I'm a slacker...

I haven't taken any pictures since Logan and I went to Chicago...I'm pretty boring I guess. This last week has been pretty uneventful. Eric and Kevin and I went to a friend's house for a BBQ last Sunday and then went fishing (I didn't catch a thing!!) but for some reason, I didn't think to break out the camera. The last week went quickly and we didn't do a thing! Hopefully we'll get to do something fun this weekend to take pictures of!

Chicago here we come!

So after having been only an hour away for going on two months, I finally got to go to Chicago. Logan and I took the train from Portage and rode into Chicago. I was pretty nervous since neither of us have any sense of direction but we did surprisingly well. When trying to decide what we wanted to do on our day in Chicago, we decided on Chinatown. We'd been to Navy Pier when we came on a family vacation and wanted to try something new. We mapped it out and found out it was only about a two mile walk from the train station so we set off on foot and walked all the way there. Logan did make the comment "I've been laying on the couch for two months, I'm not up for this!" but we trekked on. When we started to get close, we started to wonder if walking was such a good idea. A woman who appeared to be on some kind of drug pulled down her pants and told us we were "on the south side" with a 'specific demographic' as we walked by. But thankfully at that point, Chinatown was in view and we didn't have much further to go.
We made sure to get some Chinese food while we were in Chinatown. It was really pretty good and we were disappointed that we couldn't take our leftovers home with us.

On our way back from Chinatown, we walked a different way which felt much safer. :) But we crossed back to Michigan Ave and walked through the parks. Here's Logan comparing his legs. I think the sculptures win.

I've been working out....

I always knew he was pretty fierce.

I can't remember what this thing was called but you can see us in the middle...we were standing only a few feet away when we took this picture. Pretty cool!

This guy was performing on the sidewalk...He thought he was a lot cooler than he really was. He later got into the box and Logan suggested that we grabbed his tip bucket and ran...we didn't...

Here we are at the end of our day. It was cut a little short because it started raining on us. We got pretty wet because, of course, I'd taken my umbrella out of my purse. It was a fun day though and we were tired so we hopped back on the train and came home.

We're beach bums

Yesterday, Logan and I went to Lake Michigan. We drove straight north this time and found this wonderful beach. There were a lot of other people who had the same idea as us because it was a beautiful day. Too bad Logan has a broken arm because he didn't swim. (Although the water was still FREEZING).
I finally talked him into walking out into the water. He was impressed with how clear it was.

Apparently Logan was the lucky one of the day because he got pooped on by a seagull! Not that you can notice from his grungy T-shirt but it's right on the "8". Cool huh?

We became expert rock-stackers. I was pretty impressed with myself and thought it'd make a cool picture. I was right.

We like to eat!

Sunday, Eric and I picked Logan up from the airport. He's come to town to visit for the week. I took this picture at Giordano's pizza place. It has amazing Chicago style pizza. I was going to take a picture of the pizza but I was moving slowly from all I ate and forgot to take it before the waitress boxed up our leftovers. (We had almost a whole pizza left over from the two we ordered). Nonetheless, our pizza was amazing and it made up for the fact that the boys didn't want to go to Cracker Barrel.
Here is Logan and me in our typical fashion. We went to eat half price appetizers at a local restaurant that Eric and I had been to on Saturday. We'd made friends with the owner and the waitstaff so we had a good time.

Our waitress claimed she was a photographer as well as a waitress so she offered to take our picture.

He's starting to pick up on my talents!

All of you know how good Logan and I are at making faces in pictures. Eric is starting to get good at it too. Here he is practicing while we were out to eat last week. It makes me so proud! :)

Bye Bye Mustache!

Today Eric finally decided it was time to shave his mustache off. He has been growing it for a few weeks and finally got tired of it. (He said it felt funny.) Nonetheless, I was not all that sad to see it go...he's been threatening to leave the mustache and shave his goatee for our engagement pictures. We had to make sure to take a picture of it before he shaved it off though and document how long it got.

Other than that exciting news, the past few days in Indiana have been pretty unremarkable. Although Eric did take me to Cracker Barrel on our way back from the airport! Its beginning to look like a new tradition! I would have taken a picture but our flight left KC at 6:45 so we both still looked like we'd just rolled out of bed.

I did figure I ought to give some credit to the coffee shop I've been going to lately. The apartment we've been in doesn't have the internet so I come here and drink their hot chocolate, which is AMAZING! I'm thinking it's because they steam the milk but whatever it is, it's probably the best hot chocolate I've had. I should have more pictures come next week. Logan is coming up to visit while Mom and Dad, Cris, Gene, Marcia and Mike all go to Vegas. Hopefully Logan and I can find some fun things to do while Eric is working!

Some old ones....

Since Kelly came up dress shopping, I finally got to see some of the pictures she'd taken the last couple of times I'd been back in Manhattan. This first one is of us and Sarah (Lance's - Eric's cousin - girlfriend). We were at the Reckless Kelly concert at Longhorns. We had such a great time but it was really hot!

Here's a couple pictures from the lake when we went last. We thought it'd be a good idea to document ourselves in our stylish "diapers". They're perfect for just hanging out in the lake because they keep you afloat but don't cut into your neck. (I showed mom this, which she'd never seen before, when we went to the lake for the 4th and she thinks we need to market this idea.)

Dress Shopping

Today we went wedding and bridesmaid dress shopping. Kelly and Christy and Sue came up and we enjoyed a fun day of shopping. We shopped at the mall and at Davids Bridal. Our consultant gave us a bad first impression but ended up being pretty helpful.

Check out the potential bridesmaid dresses! They've got the attitude to pull them off!

I think we found it! They were only $15.95!

Ruby's Rubbed Ribs

Friday we drove out to Council Grove Lake to spend the weekend with our family friends, the Gordans. We had a great time spending the weekend camping and out on the lake. Here we are relaxing after being on the boat all afternoon. Little did we know the storm of the century was about to hit! Logan and I stayed in the tent while mom and dad stayed in the camper. The storm was a strong one and Logan and I were a little worried but we stayed dry!
Here's Marla and Old Dad preparing their ribs for the contest.

We had a pretty impressive spread. Three different types of ribs along with lots of sides. We packed up our food and went over to Otie and Vickie's campsit so we had more room. We had to ball the neighbors in to judge the rib contest. I think they were happy we did!

Otie was the winner of the annual rib smoke off. Check out the awesome trophy we made! Classy! We think that maybe he had some homefield advantage but we all agreed that it was probably better for him to hang on to the trophy until next year.

Finally, we went over to Council Grove City Lake to watch the fireworks. They had put on a great show with one of the coolest and biggest fireworks any of us had ever seen for the finale.

Let's get a little sideways!

Thursday, I flew back to Kansas for the 4th of July and to spend time with the family. Dierks Bentley was playing a free show at the Power and Light District. Mom and I had planned to go straight from the airport so we drove to P&L and realized how many people had the same plan as us. The place was packed, with lines around the block to get in. We had decided to go home when we ran into Kyle, a classmate of mine. He was schmoozing with the doorman and ended up getting us all in!
We ran into quite a few people we knew. This is a friend of mom's who plays bunco with her. As you can see, it was packed! This picture doesn't even do it justice. There were people on top of the parking garage all the way at the back of the place.

He put on a great show. We got tired of being hot and smashed by all the people though so we left about halfway through the show. We had a great time!