ALI TURNS TWENTY FIVE, FINALLY!

I've been trying to turn Ali 25 for 3 years now.
[this entry is post dated.... ]
I don't know why it always seemed fitting to wish her a Happy 25th, on her 22nd, 23rd and 24th, but this year I can say it legitimately. Twenty-five for the win!

The birthday weekend started yesterday, when Damanji and I arrived in from the STL & Cinci Metros, respectively. Today was the real start of our Chicagoland weekend to celebrate one of our best friends.

1 | BREAKFAST! 
.: Eggs. We went to Eggs. No, seriously, the place is called [just] Eggs. It sounds like a broken sentence, but that's the name and that's the place and it was fun. I don't, however, recommend that you order the Georgia Peach Crepe, unless you like the combination of sourdough, cottage cheese and canned peaches... warm... together. Otherwise, it was definitely a fresh little vibe and I'd go back and try something else on the rather extensive menu.

metiiiculously unfolding the carry out bag
#militarybagfolding ;) 

2| NAPERVILLE
.: Ali's job as a live-in nanny has her living here, so she's become acquainted with several of the local shopping spots, etc. etc.

on our way! 

The highlights of this outing include but are most definitely not limited to:
DAVIDsTEA. Who do I talk to about getting one - or more - of these in Cincinnati, like.. yesterday?! Sorry, but.. Teavana, who? Cincinnati, you need a DAVIDsTEA, and that is that.

davids tea | naperville, il
so. much. yesssss. 

yesssssss! 

We hit the NVille outlets, as well; the birthday girl was loaded down with giftcards to use, and the plunder was bountiful: Sephora, Kate Spade and Pac Sun on the top hit list. We even managed to spot an interesting story parked in the lot outside: 

shark attack?

3 | NANNY LIFE
.: We stopped at Ali's "house" after our downtown Naperville tour, where she lives as a nanny. It should come as no surprise that it's practically a castle in a neighborhood of other castles, that has heated floors, awesome decor, a retractable cover and a fluffy dog named Lola:

oh ya know... 

if this was my house, i'd live in this room alone. 

ya'll already know.. where there's a dog, there's cori.
#sheissofluffffyyyyyyy

4 | BUBBLE TEA
.: This makes the list because I haven't had bubble tea since I lived in Illinois, which, if you've been counting, was over 3 years ago. I think the universe was savvy to this fact as I ordered [and paid for] one "taro with lychee," but received a taro and a lychee. Was I mad about this? No. Was I probably over-hydrated? Yes.

twofer.. and asian for the win! 

5 | CHICAGO! 
.: After our adventures in Naperville, we made our weekend ascent into Chicago, where the city lay waiting for 3 more tourists to take advantage of all is has to offer within a 3-day span. We checked into the hotel, and within half an hour, Ali's friend Lindsay rendezvoused with us to start the city celebration.

'ello, chi!! 

Our first stop: Happy hour at Howells & Hood!

quick stop before dinner! 

calamari.. yes please... 

The meat of the evening was dinner at Bar Siena, where our reservation awaited us. We changed, put on our evening faces and made our way out to an incredible dinner to thank Ali's parents for her existence :).

happy 25th birthday, beautiful friend! 

damanji! 

Things on the menu that we ordered:
Kale & cranberry salad
Roasted peppers
Corn ravioli
BAKED POTATO SOUP + MAC&CHEESE: 

leave me alone i need a moment....... *drool. 

cori. ali. lindsay. shawn.
♥♥♥♥

6 | CHICAGO AFTER HOURS :)
.: Ali only turns 25 once, at least legitimately... so naturally it was off in search of some spirited fun. We're in Chicago, so it wasn't hard. Thanks to Lindsay's guidance, Uber and a stellar tender at HVAC, we made the evening shine in special honor of Ali!

stop #1

stop #2

stop #3, with candid faces.. kinda ♥

A lot more of the pictures I have from tonight are blurry... but I suppose that's bound to happen when standing still is less fun than dancing until your feet want to remove themselves from your body entirely [current mood]. 

