Toronto Trip

Well, I've got my pics uploaded to my pc from our trip, but still need to do some editing on them. I think I may try to put together a cute video or something on my Mac cause I have lots of pictures and will hopefully get some more from other people. I'll go through a quick synopsis of the trip:

Wednesday: We left after work. I did TONS of research to try and find a hotel for us to stop at and was having issues finding a decent place. I'm very picky about hotels and basically don't like anything that has a floral bedspread cause just gives me the heebie geebies and that it's not clean. So I found a Hampton Inn that had great reviews, so decided we'd drive to that and made a reservation there. We were almost there and I can see what looks like a fire up ahead on the interstate so I tell dustin to slow down some. As we get closer we realize there is a car pulled over on the right in full flames...only the frame is left and just blazing up a storm. The emergengy vehicles are arriving as we approach. So I'm telling Dustin to just stay back and I don't think we should pass it cause might explode or something, but he just keeps going by. So I think- this will make a great pic for my blog, I'll at least get a picture of this if he's going to go right past it. So I have my camera and Mr. Genius says- i'll roll down your window so you get a better picture. So next thing I know my window is going down and you feel the heat rush in from the fire. Then, just as I hit the button to take the picture a loud BOOM goes off like an explosion, exactly what I was afraid of! So I jumped a mile and ended up taking a picture of my door as shown below. So then we get to the town with the hotel and see it on the right side of the interstate so dustin exits right....onto a TOLL toad and the next exit to turn around isn't for 16 MILES! So it is already midnight and we are tired and now we've just created an extra 30 minutes of driving. Man, that was not pleasant!

Thursday: Got up and drove the rest of the way. Our hotel was really nice that we checked into. Then we went to Dustin's uncle's house for a bbq/rehearsal dinner for his cousin's wedding. The weather was awesome and it was fun meeting all the relatives and friends.

Friday: We walked around downtown with his family and then that night Dustin and I went to this Distillery District which seemed like a part of downtown they are revitazling the old buildings into restuarants, art galleries, shops, etc. It was very cool area and our meal was awesome! We ate at this italian place because they didn't have a wait and we didn't really want italian since we can get good italian in st louis, but this was fabulous! Dustin had egg noodle pasta with mushrooms and truffle sauce. Then it had quail on top, which I had never seen...looked just like chicken, but wasn't brave enough to try that! I had some spinach and gorgonzola gnocchi which was delicious.

This pic was from earlier in the day, we stopped along the lake and Keanan had some french fries and ketchup...although he didn't seem to fond of the fries. Instead, he'd just dip his whole hand into the ketchup and eat that!

This was where we ate dinner:

This was the restaurant I REALLY wanted to eat at, but was like an hour wait and dustin didn't want to wait. They had all these comfy cabana-things outside.

Saturday: We walked around the beaches with his family and Keanan played for a bit on the playground. Then we went to the wedding that night, which was a great time-- good food and good music! Keanan got this ice cream sundae for his dessert at the wedding and it was hilarious watching him eat this.

Sunday: We just hung out at dustin's aunts house to watch his cousin open their gifts. Then we went to watch his other cousin play softball for a bit. Then dustin and I went to dinner at a greek restaurant, which was good, but not as good as our meal friday night!

RIP MJ

It's been almost 2 weeks, but the big news around the county, or really the world, is that Michael Jackson passed away-- suspected of drug overdose. Today they had a service in LA at the Staples Center for him where many celebrities spoke and performed. I was able to Tivo most of it, but it cut off before the whole thing ended. By far the most emotional part was when his daughter, Paris, spoke and was obvious that he was a great father and treated those kids well. Dustin was like 4 years old or really young when Thriller was popular and supposedly would just have MTV on and wait until thriller would come on...then he'd get on his rocking horse and just go crazy riding it. He went to visit relatives in Canada and was so crazed over MJ that he had a little leather outfit and glove and insisted that he wear it on the airplane home! We have some pics of him, so I need to dig those up and add to this post. The funny part about seeing the pic was that it's a big old snow glove, not the diamond white glove! I guess what do you expect for Canada though! Until I can scrounge up that old pic, here's a recent one of Dustin with his idol at an 80s party we were at.

