Chicago-Memorial Day Weekend 2009

Here is the detailed chronicle of my trip to Chicago! Please be advised, the following pictures are in no particular fashion or order!!! When you have this many pictures it's a bit of a hassle to try and re-order everything into timeline detail, so... I'm kind of starting at the end...

This is the bean in Millenium Park. It was our last day there and the only ladies left in Chicago were Amanda, Tiffany and I so we did more sight-seeing! And shopping!

Trick photography??? :)

Amanda, myself and Tiffany in front of the bean. I love the way you can see the Chicago Skyline in the bean behind us!!!

This is from inside the bean!!! You can walk up underneath it and arches up really high into this optical illusion type reflection. Who can spot me???

This is a fountain that changes the digital images of faces and then it spits water out at passers by!!!

Chicago style hotdog for lunch at Portillo's! If you order a hotdog with ketchup on it in Chicago, they will laugh at you!!! lol

This is the Adler Planetarium. Lianna and I saw a show here. We kind of did a whirlwind tour with a CityPass. It got you into most places and we wanted to see as much as we could but only had one day and it was only good until 5:30pm. So we rushed around and saw as much as we could! :)

Outside of the Shedd Aquarium... Stop number three or four on our whirlwind tour...

Beluga Whales at the aquarium.

This is Amanda, Lianna and I in front of the city line. It was really windy!!!

We had stopped to get off of the trolly tour to take some pictures and don't you know, just as we stepped off, we rand into the rest of the ladies who were doing a Segway tour of Chicago!!!

This is a picture of the city taken from the observation deck of the Sears Tower... Another stop on our whirlwind tour!

Flags inside the first floor of the Sears Tower. Pretty awesome looking!

We went to an off-broadway show called "Tony and Tina's Wedding." It was pretty funny. Basically it's as if you were invited to be a guest at the craziest most ridiculous wedding you can imagine and then you attend the reception for dinner and traditional wedding dances like the Electric Slide and such. But they also continue the show. It's entirely interactive and you mingle with the wedding party while they stay in character. Very funny! One of the groomsmen asked me to dance with him for the slow dance... The most incredibly awkward thing ever!!! I didn't know him from a hole in the wall and had to slow dance with him for the whole song and talk the whole time.... Wierd!!!

This is Tony, the groom.

This is Tina, the bride. On the right is her brother who was a groomsman but got more comfortable for the reception and took off his jacket and suit shirt. And the girl to the left is one of her bridesmaids who was "pregnant" and just so happened to be the girlfriend/fiance of the groomsman who asked me to dance with him.

Lianna, Tiffany and I went on an Architectural riverboat cruise along the Chicago River. It was pretty amazing. That's where all the pictures of buildings and such are from below.

This is the Navy Pier taken from the boat.

This is a random building, can't remember which one it was, but if you look closely underneath the building, you can see the subway train. Appearantly part of the City of Chicago was built overtop of the railroad system. All of the property is owned by the rail company so any buildings built on top had to purchase "AIR SPACE" to build onto. As a result any one who buys a condo in one of the buildings is also buying "AIR SPACE" to live in... Wierd, right?

This building followed the natural curve that the river made here so the facade is slightly rounded. I loved the reflection of all the buildings across the river that you could see in the face of the building. Very reflective!

Skyline including Sears Tower, which was recently bought by an overseas Brittish company and they will be renaming it because they sold the Sears Tower with the naming rights!!! What were they thinking?!?!?!

More cool architecture...

These two buildings were amazingly cool! The condo's here are called Marina Towers, I think, and they're located right on the Chicago River, but most locals refer to them as the Corn Cobs... The lower portions of the buildings are parking spaces, you can see the cars if you look closely, and all of the condo's are "petal" shaped following the design of the building. They were also supposedly the inspiration for the living quarters of a well known futuristic cartoon family... ANY GUESSES?????

I think this was our first night there. Lianna, Valerie, Tiffany and I went to a dueling piano bar called "Howl At The Moon" where they had two pianos and singers that would take requests and go back and forth playing the requested songs, trying to get everyone to sing along and participate with them.

This is a huge sculpture of the "American Gothic" painting that was along the "Magnificent Mile," which is the equivalent of 5th Avenue in NYC. You want any kind of high end shopping store, look for the Magnificent Mile!

The archetecture here was absolutely amazing! The tall building in the back is the Trump Tower...go figure!

This picture was taken in front of the Water Tower Building. From left to right is Valerie, Lianna and Emilee. These were only three of the thirteen ladies who came for the weekend!!!

And this tall beauty is the second tallest building in Chicago, the Hancock Tower... Appearantly Jerry Springer lives here... booooooo!


Well folks, this is it for now! I managed to take 371 pictures while I was in Chicago! This is just a taste of the pictures that I have but it definitely shows everything that we did for the most part! Hope you enjoy!!!

Is This Real Life???

I was a little blue when only two people showed up for youth group tonight! But at least they were up for some fun!!!