Good night, Chicago. You're beautiful. See you tomorrow! 

xo | cmd

And STRAIGHT for the Fried Green Beans I Go...

In a strange, spur-of-the-moment change of events this morning, I ended up driving the tank to work. I, like the amateur I swear I am sometimes, wish I would've taken a quick snapshot of that thing parked in between the usual cars in the parking lot at work.. haha.

BUT HEY! It's FRIDAY!

no make-up, ready for the weekend!

And here's a little twist to the story of Friday lunches here:

post-lunch, you're welcome.

Hahah. Elisa and I were like ravenous wildebeasts by the time lunch came around; I sorta wish I would've saved a picture of the salmon that went with the salad, but it was almost like my survival instincts kicked in and told me to just shut up, sit down and eat. I'm not proud of the carnage, but to say I really cared is well, nah.

Anywhoo, I checked work off the day's list, headed home and switched into road trip mode for the ride out to Illinois. Rob met me at the house and we were on our way within the half hour. We even caught the sunset as we droooooove through Indiana [Jason Aldean has this whole Fly Over States thing right!].

yeah, so it was way prettier in person... :/

Like the habitual creatures that we are, we made it to Illinois, thought of food, and immediately defaulted to Bindy's. I. don't. know why it's always this place, but it is.

bindy's | granite city, il

Oh wait, yes I do know:

give me... fried green beans!

We laughed over that picture, because I could probably document every single time over the past year that we've gone back to visit, just by timestamping my pictures of these things. Every. Time.

And this is how our weekend is starting.

burst capture mode.. thanks, samsung..

i'm not touching you...
... yes, yes you actually are.
.... meh.

Haha. It's gonna be a long one ;)
Just kidding. We made it!

See ya on the flipside!

xo | cmd

BURN IT DOWN TOUR!

It's here, it's here, IT'S HERE!!

We bought tickets back in what, February for this? YAY, COUNTRY CONCERTS!

[Picture time!]

ready to go!

my perch for tailgating!

tailgating with a thousand of our closest friends ;)

jessica & anna stopped by to join the fun!

It came time to head into the actual concert, so off we were, into the swarm of people at the gates of Great American Ball Park. We made our way down through the bleachers and onto the FIELD :D, where we located our seats and prepared for an awesome night.


on the field!

fgl

miranda!

happy birthday, again, babe!

my long lost love natascha

cincinnati's here to party!!

a... is for aldean!!

burn it down tour

jason!!!

kelly clarkson made a [video] appearance

yeah, jason!

happy birthday, to this man.. I.. LOVE YOU!!!

There's some video footage to go along with all of this; please pardon the shakiness and semi-decent sound quality - It was LOUD!

 

Rather than post each and every video here, I'll give you links, if you feel that inclined to go watch them :)

 

Florida-Georgia Line - This is How We Roll

Miranda Lambert - Automatic

Miranda Lambert - Baggage Claim

Miranda Lambert - House That Built Me

Miranda Lambert - Mama's Broken Heart

Jason Aldean - My Kinda Party

Jason Aldean - Night Train

Jason Aldean & Kelly Clarkson - Stay

Jason Aldean - Fly Over States

[NEW!] Jason Aldean - Burnin' It Down

 

 

We rounded out the evening with a late-night grub-out at The Yard House with Brittany and Wayne before heading home [sidenote: staying late = postponing parking lot madness!].

 

What an AWESOME night!!! Here's to country music, country friends and an incredible round out to Rob's birthday festivities.

 

We're some happy people here, folks. Tired, but happy.

G'Nite! ♥

 

xo | cmd

Who Needs Professional Movers?!

Anna and I were feeling generous today, so we left the privelage of the bulky stuff to the boys: 

booom. bring on the heavy lifting.

^^ & yes, that's a total load of hogwash. While Anna and I did somehow manage to hoist some pieces that may've appeared to outweigh our abilities, by no means did we do the majority of the moving. Haha. No way. We'll take credit where it's due, but I'll definitely give it to the guys for practically clearing this thing out within a couple of hours. I have no idea how they managed to get those three big ticket items [toolbox, air compressor, pool table slates] up into the truck in the first place, but I'm thankful nobody was injured loading or unloading.