Mini-vacation!

Off to canada! We are going to see Dustin's family and attend his cousin's wedding. It is in Toronto, which I've been to already and done the touristy things, so I'm not sure what we'll do on this trip yet. So probably another week with no postings, but maybe I'll have some downtime to blog. We are driving, which I love roadtrips...but I think dustin is dreading. I'm having to give up my New Kids on the Block ticket for tonight though, so that is a real downer. I'm thinking I'll just have to rock out in the car to my own NKOTB concert...dustin will love that! Hope he's ready to be hangin tough!

Too busy for postings!

I have been super duper busy lately so every time I have a free moment I don't feel like posting. Anyways, this will probably be quick, but here is my updates! Today at lunch we tried the food at our reception site (WOW). Basically you just get to try whatever the chef makes and as luck would have it none of the stuff we got to try was the stuff I was considering for the wedding...so not much help. The thing that was helpful was one of the meats we tried was this 4-cheese stuffed chicken breast that sounded awesome and thought for sure we would end up getting this. However, it failed to mention on the info sheet that it came with 2 cups of white gravy poured all over it! It tasted good, but the display was HORRIBLE-- looked like something from bob evans or cracker barrel-- country cooking! Half my plate was just filled with this gravy and we are wanting to upgrade and get 2 entrees so I'm just wondering what this will look like when you have another entree slopped on here. We also tried these pork medallions that were very good and the sauce was much more controlled. I'm going to talk to our contact person because I really don't know what to choose and maybe usually the chicken doesn't have all that gravy or we can have them leave it off or just do like a tablespoon.

So I then left work a little early to go meet with a florist. Super nice girl who I think had really reasonable prices since she basically just does this out of her home. I'm decided between getting all rose bouquets and bouts or all calla lily ones. I like the callas cause it's just white, simple, and elegant...and no further decisions to be made! I like the roses though because they can add a splash of color-- could either do white or hot pink or some shade of pink. The callas are slightly more expensive, so I just gotta keep looking at pics and decide what I like best. Here were some shots of ones I like:

Lastly tonight then we met with a guy who will hopefully be our wedding officiant. I thought he was very personable and great (and I think dustin did too), so that will be a relief to officially get someone booked for this too!

