Good friends, good times

This weekend was full of friends, good food, movies and laughter. First of all, my friend Monica M. was here visiting. Then I found out my friend Taina would be in town and my friend Monica B. was here at a conference. Combine those people, me and a great city and it was a lot of fun.

Monica and I on the Wendella boat tour enjoying the architecture from the Chicago River.

New Marilyn Monroe sculpture downtown. Leave it to Chicago to have tacky interesting installation art.

Monica and I taking in Buckingham Fountain.

Dinner with the girls (left to right): Me, Monica B., Taina, Kamilah and Monica M.

Iris, Monica, me, Crumley and Taina enjoying the fire pit at home.

Just like 1987

I have ended my "summer of concerts" by going to see Tiffany and Debbie Gibson tonight at the House of Blues. It was like I entered another dimension because I haven't seen this much crimped hair in decades. Very fun night though full of old favorites, covers from the 80s and even a few new songs.

Welcome home, Donnie!

I arrived home today to find a box on my doorstep. I thought maybe I was going crazy and had ordered something that I couldn't remember. I opened up the box and gasp...inside was a Donnie doll, circa 1990. There was only one person who could have sent me this and I knew right away...ahh, I really do have the best friends. (Thanks, Amber.) Meanwhile, my husband and I will be fighting over the perfect spot for Donnie to reside in our home. (His perfect spot is probably the closet, by the way.)

I always wanted one of these! Dreams do come true.

Weekend Adventures

Joe and I are home now after our weekend away. Rather than pick up the house and start laundry, I thought I'd share more about our trip. (That sounds like more fun, right?) Friday night we saw a really great magician. I always loved watching magic as a kid and, as an adult, I still love it. You can see on the link a few of the tricks we saw in person. We were sitting in the second row and I still have absolutely no idea how he did these tricks. Below are some more pictures from our trip.

Downtown Galena. Lots of shopping and options for eating. We had a couple of great Italian meals.

In one store, Joe and I spotted these candy cigarettes in an old cigarette vending machine. A sign on the machine stated that you could pull the knob and take the candy to the register to pay. I think we were both a little surprised to see the machine and the candy cigarettes displayed but I remember buying these at the dime store as a kid and smoking eating them.

On Friday we toured President Ulysses S. Grant's Galena home. So much for my history knowledge as I hadn't even realized President Grant ever lived in Illinois before planning this trip.

Weekend at the Inn

Joe and I are spending the weekend in Galena, IL at a country bed and breakfast (which used to be an old general store). Here are some amazing pictures that Joe has taken so far of the bed and breakfast and surrounding area. There was a really bad flood last week which produced around 15 inches of rain in an eight-hour period and you can see some of the damage in these pictures.