The Missing Link

This past Friday my husband turned 31. Recently I found out his birthday, March 28th, falls on national food on a stick day. So of course Saturday night we threw a party in his honor with all food being served on sticks. The most plentiful bounty was the homemade corn dogs. Friday night we were up until midnight making homemade sausage.

Unfortunately I was too busy enjoying the merriment that I forgot to take any pictures of the finished corn dogs. It was a fantastic party and I look forward to growing another year older with Peter. 

Strange fruit

During a recent expedition to procure all of the necessary ingredients for Peter's birthday bash this coming weekend. I came across this treasure.

That's right folks. Evidently children can't be made to eat real apples just as is now they must be seasoned to taste nothing like apples. Me being me I couldn't NOT buy it. The even more unfortunate realization was that the apple didn't taste like a tropical blast it just tasted like a really bad apple. Much like it had been sitting on the ground underneath the tree for 3 days before it was picked up. After visiting the crazy apples website I learned more. They will not tell you how or what they put in their apples only that it is completely natural and that C.A.'s are not genetically modified. Good to know that there is nothing "unnatural" about my bubble gum flavored apple, right!

Chidita-WHAT!?

This past weekend Peter, me, and a few friends competed in a mobile food drive and shopping cart race. This event has been going on for nearly a decade here in Chicago and since it is held on the same day as the Iditarod (a dog sled race held in Alaska) it has been deemed the Chiditarod. Basically a bunch of teams raise money and collect canned goods to donate to the Greater Chicago Food Depository and then at the end of our fundraising time we have a shopping cart race down the neighborhood streets of Chicago's west town area. This year over $30,000 and 26,000 lbs of food were collected making it the most food and money raised since the inception of the race. I was so glad and proud to participate in such an event and I want to say thank you to all those who donated their time and/or money!

This is our team. Yes we are dressed as ourselves. The team name was The Dead Ringers. It is a little self involved but honestly we wanted to be able to dress warmly and still be "in costume" plus it's pretty freaking hilarious. Some of the best costumes I saw were the PacMan team. Their cart was decorated like a giant PacMan head and inside the mouth was a TV screen where you could actually play PacMan with a controller and everything! I few more stand outs were The Chubby Stewardesses, all men dressed in skimpy flight attendant uniforms with a giant plane shopping cart that they were serving booze from. I'm not sure of the name of the team but one team was dressed as tourists and had decorated their cart like the city of Chicago. Next year we will hopefully have more time to be more creative with our costumes of course we did get a personal award from a volunteer for being the most surreal team.

V-DAY

I'm sure the statute of limitations for talking about your valentine's day clearly runs out at the end of Feb. But I'm going for it anyway. Peter and I spent the most EPIC v day ever in NOLA. We woke up and had brunch at the best place to get bloody marys in the city. Funny after three bloody marys (the waiter refused to serve us any less forcing us to take  one to go which we did not finish) with brunch I don't remember what it was called. Then I had to make a stop off and call cupid and wish him a happy V DAY and extend my thanks of course. You may notice in the photo I'm using a pay phone as ethereal calling rates are outrageous with my plan. Fortunately you can call any realm with a pay phone as they are quite simple machines.

Next Peter and I sauntered over to the Insectarium. Yep folks you heard me right, a museum for insects. I love bugs; they are fascinating. This particular museum is where I first discovered my favorite bug the mole cricket a few years ago. After museum exploits we headed to Bourbon St. to see if any valentine crazies were about. For those of you who have never been to the big easy this is the street where all the action happens. And by all the action I mean the lewd conduct and vomiting. Unfortunately or fortunately, however you wish to see things, we were not witness to any expelature of bodily fluids but we did see two young ladies walking around topless with hearts painted over their boobies. A very happy valentine's day was being had by the older gentleman(?) that was having his picture taken with them. We wandered down to Jackson Square to see if anything fun was happening down that way and met a nice magician from Winnipeg Canada. Holler back all you Pegians! Peter lived in Winnipeg for a time, right after college and before coming to Chicago, so we had a nice chat with that cavalier from the great white north. Then it was onward to our dinner reservations. As we were a bit delinquent in making our appointment for our day of love the reso was for 4 p.m. Yes we were the youngest people in the restaurant by a significant margin but it was still a fantastic meal. We spent the remainder of the evening wandering through the quarter listening to really great music. I was allowed to sit in on the washboard with one group. 

It was an amazing time and I look forward to many more memorable Valentine's Days with my fantastic husband!