A Tri-Beta Visit

Every once in awhile, usually once a year or so, my friend Erikka is forced to return to IL to visit her family. When this annual event occurs, we usually try to reunite our group of college roommates, the self-named Tri-Betas (minus our Portlandian friend Amanda). This year, Erikka decided to head home to celebrate her 30th birthday midwest-style. We all agreed to converge upon Katrina and Brad in Downers Grove.
And so we went.

Gus is ready for a road trip!

I cannot figure out why this is underlined now, and can't make it go away......
A highlight of the trip was meeting miss Eloise, Katrina's little girl who was born last August. Here Gus gives her the first of many cute hugs.


Aside from doing lots of eating and drinking (as usual....) we spent Saturday morning at the Morton Arboretum, which also happens to be where Katrina works. Gus enjoyed exploring the children's garden.



Miss Eloise!


Gus also enjoyed 'walking' with Erikka and daddy, who more or less just lifted him around.
Walking through a bridge in the trees with daddy


There is some weird art thing going on, where artists are working to completely cover this tree with crocheted things. Very bizarre.


After hitting the Arboretum on Saturday, we drove to Two Brothers Brewery in Warrenville. I had never heard of it before, but since Goose Island just sold out to Anheuser-Busch, it is now actually the largest craft brewery in IL. Who knew? Thankfully, Gus fell asleep on our way to the brewery, and continued his nap during part of our visit at the brewery. Any nap is better than no nap.

One of my Two Brothers brews - Ebel's weiss perhaps? Good stuff.


Naked babies!


All in all, it was a nice trip (other than discovering that Gus now refuses to sleep in a Pack-n-Play). In addition to spending time with Erikka and Katrina, we also visited our friends Ashley and Nate - Ashley is having her first baby any day now - so it was really nice to see them.
And now the question is - when will Erikka come home next year and force us to get together again?? No pressure ;)

Another Superstar Wedding!

Forgive me for not posting in awhile. There's been a lot going on, between teaching, and Gus being crazy, and more teaching, I haven't had much time to think straight lately. But this past weekend, I took a break from everything to make the wedding cake for my wonderful friend Jenny Conrad as she finally married Brice Donnelly. I also had the pleasure of being in the wedding party. I don't normally recommend trying to do the cake and be in the wedding, but this time it worked out well thanks to the simplicity of the cake Jenny chose.
So here are some choice pics of Jen's big day! It was simply perfect.

Here are here placecard holders - bottles of Limonada

I loved loved loved the flowers. Jen's bouquet was all yellow, and the bridesmaids were yellow and white. I LOVE freesia!


Jen found this hairpiece thing online somewhere - so pretty!


Brice's sweet tie and simple boutonniere


Jen is ready to head down the aisle!


She decided to wear some awesome, but painful, bright yellow shoes!


The cake


Cutting the cake


Me and my oh-so-photogenic hubby


All the superstar girls


Jenny, Angie, and baby Neske


The bride and groom catch a moment together at the reception


All in all, Mr. and Mrs. Donnelly had a perfect April day for their long-awaited wedding. They put a lot of thought and energy into every aspect of their big day, and it really showed! Congrats to the newlyweds!

Jen's shower, bachelorette party, and other random things

This past weekend was a busy one. All of the bridesmaids threw a shower in Highland for Jenny Conrad's upcoming wedding. I had the job of making the cake. Everything turned out for the best, despite the top layer of the cake crumbling into a million pieces when I took it out of the pan. Buttercream is amazing, in so many ways. That's all I can say about that.


All of the superstar girls and children were able to make it! Gus and Anna even shared a first kiss! (I have a picture of that on my phone, I'll have to have a blog post of phone pictures sometime but I haven't downloaded any recently). You can kind of see the two impending children in this picture too (baby girl Neske and baby boy Myers)!!


It's a little easier to see the baby bumps when there aren't kids in the way :)


Following the conclusion of the shower, many of the girls headed to St. Louis where Jen had booked us a few rooms at the Hilton at the Ballpark for the evening. We then boarded a party bus, where our driver Albert took care of us for the night.
The party bus indeed had a party going on, with Jen and Katie even dancing in the aisles!


Jen has a heart-to-heart with Albert.


Superstars that made it to the bachelorette party - hooray to preggers Ang for joining us!


Our first stop - Double D's karaoke bar. We never took a group picture, but I grabbed this one of almost everyone watching a karaoke-er.


Jen's favorite stop - Mike Talayna's Jukebox. Holy mirrors and disco balls.


Our last stop - the Library....Janeice thought buying one of these bucket drinks was a good idea. I think the fact that she held onto the bucket was the best idea.....


Me and the bride to be. I have a version of this picture that someone else took (you can see I took this one) but for some reason I always look better in the ones I take.