Aerosmith adventure

Well this week I've had major troubles sleeping, so I've been too tired to even blog about anything. Our really only interesting adventure this week was the Aerosmith concert at verizon amphitheater. So the forecast for that evening was thunderstorms, large hail, dangerous lightning, and I think tornado conditions...not ideal for an outdoor show. So I call that afternoon to ask if there is severe weather if the show will be rescheduled or anything-- they say, No it is rain or shine. Ok, so we grab a large umbrella and put in the car and head out there after work. We eat at Dave and Busters for dinner since it is right next door and we have HORRIBLE service, so we don't get to the concert until at least 30 minutes after it started. But that's okay- i wasn't gung-ho to see the opening band anyways. We have to park in the very last row...and let me tell you the parking lot is HUGE-- I bet it is .75-1 mile walk from this spot to our seats. We decide not to bring the umbrella cause the weather looked okay and they are so picky about what you can bring inside that we weren't sure they'd allow it. So just as we get inside to our seats, we see the last song of the opener. We now have an hour break until aerosmith comes on and the lightning starts up real bad. We can't get internet or phone service because I was trying to call my sister to get a radar report. And the policy at the concert is no re-entry...so basically I'm feeling stuck here...but am wondering if hail starts where all these thousands of people are going to go cause there is limited sheltered areas and it was going to be a panic scene! I can't imagine if hail can dent my car how bad it is going to hurt on my skin! And as luck would have it, we have seats but are like 10 rows short of being under the covered seats. So we talk to our usher-girl and she says that supposedly there were 5 news stations outside because there was such severe weather headed our way and all these people are at the concert...ya, so we're some of the idiots standing outside here! So we are debating what to do and finally they make an announcement that they will let you leave and re-enter after the weather has passed. They are going to postpone the show and want everyone to go to their cars and they'll announce on the radio when to come back in. So now we have like a mile hike back to the car and are almost running because we are afraid a downpour is going to suddenly start. We get back to the car and both have to go to the bathroom REAL badly. So we drive back to D&B to use the bathroom there and just hang out in there for a while. Finally at 10pm, we go out to the car and decide they have to be making a decision soon to either go on or just cancel it. Right then they announce they'll start it back up in 15 minutes. So now we park again and this time in like the 3rd to last row, so save ourselves about 10 steps and haul back in there sharing our 1 umbrella and the rain is coming down pretty good. I have flipflops on and since they are wet, they are real slippery and i'm sliding all over the place and have my jeans rolled up. So we stand through the whole concert under the umbrella and finally during the very last song...guess what...the rain stops! Now we hike back our car through the most uneven parking lot ever-- walkthing through huge puddles like 4 inches deep of water the whole way. It was a good show, but don't know it was worth all the effort! They did play some good stuff, but then also had a good number of songs that either one of us had never even heard before. At least it was a memorable experience though and did make it a little more exciting!

Jewelry ideas

So one of these weekends I want to take a stab at making some jewelry. I keep finding some really cool things on the internet for the wedding, but they are all handmade and people say it's not that hard to do. Here is the style of bracelet that I just love, but the problem is that my wrists seem really small so it's hard finding a brooch that isn't going to just take over my wrist!

I don't like this particular necklace, but something like this without the emerald and the brooch to match the one on the bracelet-- I like having it off-center...but of course I really need to just have some jewelry options and then see what looks best with the dress on.

Holy Tornadoes!

So today it's nice and sunny out, so I walk home for lunch and go back to work. About 10 minutes after I'm at work, I'm on the phone and hear this loud pinging against my window and turn around and it was POURING like crazy! I was on the phone for 30 minutes, so didn't get to take a look at things, but knew it was storming. Jeanette, my cubby neighbor, gets back from lunch a little later and says she was driving down washington ave (which is where we live) and was like- I think something happened because there was like debris everwhere and looked like insulation was all over the road. So I belong to this nerdy online community that is mostly made up of people living/working downtown or have a strong interest in revitalizing downtown, so I went on there to see if anyone was talking about it. Here was what someone reported:

This afternoon around 1:00 it seems there was a small tornado that came through the middle of downtown from west to east along Washington, Lucas, Convention. A whole bunch of trees are down, cars had debris thrown through windows, a small piece of wall fell off the west side of the Lammert Building and smashed a car's windshield. Trees by the St. Patrick Center were uprooted. Two cars parked in front of McMurphy's Grill had windows broken by flying chairs from the outside patio. And, a large section of the east wall of the Renaissance Hotel was ripped off collapsing into the alley and into Washington. Oh, and a dumpster was blown out of the alley on the west side of the hotel and smashed into a moving car on Washington. Pretty nuts. Anybody notice this or were you all busy grinding away in your windowless cubes like my co-workers?

There weren't any reports of a tornado, so I think it was just really strong winds. Luckily no damage to our loft building...but the Renaissance of course is the hotel we had picked for our wedding guests! I walked down after the gym tonight with camera in tow to check it out. The damage was all to the building with the suites, where we did not reserve rooms and is a pretty old building. I liked the outside of it because they painted the brick to make it look like there were windows and architectural designs...dustin always thinks that looks stupid. Well the part of the building that came off was this painted portion, so not sure how they'll replace this one! Here's some shots from Photog Gus: