*Stachelorette* party

Last night was erin's bachelorette party at Howl at the Moon in Chicago. The last few days of freedom before her wedding in July. :)





Bri and I dancing...






All the brides-to-be's were called up to the stage. Lots of other bachelorette parties were going on.


Bri gets crazy


That's Bri's foot in the picture with me...(does she do yoga?)


The Elmhurst College alum toast to our education.


Someone had issues working the camera at first...

Dog day afternoon

We went to the Puptown dog park in Chicago yesterday. Bella had a blast herding a huge German Shepherd.






She's not usually a big water dog but I carried her in and she had to get back to shore somehow...











We took a walk along the lake and stopped so Andy could comb Bella. She loves that.







***
"Wait--are those clouds? Clouds? How did you ever get pictures of clouds?!"
(Whatever, I know everybody has clouds, I just felt like taking the pictures. Shut up.)




"And sailboats? How in the world did you---"
(You know what? We're done here.)


***

Then we stopped by the Kaisers.
Andy and Tommy discuss politics...
Andy: "So who are you voting for in November?"
Tommy: "I'm thinking this dog right here."




Ben bowls on the Wii.


Bella tries hard to get away from Mollie...


After the day's excitement, Bella's a tired dog on the way home.

No pain, no gain

We were getting out of Stevie's car last weekend and all of a sudden Andy opened his mouth wide and looked like he wanted to start spewing a bunch of cuss words. He didn't say anything, but grabbed at his arm.

"What happened?" I asked.

He couldn't speak for a few seconds.
Finally, he said, "The door hit my arm."

"The door hit your arm? Yikes," I said. (I was thinking, "Door schmoor...gosh that chocolate dipped cone from Dairy Queen I just had was good!")

He didn't say anything more about it and the mark on his arm stayed invisible.

Until...later.

This is what the mark looks like today...

Oh father, who art in Morton...

We went to Morton for Father's Day weekend to spend time with the family.

Andrew had a baseball game Saturday.


We sat on the sidelines and talked about how long the game seemed to be lasting...




Later I met up with my high school friends, Shanon and Jamie.


Shanon loves Jamie's dog...

...sort of...


Then we made a run to the grocery store for some (girly) staples (i.e. ice cream, peanutbutter M&M's, etc.)


Shanon was threatening me here, but I can't remember why. (Something about me not taking her picture...I don't know...I forget...)


Before I could eat my ice cream, I hopped on Jamie's new elliptical machine to burn off 30 calories. (I consumed 300...sigh.)


Jamie's friend, Evans, from Kenya came to visit later. (Well, he didn't come straight from Kenya to Jamie's...he's been in the states for awhile...)

He speaks Swahili! (I've always liked the sound of that word!)


On Sunday, my family went to the dog park.
Bella had a blast...



Popcorn, my parent's dog, was as embarrassing as always...
(Yeah, gross, right?)


(What a brown-noser...)



My youngest brother is 14 and almost taller than me...




Stevie tries to be cool...
Stevie: "When can we leave?"
Steve: "Just humor Erin a little longer..."


Steve and the boys


Andrew being slightly nerdy...