With the exception of a small portion of things still back in Rob's Illinois house, he's moved. The truck, 4-wheeler and Harley come later (:

To celebrate, we said to heck with healthy and made a beeline to Newport for some Bar Louie. Nobody complained.

lumberjack invasion...

Rob has a few things to wrap up tomorrow morning before he and the others head back to Illinois. For now, we're relaxing and not doing much of anything, save for resting up. It's back to the real world tomorrow, whatever that means (:

G'Nite!

xo | cmd

Let The REAL Moving BEGIN!

Itty bitty backdated... it's whatevs.

It's gettin' real here at the new digs, folks.

saturday warm up!

The first thing I have to do is acknowledge Rob, Jesse & Anna as being saints for enduring the trip out here. I say that because apparently, in the midst of trekking out here, the boat trailor suffered a flat tire, which meant an extra goose chase to replace it. By the time they conquered slow speeds, hilly climbs in Cincinnati, road construction and general traffic, Jesse & Anna had named the apparent face on the boat from following it for so long. They were all ready to get out of the car. I don't blame them one bit.

With their unfortunate delay, I opted for a quick visit to the gym to get the muscles warmed up for the day. Plus, the UA's are still in the process of being properly broken in; we're getting there!

After some brief leg stretching, there was the matter of planting a boat in the driveway. It might've been a 15-minute ordeal, but eventually Rob managed to settle the Stingray into its home for the cold months. I would've had the thing halfway in the yard, so no complaints here.

boat & truck: parked like a pro!

Nobody had any real expectations of anything being unloaded today, so with that being said, we took a few minutes to all collect ourselves before readying for a night out in Cinci. I learned earlier this week that Magnolia Sons [the super-talented collection of artists from Nashville] was scheduled back to The Drinkery tonight, so we sculpted evening plans around that.

We attempted to visit Bakersfield for dinner; they were at occupancy capacity, so for the first time ever, I visited Taste of Belgium outside of standard brunch hours. Of course, that didn't stop us from ordering the usual chicken & waffles, appropriately replacing orange juice with some Belgium house brews. Nader & Keith joined us for the experience, and it wasn't long before we were finished there and en route to heart of OTR.

Drinkery it was. Magnolia Sons it was. Awesome set list, it was [again]. We were not disappointed.

... after finally managing this around nader's head haha.. magnolia sons!

'Twas a good night all around, definitely :). It's great to have some of Rob's friends visiting, even if everything right now is up in the air and all over the place as far as sleeping arrangements and whatnot. We're taking comfort in the fact that it will not always be like this, haha.

For now, we're back with the pups, who were proud today to sport their new collars and tags to the bunch. They're ready for some snuggling, and we're all ready to call it a night.

xo | cmd

And We DRIVE (:

HOOOOME.

We spent a lot of time driving and sleeping today. 

glittering along the way... haha

Sydni is such a little trooper.. even after sustaining some scrapes from running too fast across the driveway... 


my little road trip buddy!

And late into the evening.. she's still there to keep me sane.. and sing to me ;)

love her. my little car queen!

hello kitty

To unwind the day, we watched this.

I love the time we get to spend snuggling late in the evening to this.. but for the movie itself, I will not complain if I never have to watch this again. Ever. Haha. Thank you, 1990's Hello Kitty...

We also read a couple of books, sang a couple of songs.. played some hide & seek in the house, and snuggled up together to wind down the night to HK's Princess series.

Aaaaand.. I noted to myself that I will need to go through my phone more often, especially now that Sydni has figured out how to access the camera. She took this picture of Rob's truck that is actually.. a really good picture. Haha. It doesn't look like she'll need too many lessons on object focus when it comes time for her to start learning with a real camera! ;) 

gorgeous photo, actually!

^ Wow.. way to go, Syd! Hah.. Looks like that girl's gonna give me a run for my money as a photographer! And I.. am okay with that. ♥

So anyway, not too much excitement for today.. but a good day all around.
Here's to the rest of the week (:

xo | cmd