Spelunking Otherwise Known As Caving

SPELUNKING: The hobby of practice of exploring caves

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spelunking)

Yes, Yes...I know it has been quite a while since I have posted... And I'm very sorry!!! But as I recently had quite a bit of fun exploring the Clarksville Caves in Clarksville, NY I thought it would be fun to post the pictures from the experience! Hope you all enjoy!!!

This is the before picture. We're all still nice and clean and dry!

And here's the after picture. We're soaked and filthy and gross!

This is the hole we had to go into in order to get down into the caves. Only slightly larger than me I think.


Once down in that hole we were in the actual cave. The entire ceiling of the first cavern was all fools gold. Doesn't it look so beautiful!!! It was stunning and this picture doesn't even begin to do it justice...

This was a bit further into the cave. There was a little underground stream running down the middle of the cave for almost the entire way. At first we were able to hop on different rocks and avoid getting wet but eventually the rocks thinned out and we ended up having to just walk right through the stream. And boy was it cold!

Just another picture in the cave. The ceiling was higher here but at some points it was very close to your head...other points you had to squat and shimmy or crawl.

Joy and her friends Hollan (green jacket) and Vartan (blue jacket) in the cave.

This is actually a shot of the group walking ahead of me although it's hard to tell because of the fogginess. The fog/mist effect was caused by our breath. I was very damp and cool in the cave and there wasn't much air flow so whenever we breathed out it created a mist that did not quickly dissipate. It was kind of a cool effect though because your breath just kind of hung in the air and then slowly moved away still almost in formation.

So the story behind my hand is this. Bubba attempted to climb up a piece of the cave wall behind us and a massive clump (bigger than my head) broke off of the wall where he was holding on. After it broke off though, we realized that it was actually a massive lump of clay and that there was a ton of clay in the actual wall of the cave! It was super moist and got on my hand because I felt the need to play with the clay...What can I say, it's the child in me!

This picture was taken after we as a group decided to go further up the tunnel/underground stream. We knew that the water got pretty deep (about waist high) but we wanted to go for it anyway. We started heading into the water and by the time we got as deep as we did it hurt so bad. We were all yelling "Ahhhh, it hurts...Pins and needles...Go back...Go back!" So we turned around and headed back...Appearantly there was a new tunnel a bit further up but we would have had to be in up to our waists...We decided to save that for a warmer day and plan on going back in couple more months.

Coffee Craziness!

Last night some people from the church went to the Annual 2009 Gospel Gala in honor of Black History Month and for some reason I was not thinking and I parked my car at the church and rode up to the Palace Theater with Pastor Mike and his wife as well as one other. At the end of the show one other person had jumped on board for riding home with the Frati's. Now I probably wouldn't have minded but that would have been three people in the backseat...and none of us were tiny! So to fix the situation in my head and have a little more room, I asked Mrs. Smith if I could ride home in her car since she only had an Natalie and Shyvonne. Well, she said yes and that's where our adventure begins...

Once we were in the car and on our way she mentions coffee...Well anyone who knows me at all knows that I LOVE COFFEE!!! But at this point it was about 10:00pm and were weren't sure that anything right near the Palace would be open besides somewhere like Dunkin Donuts. Well none of us really wanted that anyway...Mrs. Smith wanted real "coffee house" coffee. So we decided that I would show her the way to The Muddy Cup...good coffee.

We arrive at The Muddy Cup where the adventures officially begin...It took us somewhere around 10-15 minutes to order 4 drinks...mine being ordered first. Thankfully I know what I like and stuck with something I knew I would enjoy. So we get the coffees, find a couch and plop down for some conversation!!! Then...the coffee kicks in...and the conversation turned into about an hour of hysterical fits of laughter!!! So much so that Mrs. Smith has to use the ladies room. Well...unfortunately the one at The Muddy Cup isn't in the greatest condition, as far as cleanliness is concerned. So she decides we'll just leave and she'll hit up the restroom at the Price Chopper next door on Madison Ave.

Somehow, on the 50 foot trip in the car ride from The Muddy Cup to Price Chopper, Shyvonne brings up chinese fire drills. So when Mrs. Smith pulls into the parking lot at Price Chopper, she stops right in the middle of the "road part" of the parking lot in front of the store and gets out. She proceeds to tell us to pull a chinese fire drill and she walks into the store leaving us parked in the "road part" and people staring at us yet again, laughing hysterically.

She comes back out a few minutes later unsuccessful in her search for a bathroom and comes around to the passenger side of the car where I was sitting and insists that I get out and drive for her! At this point I do and she decides to go back to The Muddy Cup. So we loop back around and she jumps out for round two of The Muddy Cup's bathroom. It's too horrible...unbearable even...she can't do it. Mind you we are all sitting in the car still and we see her walk out of The Muddy Cup with a look on her face and saunter over to the Madison Theater next door. A few minutes later she comes out looking happy and having successfully been able to use a clean restroom.

