then went home to finish last minute party prep. Then people started arriving and for three hours the house was jammed and even though the day was cool and the AC was on, it still got pretty warm in their house. Everything came out great, the food was good and plentiful, the cake was good, the decorations were nice, people seemed to like the picture collages we had made, and the fruit punch went over well. It was a very nice party, Mom and Dad seemed very happy, which is the main thing. There were quite a few people there from the church I grew up in that I hadn't seen in years so that was interesting. We cleaned up last night and I was relieved to return home. My brother was supposed to fly home today. I told him several times that if his flight was at 4pm he couldn't leave St. Charles any later than 1pm and expect to make his flight. I hope he made it.
The tv still works, the car is running better, we're going to have a bowling league at work again this year (it was up in the air there for awhile), the heat has finally broken, I'm (finally) going to get to see "The Lookout" (bought it on DVD), and "Waitress" (Dollar Movie Night). So all is well, for now.
As I said at the end of my last entry I was looking forward to "Stardust". It was lovely, almost as good as I had hoped. The one...strange... spot was Robert DeNiro's character. The change they made was an odd choice. I was pretty uncomfortable with it, there didn't seem to be a good reason to make his character in the movie (not the book) the way he was, it was a little "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" to me.
Geocaching on Saturday (the 11th) was lots of fun, a good group of local cachers met two British cachers, and their dog at Cloud Gate in Millennium Park. We had a good group and found a bunch of geocaches in Grant/Millennium Park. Even though I wandered out without sunscreen I only got a little sunburned.
The one year old's party was pretty much what you'd expect. Later that night "The Bourne Ultimatum" was just as good as the first two Bourne movies.
Sunday at Mom and Dad's went well, we made some party progress. The car behaved itself all weekend (and it still is, for now).
That was last weekend. This weekend was mostly Anniversary stuff. My brother (who is fine and just as irritating as ever) flew in on Friday and we all went out to Tribella for dinner as Friday was my folks' actual anniversary. Dinner was nice, everyone was happy with their food, no one fought, pictures were taken.
Little Bro managed to get a speeding ticket on the way there though. The cop was probably the most polite cop I've ever dealt with. But he seemed pretty focused on not giving my brother an out. He asked all these questions that were designed to remove all the usual excuses. Thankfully Little Bro didn't have to give up his driver's license as boarding a plane without it might be problematic.
Saturday morning I went out to St Charles to help with preparing the party food in the morning, then it was back east to Oak Park for our Speculative Fiction Book Group where we discussed The Raw Shark Texts. Then _back_ out to St. Charles for a family portrait at Sears. It was actually pretty painless and fast, the pictures looked good on the screen, the prints should be in in about a week, I hope they'll look good as well.
(Aside: I'm watching Monday Night Football at the moment and they just ran a Miller Lite commercial that implied drinking Miller Lite makes you an individual and sets you apart from the crowd. I have no words.)
Yesterday we went to church with my parents and then went home to finish last minute party prep. Then people started arriving and for three hours the house was jammed and even though the day was cool and the AC was on, it still got pretty warm in their house. Everything came out great, the food was good and plentiful, the cake was good, the decorations were nice, people seemed to like the picture collages we had made, and the fruit punch went over well. It was a very nice party, Mom and Dad seemed very happy, which is the main thing. There were quite a few people there from the church I grew up in that I hadn't seen in years so that was interesting. We cleaned up last night and I was relieved to return home. My brother was supposed to fly home today. I told him several times that if his flight was at 4pm he couldn't leave St. Charles any later than 1pm and expect to make his flight. I hope he made it.
The tv still works, the car is running better, we're going to have a bowling league at work again this year (it was up in the air there for awhile), the heat has finally broken, I'm (finally) going to get to see "The Lookout" (bought it on DVD), and "Waitress" (Dollar Movie Night). So all is well, for now.