Labor Day weekend!

It's been a GREAT weekend in Chicago. :-) Of course. Who would have expected anything else?

Friday night was awesome. The last night of work on my job -- sad but nice. Went out to dinner which was great, and got to see everyone one last time. Went for a run about 4:30 AM, definitely tripped and fell. So embarassing! But it was dark out so I have a sort-of excuse?!?! Hehe. Great night at work. I heart my job... very very scared about moving to the new one. Praying about that...

Saturday afternoon I came in and Tim very graciously picked me up. Then we went to Duffy's downtown for Stacey's going away party. We got to see Jennifer and her fiance Steve, Patrick, Emily, Kathleen, Stacey, Mike, Chad, Nikki, Hart and his girlfriend Becky. That was 11 of the 15 high school group friends right there! The pics above are from Saturday night -- the first is me and Tim, the second is me and Kathleen.

Sunday at the wedding there was of course Laura and Randy, Jen, Anthony, Hart, Tim, Emily, Jennifer and Steve, me, Patrick, Hart's girlfriend Becky, Nikki and her boyfriend, and Andrew Ellis! So that added another 4 people from the high school group... The wedding was absolutely lovely, lavendar which of course I ADORED. IT was a super fun time, great dancing, great food, great catching up with friends and watching two great friends get married! I thought they also did a wonderful job of blending their Catholic and Jewish faiths. I'll post wedding pics tomorrow. I love this pic posting thing!

Monday I got up and my parents and Christine came to visit, YAAAAAAY. So much fun! We went to Noodles for lunch (YUM DIDILY YUM DUM). Then we drove around somewhat randomly and then went to Woodfield. Weird, haven't been there in a while. We spent about 5 hours together, it was great to see them. Ugh, I should have taken a famliy picture. Boo to me. THEN Erin Birk came and met up with me at the mall!!!!! Yaaaay I had so much fun with her, she is so much like me in so many ways and it was good to catch up. I really want to convince her to move to Portland -- I'd have a climbing partner in crime which would be awesome. Patrick too. Both of them have expressed an interest in it so that would be totally awesome. (an interest in both climbing and moving.) So anyway, great times. Then I came back to Tim's house (he and his family have been SO kind to let me stay with them all weekend) and chatted with him and his parents for a few hours, then watched some TV with Tim. I should have called my friend Joel right at 6 PM when I got home, we'd talked about getting together but I just didn't really think of it. About midnight I go upstairs to go to bed, and he's online so I IM him. He was my mentor (boss?) my internship 4 summers ago, and we liked each other at the time though never did anything about it because of work. We haven't seen each other in 3 years (we worked at different facilites but the same company the summer of 2002), so we really wanted to see each other. So he finally convinces me to see if Tim is still up, so I ask Tim if it's okay if I go out and just stay out until the morning (so I don't have to wake anyone up coming back in). He says it's fine, so Joel comes to pick me up about 1 AM and then we go to his condo in Schaumburg. It was REALLY nice, he'd just redone it and he has great style. So we put a movie in but really are just chatting for a few hours... then we finally kiss, 4 years later. Hehehe, it was great. It was a really nice evening, good to see him. He says he's going to come out to Portland, but he is fickle so I doubt him. He says in his own online profile - ".....Oh and I never do what I say I'm going to do. I'm unreliable as a friend." So we'll see. All the same it was a good night.

This morning Joel drove me home (to Tim's house) and then we had lunch and chatted. Then I took a little nap and then I woke up and went to dinner with Patrick, then just drove around Palatine, etc. Great night, and a great end to a great trip. I'm looking forward to coming home to Portland tomorrow!! YAY YAY!!!!

The only people of the 20 high school friends in "the group" that I didn't see this weekend were John, Aileen, Julius, Kaley, and Heather. Not bad at all! - actually I think the best we've done in 4 or 5 years.