Finally, we get on our way back to Ravena and I'm still driving. Appearantly people in the Smith family get very easily lost because we went about 4 miles down the road and they see another Price Chopper and all of a sudden I hear Mrs. Smith say, "Hey, how'd we get back to this Price Chopper??? This is the same Price Chopper isn't it???" To which I am unable to respond at all because of the fact that I'm laughing so hard and can't spit out a comprehensible word!!! Shyvonne seems to second the idea of the same Price Chopper in the back seat. All of a sudden Mrs. Smith realizes that The Muddy Cup is missing from the picture which only makes me laugh even harder!

Several minutes of driving and hysterical conversation pass on the way back toward Ravena. We got as far as Glenmont when Mrs. Smith decided that she needed to stop at the Price Chopper in Glenmont to pick up a few things since it's 24 hours. I drop her off at the door and us girls stay in the toasty warm car to chat it up. Tick...tock...tick...tock... The minutes are passing by and Mrs. Smith has been in the store for a while! I decided to pull up into the fire lane and wait for her there because at this point the three of us ladies are thinking that she's got to be coming out any minute now...since she'd been in there for forever. Tick...tock...tick...tock... Still no sign of Mrs. Smith so I decided to turn the car off so we didn't waste gas. Tick...tock...tick...tock... Still no sign of Mrs. Smith and now it's getting pretty cold in the car so we decide to forget about saving gas and start it up again...

Or so we though...but the car wouldn't start. We tried 4 more times and prayed but were still unable to start the car. Now we all begin talking at the same time. "Oh no, what do we do?" "We need to go find your mom." "I didn't leave any lights on did I?" "There's nothing on, what happened? How come it won't start???" Well, Shyvonne decided she would go in and get her mom. The two come back out and now we get to try and figure out what we're going to do at 1:00am in Glenmont! Finally it's decided that we will go in and warm up and I will call Bubba. So I call his trusty cell phone figuring he had fallen asleep since he hadn't answered my last text.

Ring...ring...ring...ring...voicemail. Okay, well he's got to be sleeping. I'll call back and wake him up.

Ring...ring...ring...ring...voicemail. Wow, he must really be out...

Ring...ring...ring...ring...voicmeail. "Natalie, he won't answer his cell phone! Should I call the house number??? Are you sure??? I don't want to wake up grandma... Okay, I'll just try the house phone."

Ring...ri-"Hello???"

He was awake downstairs and had left the cell upstairs. So I quickly explained that the car was dead at Glenmont Price Chopper and we needed him to come and jump the car so that we could get back down to Ravena since I still needed to get my car from the church parking lot so that I could go back home to Glenmont. He told me he was on his way and would be there soon. In the meantime we decided to waste a bit of time in the store.

10 minutes or so later I get a text message..."I'm here." So I tell everyone he's here and we head outside. Wait...where is he...I don't see his truck anywhere... I texted him back..."Where?" And the response I got was..."You're at the Glenmont Wal Mart right?" Wow...he finally made it to the Price Chopper and got the car jump started for us. We made it down to Ravena A-Okay. I got my car and made it home around 2:00am... Unfortunately the coffee craziness had worn off by then and I simply passed out upon arriving home.

And that my friends is the latest adventure!

For He's A Jolly Good Fellow

Here's to Willie...Our dear friend from Cali! I just thought these would be pretty fun. Again I was searching through old pictures that I have, wondering what I could post that would be different. So in honor of someone who's definitely impacted our lives in NY I've posted these as a memory of the fun times with Willie!


He saw me getting ready to take a picture in the dark movie theater and made this lovely face...

This is how tiny the movie theater was...Willie is on Russ' shoulders and he's able to touch the movie screen...Oh, and the lights on either side indicate how wide the theater actually was...

The mummification of Willie...In the lobby at the theater...

And I'm pretty sure this was at Yanni's Restaurant in Coeymans. Again...what's with the faces Willie??? If we didn't know you any better we'd wonder if you ever smiled! It's a good thing we do know the good natured Willie though! Here's to you man!

More random posts to come my friends!!!

First Post 2009

I know it's sad...I've been slacking on my posting!!! Here it is January 14, 2009 and I haven't even posted a Happy New Year post! What is wrong with this picture??? I don't know. It's funny to me that I can find the time everyday to comment on other people's posts but can't every seem to find the time to post myself...

Hmmm.... maybe the answer should be that I save my "commenting time" and turn it into "posting time" every once in a while! Like now for instance...

So here's the deal. I'm going to post some old pictures that I have found! Hope you all enjoy!

These are all pictures that I took when Roomie and I went hiking out in the Rensselaerville State Forrest. I thought it was a cool shot. This was taken in the woods in a clearing. Where the trees end in the back is where the side road is that we parked on further up.

This is Roomie in front of a broken and withering silo in a field. It was crazy windy that day and we were getting pushed so hard by the wind that we couldn't stand still in one location without being moved by the wind!

I thought this was pretty cool. These were the remains of a mill that used to be located near the waterfalls of the picture below. It was all grown over and covered with moss. It just looked so pretty to me!!!

And then there are a couple of shots of the beautiful waterfall that was coming down. Everything was so green and the rushing water was so white. It was amazingly beautiful and I couldn't get away without taking a ton of pictures of the waterfall. To spare you all the same shot I only put up two!

Hope you all enjoyed!!!