What I have been doing

We've been pretty busy lately but I'll spare you the wordiness and just show you in pictures.

Chase went to his first Royals game.





We celebrated my aunt's husband, Clayton's, 50th birthday.



We watched Gary's first parade in the Oriental Band as a Shriner on the Fourth of July.



I went to the lake with family last week.



Had some drinks...not as many as them, though.



And just because I can.

It just isn't St. Patrick's Day without a good fight.

St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my favorite holidays. It's a pretty big deal here in KC, for those who don't know. There's a huge parade through downtown and always a big celebration in Westport (an area downtown that has a bunch of different bars all within a few steps of each other) afterwards. It's been a big tradition for my friends and I to skip work that day and spend the day having a fabulous time.

The past couple of years, however, I just haven't been feeling it. The parade has gotten dangerous with riots and gang fights and I dunno, I guess I'm old and just don't want to take those kind of risks anymore.

But this year was different! My friends and I did skip the parade but decided to all meet up in Westport a bit later in the afternoon. Because we wanted to avoid the physical violence. Funny.

The meeting spot was supposed to be at The Cactus Cafe around 4ish. A small group of us met up outside the bar and waited in line for 30 minutes or so to meet up with the people who were already inside. We finally made it to the front of the line and as we were paying, a huge fight broke out inside the bar. I was far enough inside to get the hell out of the way but as the bouncers were kicking out about 15 different people, some of MY people got pushed around and scraped up a bit. It was minor but not the best first impression of the bar you are about to hang out in.

So we finally met up with the rest of our people and one of the girls phone rang. Well, come to find out, one of our friends was in the middle of that huge fight. Her husband had just been arrested and she was leaving with another friend of ours to go bail him out. This is NOT the way I like to start my day of partying, ok?

After all that drama, we headed to a different bar to change the atmosphere a bit. We ended up at the Beaumont Club and had a really good time until the very end. After quite a bit of drinking, one of our guy friends got into a huge fight with his brother's wife-it included some slapping. I didn't SEE this one happen but when I got back to where our group was, there was drama. His brother's wife had already left but it was still a bad situation.

IN BETWEEN those two dramatic events, we did really have a good time. I saw some people that I don't get to see very often, drank some beer that I don't get to drink very often and slept in that next day like I don't get to do very often. So overall, I'd give this year 4 stars. But NEXT year, we are making tshirts!

Detox

I'm home and alive, but barely. The trip was the best ever and hopefully I'll have some pictures by the end of the week- I'm hoping to steal some from my friends. Though, I'm not sure how many are postable since the weekend was pretty much a blur. We'll see. Ok, I'm going back to bed now. I'm exhausted. I hope everyone had as great of a weekend as I did!

Whoever let the dogs out is going DOWN!

A few weeks ago, my youngest sister Amanda decided that she would like to have her engagement party at one of our local bars this past Saturday the 20th. (Did I tell you she and Tim got engaged? They did!) A few weeks ago that sounded like a great idea and I've been looking forward to it, since it was a legitimate excuse to get an overnight babysitter and drink...heavily. So finally Saturday rolls around and guess what. Snow. Lots and lots of snow. So we called a cab, packed in and headed out, praying that we made it to where we were trying to go. Most of the invited guests backed out but there still ended up being a pretty good showing and we had an interesting night.

The beautiful bride-to-be:



We had lots of good Kodak moments thrown in there. Like this one with me, Brett, Katie and Mandy:



and this one with my sisters, my dad and me:



and Chuck was cuddly:




Mandy danced with my dad:



But then! Things got sloppy...






and kareoke was sung... ("Baby Got Back" to be specific)




and people did bad things to my father...




and then we danced... (to "Who let the Dogs Out" naturally)






And our friends went from looking like this:




To this:




And this:



So by this point, 1:00 am, I was tired and done. So we called the cab service and were told that it would be at least an hour. Well, ok, I thought. I figured that I could survive an hour or so wait. It wasn't THAT long ago that I stayed out a hell of a lot later than 2:00 in the morning so, no big deal. So 2:00 AM rolls around and no cab. Chuck calls the cab company and they say something along the lines of "Sorry, sir, we're really behind and we'll get to you as soon as possible." Ok. So 3:00am rolls around and the bar is closing! Still no cab in sight. So uh, what the hell were we supposed to do? There wasn't anyone that could come and get us that was close by PLUS they would have to drive us all the way out to our home which was NOT close to the bar we were at. And the weather was so horrible! So we decided to wait it out. At the CVS.

Here we are in the "lobby", as we were calling it, of CVS. It was cold, with no place to sit and definitely no outlets because we sure as hell would have bought a heater or microwave or something.

Cold Gary, Mandy and Tim to my left in CVS Lobby. Chuck was to my left also, just so close to me that you can't see him...because I was FREAKING COLD!



Cold/Drunk Katie to my right in CVS Lobby:



FINALLY, the cab shows up at 4 AM! 4 AM PEOPLE! I didn't get into bed until 5:00 AM! Yeah, I can't hang, I've decided. And I've decided that I'm ok with that. Just next time, someone please make me go home after "letting the dogs out".