What a weekend!

My wife's niece Kelly got married on 12/27/2008 to Brian. Kelly had always wanted a winter wedding so off we went to beautiful Highland Indiana on the 26th. What made it interesting was the ice storm that went through on the night of the 25th...

We delayed leaving an hour as several of the roads we would take were having issues. Lots of accidents. Lots and lots. Finally got on the road around 10:45 and all was good...till we hit Halsted and I-294S. Traffic stopped. Not slowed but stopped. A truck had jack knifed at Calumet and 294 and only one lane was open. Going from 5 to 1 was not pleasing so I went south on Halsted and worked my way over to Kelly's parents house. The ice was 2 inches thick on the drive way. Kelly's father Matt had chipped out enough for me to unload my elderly father-in-law and his wife safely. Soon the women headed off to the nail salon, thing1 went with Matt to get their tuxes and I took the old folks to the hotel and got them settled. I even got to relax for an hour or so. Whee. Fired up the laptop and tried to use the hotel wireless. Slow. Very slow.

It was soon time for the rehearsal. Got the old folks moving and headed up Indianapolis Blvd. Rain. Lots of ice everywhere. Potholes the size of Yugos. Fun. The parking lot at the church was covered with 2 inches of ice. My father-in-laws wife uses a cane and had lotsa fun getting into the church. Afterwards the rain picked up as we headed back to the hotel. Wedding day morning brought even more rain. And no more ice. Matt's driveway was clear when I dropped off the girls to get their hair done. Later on at the church the ice was gone as well. It was windy and raining but at least there was no ice.

And soon Kelly and Brian were married. Beautiful service using the best of the two ministers present. And it was off to the reception. Well - once the limo got out of the way. It was blocking the egress from the handicapped spots. Once there we were treated to wonderful food and music to dance to. Even thing1 got dragged out on the dance floor. Thing2 wouldn't stop dancing! The bridal party was on the floor for every dance. So were a couple of the under 5 crowd. Jack and Riley latched on to each other even though they had never met and had a blast.

Soon the midnight hour approached and we went to the hotel. Sleep came quickly...

We woke to sunshine this morning. It was chilly and windy but the sun felt so good. As we got closer to home we noticed that the foot of snow that was there on Friday was gone. We have the remnants of a few snow banks but otherwise it's all gone. Buffy was at home with a family friend and appeared to have had a good weekend.

Home sweet home.

Christmas Presents

My incredibly generous wife bought me a Canon EOS 450 DSLR. Surprised me.

The last time she bought me a camera was 3 jobs and 21 years ago (for Christmas) when she bought me a Canon EOS 650 SLR. Took my 70 to 210 lens and tried it on the DSLR. Works great. Buffy was nice enough to pose.



I love toys!

Dog meets food

Buffy was a bit hungry and decided not to wait for dinner...

Back to School

Today was the day we took Thing1 back to his college to start his senior year - unlike freshman year. No tears, no hysterics, nothing. Just another day. After we had gotten home and fed Buffy we couldn't find her anywhere. I decided to check Thing1's room.

And there she was:



I guess she misses her boy...

I think Buffy misses Thing1

I found her on his bed today...




Or she felt like guarding the penguins...

Snow Day - sorta

We had winter storm warnings. Big deal - here in Northern Illinois we get these all the time. When I left for work we had gotten maybe an inch of snow. Enough to cancel school for Thing2 (she was happy - after she got back from the bus stop...) We had the ok to stay home and take a day of vacation if we wanted to. The weather didn't seem so bad so off I went.

My normal 25 minute drive took 50. People were taking it easy - except for the 4WD trucks. For some reason they thought my bumper was a good place to hang out... Most people came in - except for the ones with fancy new 4WD trucks. Seemed strange to me.

Left a little early figuring I could clean up the driveway from the inch or so of snow real quick and have some time to relax. Hah! The driveway had anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of snow on it. Some drifts were deeper. Almost 2 hours later I had mine as well as my neighbors done.





Buffy, on the other hand, had the right idea for a snowy day!