Fabulous Fourth!!
July 09, 2003 10:20 pm

Despite the last minute changes & stresses, we ended up having an AWESOME weekend!! It was just so nice. Thursday we met my sister and BIL at Gino's for a late dinner. Angie & Jim love Gino's and my BIL had never had it, so it was a good choice. By the time we were done, it was pretty late, so we parted ways. Jim & I came home and watched Chicago's downtown fireworks on TV, straightened up a bit and then went to bed. Friday morning we met at IKEA (no purchases). Afterwards we went to Border's. Jim wanted a new book and my sister wanted to look for a baby gift. Afterwards, we came back here for lunch and card games. We had a great time chatting and playing. Late afternoon I started dinner. The pre-concert was at 6:30 and we wanted to get there about that time. So we prepared the food, grilled it and enjoyed a fabulous dinner. Afterwards we packed up our blankets, cards and miscellaneous stuff and headed to the high school. (Jim and I have gone to the fireworks at Lake Park each year and each year the celebration has gotten better.) We parked and found a spot. We messed around, got DQ, listened to the various concerts, laughed at the Rose Queen (an eloquent speaker she was NOT!!) and just enjoyed each other. The fireworks were AWESOME. I played around with the settings on my digital camera and got some great shots! We headed back to our apartment and, again, parted ways. Saturday morning Angie & Andy came over and then we headed out for the day. We went to Walker Brothers for breakfast (a place Jim found) and it was SOOOOOOO wonderful!! Everyone enjoyed everything. Afterwards we headed to Long Grove for a couple hours. We've been there a few times and its a nice way to kill some time. We enjoyed browsing the shops and then went to the scrapbook store. My sister is just recently really getting into it. She and Andy really enjoyed looking at my stuff and fawned all over it (which I enjoyed! LOL) and she wanted to go to a good SB store with me. My BIL is quite amusing about it--he's so into it!! Jim enjoys looking at my pages and is impressed but doesn't really say much and certainly doesn't get into it really (like helping me pick things out, providing ideas, etc...). It was quite cute. Afterwards we went back to our apartment. They had their wedding pictures with them and I needed to pick some out to order. The reprints were pretty expensive, so I wasn't able to order all the ones I wanted but I did limit myself to a few really nice ones. After pictures and a couple more card games, we said our goodbyes. Jim and I lounged around for a bit and then headed out for dinner and to pick up a birthday gift for his sister. It was a truly, truly wonderful weekend. We got along fabulously and spent most of the weekend laughing. I can't even count the number of times I had to wipe the tears from my eyes from laughing so hard. Andy is such a great guy and I'm so enjoying getting to know him. All in all, it couldn't have been a more perfect weekend.


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