What's New?

I've been a bad blogger, but life's been very busy, thus, the crux of this post. If you haven't already heard, we're moving back to central Illinois!

As of yesterday, Will is the new Meetings Director at the Crowne Plaza Hotel! He started last year in Chicago at Dave & Buster's as a special events assistant, until the position was eliminated company-wide. Since then he's been doing odds and ends for the company, but now has a more permanent place to use his great customer service and event planning skills. If you plan a convention with the Crowne, Will is the go-to man for all of your details!

This week I am busy tying up the loose ends in Chicago and I start my new position on Monday the 19th at the Hope Institute and The Autism Program of Illinois in Springfield. Their new location is the medical pavilion near the old Doctor's Hospital. It seems I will have the opportunity to use my communication and journalism skills, along with the clinical experiences I accrued working with individuals with mental illness at Thresholds.

The apartment is full of boxes, and we've cleaned as much as possible. Will is riding the train up Friday and we're moving on Saturday.

We're glad to move back to the land of half price rent, but I've been feeling a little sentimental. This has been our home for over two years, our first big adventure together and our first place together. Yesterday, I was walking to the gym, enjoying the leaves falling amongst the brownstones, the smells of the bakery and the kids riding their bikes on the walk. Then, I heard all the honking, had to wait to use equipment at the gym and almost got hit while crossing the street.

Things I won't miss are going around the block 20 times to find a parking spot, digging the car out of a parking spot in the winter, riding the train home with drunk and obnoxious Cubs fans, paying $4.00 for a gallon of milk, and over 12% tax on a bottle of wine.

While stating those lofty feelings of loving the city life, my friend recently asked me what I would miss most. After some long thought, the only thing I could come up with is the FOOD. In the city, there's Thai, Japanese, Italian, Argentinian....the list goes on. But the best part? It all comes to your doorstep any time of day. We're back to the land of the Horseshoe (which I love) and the land of "everything closes at 10:00 p.m." *sigh*

We're renting an apartment in Springfield for six months for literally less than half our current rent, and plan to save for a down payment on a house. Once we get settled, we'll make connections with everyone and start enjoying the best part of moving- family.

Memorial Day Weekend

We decided to stay in and make our own picnic, sans grill. Will whipped up some awesome burgers. I'll have to get him to post the recipe, but they involved soy sauce, pineapple grilled over the stove burner, bacon, pepper jack cheese and pretzel rolls. My contribution was strawberry margaritas; the approximate recipe is below. I made them frozen 'cause that's how Hubs like 'em, but you could blend the strawberries first and shake them in with the other ingredients for a margarita on the rocks.


Prep:
Make limeade from concentrate, but use half the water required.
Clean Strawberries, and blend before hand if making rocks.

Jessie's Strawberry Margaritas
2 oz limeade
1.5 oz tequila
.75 oz triple sec
Spash of orange juice
3-4 large strawberries
*Blend with ice until desired consistency is reached. Use fresh lime to rim glass and dip glass into kosher salt. You'll need a straw!

Christmas Ornaments in May

I've been going through a couple boxes a week, assessing how much....stuff we have. In this process, I stumbled on some Christmas ornaments I started in, oh, 2006? My goal is to wrap up all the half-completed projects I've started and continue to move from one household to the next. I figure we'll still have to move them in their completed version, but I'll be less disgusted about it.

Snowflakes make sense, but Christmas spiders you ask? They were just too weird not to make! Four snowflakes down, two to go. I'm happy to report all six Christmas spiders are complete.

Weekend Trip To CoMo

Two weeks ago, Will and I took a long weekend. We stopped in Springfield so he could take an employment assessment at UIS, had a birthday lunch at Cozy Dog with mom and headed to Columbia, Missouri.

We were lucky enough to imbibe and eat at all our favorite places, but somehow, I only came back with a couple pictures of us and friends at Eastside Tavern. Also, I have a few when we stopped by the Lewis/McCoy house on the way back to Chicago.

Nom Nom, Uncle Will

Mike Kowalik and Molly

Remembering Derby

Seeing how most of my readership is composed of family, you might only know my good friend, Sara Wolff, as the fourth bridesmaid in our wedding. What do you know about her? She has dark hair like me and blended in with my sisters easily, she has a noteworthy giggle, and she was great under stress that day. It was probably hard to notice more in the short time you may have crossed her path in September, but the very extraordinary part of our relationship involves an even larger group of women.