Our view from the hotel room in the light of morning....not too shabby!


Thankfully I didn't need too much help recovering from the bachelorette party, so I could enjoy the amazing weather on Sunday - it was 75 degrees in mid-February!!! Gus and I took a dump truck outside to enjoy the weather.

Basically, he just drives the truck back and forth down the sidewalk. This is a good thing considering the amount of dog pooh in the grass.



I even convinced my anti-walking husband to go for a walk! We got Gus's new wagon (from Christmas) out on the sidewalks for the second time ever. He loves it!


Gus in his wagon!


Those are more or less my recent pictures. Other things that have been going on.... Kevin finally shaved his beard and got a haircut! I finally have back the man I married! He took some really funny pictures of his facial hair as he cut it off, I will need to get them from him and post them here because I think you'd be entertained.
Teaching is going pretty well. The weeks where I teach three nights are pretty insane, but Kevin is helping me out at home and it could be a lot worse. This week I suddenly had no voice, so I didn't lecture at my Tuesday class - which means I have three hours worth of talking to do tonight to catch up, so maybe my voice will be gone again! Now I just need to hope I can get a job one of these days. I applied for two more teaching jobs, and pretty soon I'll start talking to people about doing another postdoc (which I'd really rather not do). But I need a job!
Other big news from my world - I'm going to be an aunt again! My sister Jess and her new hubby Todd are expecting in the fall! I assume this is fair game to put out into the blogosphere, although I'm waiting for her to mention it on facebook before I finally have the status 'I'm going to be an aunt again, Hooray!'. So that's crazy exciting. And then all the pressure falls to poor Jackie ;)
That's about it. I don't lecture at all this next week, thanks to my friend Kim who is guest lecturing for my plant class. I'm going to savor every minute of not working on lectures for a week! I'm also really looking forward to watching the Oscars on Sunday with my friend Lauren - absolutely one of my most favorite things to do. Should be a good weekend!

Bathtime Craziness

Lately Gus has loves to dump water on himself while he takes a bath. Usually, he just keeps pouring it on his belly over and over. This week he decided to try to dump it on his head, but instead gets a lot in his mouth (gross). Hilarity ensures. Here we also work on a few of the words he's good at, without much luck. There's also a random really wet sounding fart in there too. Enjoy.

Turning 30 and Lots of SNOW

It has been a relatively crazy winter here in St. Louis. Usually we might get one or two measurable snowfalls (which is enough for me), but this year we've had four, and the fifth and biggest is brewing as we speak. Last Thursday was my 30th birthday - and we had the biggest snow yet. Everyone was predicting 6-12 inches for the area, and we ended up with right around 6 inches at our house in the city (I know mom and Jackie farther east both had more like 9 inches or so). Anyway, a lot of snow. I had a little bit of work I had to do that day as long as I could get to work, so I went in late, got it done, and headed home. I ended up meeting up with Jackie for an awesome lunch at 1111. Then as I was driving back to my house, I thought, 'hmmmm maybe I should go check out the gardens in the snow.' So that's what I did - I went to the botanical gardens and walked around taking a million pictures. This snow was especially dry and fluffy, so it stayed on the tree limbs and looked beautiful. Anyway, a few highlights from the snowy gardens.....
This is my favorite tree.
Japanese garden, teahouse bridge
the snow was especially beautiful on the crazy evergreens
zig-zag bridge
I'm very glad I went to the gardens - now I have a particularly memorable way to always remember my 30th birthday! That night, Kevin made me filets for dinner. Then the next day I was treated to Blueberry Hill for lunch by some co-workers, and then Lauren took me out to scape Bistro for dinner - amazing! Finally, Sunday my mom made my birthday dinner - fried chicken and red cake. Mmmmmm. Jessica, Jackie and I also got some sledding in at mom's that day - http://thepleasantfarm.wordpress.com.

The highlight of the weekend was my birthday party at 33 wine bar, which was orchestrated by my friend Jenny. She made me a very entertaining cake (and some delicious raspberry cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting!!)


A fair share of my near-by friends and family came out to celebrate, so I tried to take a few pictures.
Jackie and Allen....

me and Jackie

Jenny with a kind of creepy Brice in the background

we are doomed to never take a decent picture. I'm not photogenic by any means, but this guy really doesn't help.

Ang and Matt

Mike, Erin, and Lauren

me with Erin and Lauren

All in all, it was a pretty fabulous birthday.
And since it's been over, reality has set in. Starting last week, I am teaching 4 classes....a Master's level plant class for U College, an intro microbiology lab and lecture at Maryville University, and an undergrad seminar course at Wash U. Thankfully the micro classes are only every other week, so I'm only going to be insanely busy every other week. All I can say is I really hope this helps me find a job.....