St. Patrick's Day Breakfast

For the second year we had everyone over for breakfast before we headed over to The Abbey Pub to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Unfortunately we didn't get the camera out until we headed over to the pub, so we don't have any photos from the house. However, a great time was had by all at both Breakfast and at the Pub.

I got the privilege of taking Andy's kids to a bar for the first time. (Don't tell Kari!)

After spending a good 7 hours at the pub we returned to the house to party a little longer. One of the new engineers at Chicago Faucet spend the day with us and I think really enjoyed herself. Her name is Whitney and she's all around good people because she and her fiancee are Reds fans and being from Nashville understand what real BBQ is! Whitney showed her southern roots by closing out the party at our house by demanding Free Bird by Lynard Skynard!

It was a great day all around. Jen and Tony came up to the Pub after going to a lecture at the Science and Industry Museum. The rest of the Chicago Crew was there with the exceptions being Grady and Keith. Keith was down with an illness and Grady was at a med conference in Austin. However, Chris and Eileen made it, as you know we couldn't celebrate anything Irish without Eileen!!

Spring is Creeping Closer

Winter finally seems to be giving way to spring here in the midwest, and not a moment too soon! Even though the temps are rising we still have some remnants of winter hanging around. I noticed this phenomenon last year but didn't get a good photo. I'm not sure what causes this, maybe it's the prevailing winds, but all the ice from Lake Michigan seems to stack up against the shore here in Long Beach.

I'll try to get a night photo but I don't think that it will really come through. The appearance is very eerie at night.

What Have We Been Up To?

It's been a while since our last update and a lot has been going on in our world. Paula left a few days after our last post for a trip to Anartica with her Mom. She'll be gone for another few days. So Vince and I have been hanging out and not doing much of anything exciting.

The first week that Paula was gone was awful weather wise. This has been a crazy snowy winter here in the Chicago area. Michigan City is of course getting it even worse. We had 12 plus inches in two days a couple of weeks ago!

I finally finished my tennis lessons, though I still don't want to talk about it. The instructor was as nice as he could be about it, but my capabilities on the hardcourts wasn't much to write home about. I will say in my defense that due to my multiple shoulder injuries to my left arm I was forced to play right handed.
As I mentioned, I've been working a ton so Vince has been "neglected" in his eyes. He's still getting plenty of love, just not as much play time as he would like. To combat this I bought a ball throwing device which allows me to fling the ball 75 yards (again, the shoulder issues make throwing the ball difficult) which allows Vince to run full speed after it! He loves the new game! Additionally we've been taking "training" walks every Sunday. Training is for me actually though, I'm building up to our cruise where we're going to be walking a lot. We've been doing 3~5 miles every Sunday.

I decided this Saturday Vince needed som Puppy Play time so he went to Dogs Day Inn overnight. I was planning to go out on Saturday night so I figured he would love to go to puppy camp yesterday afternoon. We had bath time tonight to get the stink off of him!

I have been out with Keith the last three Saturdays. Grady joined us the first night out on the town, it was a great time. We started at Pint where we got 8 free pint glasses to replace Grady's Ikea set. (You got a free glass with each pint of Guiness!) Last Saturday we grabbed BBQ and went to a movie - which I slept through. Can't help it, I was at work 12 hours every day the week before including 8 hours on Saturday. Finally this weekend we hit a pub crawl in Chicago. Here are a couple of photos:









Oh yeah, that's the other thing I've been up to, I've been growing a beard. It's coming in all right, not great. I'll probably shave it all off when Paula gets home.

On the Purdue front, the Boilers have locked up the second seed in this week's big ten tournament. I have really enjoyed this basketball season, it has been much better than I could have hoped for from a team that features four freshmen!