Sara and I met in August or September of 2007. She lived next door to my good friend Brian, and as Sara and Brian spent more time together, so did Sara and I. By January, we were in the depth of Missouri winter (which now I find temperate and wonderful) and bored. We felt like we needed to do something, anything, and fast. I mentioned that my co-worker, Adrienne, continually mentioned trying to start a derby team, and we.....did it!

Today, a great article ran in the Columbia Missourian recounting this infamous (at least to us) beginning of the CoMo Derby Dames. When we began, I would guess I spent 20 hours a week doing derby-related things, be it working out, planning practices, going to meetings, helping with fundraisers, etc. Will and I were fairly new to each other at the time and he frequently worried for my safety and sanity. No words could describe to him the empowerment, camaraderie and downright awesomeness I felt while knocking down my best friends, even when it resulted in a suspected hairline fracture. It really was hard to attempt to validate my experience while I cried and he iced my leg; he thought I was upset because my leg hurt, but I was infuriated because it would keep my off my skates.

I realized he was over his hesitation during our first bout. After my first good block that resulted in our team scoring, I looked into the stands to see my future husband standing up, screaming for me at the top of his lungs. My heart swelled and it hit me- this was the first time in my life when I was the star, my friends were the stars. The stands were full of boyfriends, husbands, friends and derby children all present to support the strong women in their lives. And I was part of it.

In June last year, I went to Columbia for a visit and went to have a drink at a familiar haunt. Sara, several friends and I sat in the corner window on a busy corner. Soon, we saw a derby girl and her friend standing a few feet away on the street corner. We left our table to join them and they greeted my excitedly as if I'd never moved to Chicago. As we chatted, more derby girls accumulated on their way to different destinations. Momma Knee Ya screamed, "Foxy! You're here!" from across the street and made a mad dash to join in the fun. Simply by standing in a high traffic area, there were friends all around, and the vast reach of this organization really touched me.

Enjoy the article; it makes me proud that I still make the news, even though we moved almost two years ago. Below are some pictures from Season I and some more links to publicity.

Roller Rumble

Derby Dames

Derby Fundraiser with Ninja Skwidd

First bout at Empire Roller Rink: Howie, Skwidd and Bex.

My wheels

Publicity shot

Blocking at the first bout

As Promised...

The pictures are in reverse order (oops), but I don't really relish the task of reorganizing them.

Wrigley Field for the Reds/Cubs Series. Below, you can see Lake Michigan in the background.

My handsome husband. :)

Grandpa Doug and Evelyn on Easter.

Evie and Daddy.

"Bath? Ew."

Trying on her new headband.

New clothes from Mike and Elisa.

Dying Easter eggs with Mommy. Evie sure looks interested!

"For moi?"

I forgot to mention in my last post that my best friend, Megan, flew from Minneapolis to spend the weekend with me. I have no pictures of the two of us, but I DO have pictures of our loot from Hot Doug's. Click the link and check out their website! They are renowned for their interesting dog selection, and our hour wait was well worth the Polish, Hot Link and Duck Fries we ate.

This is St. Patrick's Day in Springfield. Josh, Will and Ed were getting into the spirit at Brown's.

Bagpipers at Celtic Mist.

Evie and Daddy at the St. Pat's parade.

My preparations for an ealy Irish celebration at our house included whiskey soda bread and corned beef.

Into the pot with ye!

Nine pounds was barely enough!

Our first married Valentine's Day.

Its been a while

Since our last post, a few things have happened. Let's see...

February involved our first married Valentine's Day. We went really fancy with a cheap bottle of pink champagne and a frozen pizza at home.

March was my birthday on the 16th and St. Pat's. I went to Springfield on Friday and Will took the 7:15 train to Springfield on Saturday night. We had a good time seeing all the friends and family, including baby Evie would saw her first parade.

April was a busy month. We were fortunate enough to acquire tickets to two games during the the Reds/Cubs series. My first trip to Wrigley was on a Tuesday night and about 25 degrees; we did get to see a cat run across the field with a few people chasing it.

I went to Springfield for Easter and saw the whole family, including Aunt Susan and Uncle Ron who came from Omaha. Sarah, Jake, Evelyn and I went to church in Berlin with Dad and Patty and then we had a great meal at Aunt Molly's.

Also, last week, I had a job interview in Springfield. Hopefully, our relocation will happen soon! Everyone cross their fingers! I'll post pictures soon of our last several months!

Weekend with the baby.

Here are pictures from our weekend with the McCoy/Lewis family. We had a great weekend, minus Will and me getting food poisoning and Sarah's starter going out. Jersey Boys was great and we lazed around and snuggled the baby. We're looking forward to having them back when the weather warms up and we can sight see.