From my eyes…

I’ve blogged about this before. I’m sure I have. I have a superb group of girlfriends who’ve become more like sisters over the last 15 years of my life. And we were overjoyed when Rebecca Wells book, Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood, came out. It put into words many of the emotions we felt toward each other. We all went to see the movie when it came out and cried and laughed together just like we do in real life.

This week, I saw Ya-yas in Bloom at the store. It is the sequel to Divine Secrets, but goes back to explain their childhood, and I knew I must read it.

I took my new book with me to the car shop to start while I was having a side-mirror replaced (sidenote: when showing caution as to not rip off the right side-mirror, also pay attention to the left side-mirror as it may suddenly crunch itself into the side of the garage and fall off your car). I opened the first page and before it was time to flip to the second I couldn’t see the words, because my eyes were full of tears. I think because we already have our Petit Ya-yas and this first page gave a name to the children of our Petits, the Tres Petits. And I just was overwhelmed thinking about how much we’ve been through, what we’re going through now, and what we’ve got left to come in life….including our Tres Petits.

I love my friends beyond any description of closeness I could write down and I am so glad Rebecca Wells has taken the time to try to capture as much about true love in friendship as she could.

I thought I would add the links to these books for you and when I went to the Ya-ya webpage. I found loads of information there. Including a Ya-ya namer.

These are my Ya-ya friends, by their Ya-ya name (I am not making them up, I entered their names in the namer on the webpage)

The NKD Ya-Yas: Marchioness Runs-with-the-Bulls (Me), Marchioness Jokes a Lot (Kelli), Duchess Naked-as-a-Jaybird (Amanda), Countess Singing Cloud (Shayla), Queen Loves a Lot (Bec), Marchioness Never Shuts Up (Jen), Queen Giggles a Lot (Mini).

Now, I wouldn’t put these names with the people they’ve been paired with - I would put Naked as a Jaybird, with the one of us who’s favorite outfit is flip-flops and only flip-flops and Queen Never Shuts Up is currently paired with the quietest one of us all, and giggles a lot, jokes a lot, and loves a lot could be exchanged among any of us depending on the day. I think it’s all these personality traits that make us such a special group.

God, I love my friends. 

Since I’ve been lazy about blogging over the last several months, I thought I’d do a quick catch up of things that have been going on in my life. Below you’ll see a hodge podge of pictures from things I’ve done. I hope to be able to blog more regularly throughout the summer. Come back a visit me!

For Jen’s birthday we went to my favorite restaurant in Chicago, Topo Gigio, before heading over to second City for a comedy show. It was a great way to celebrate starting the last year of her twenties

Jen, Kelsay, Tristen (Kel’s bro), Morgan (Kel’s BFF), Mike, random black dude in our pic

A true once-in-a-lifetime experience for me was sitting in the very,very front row behind the plate at a Chicago White Sox game.  Not only was it a no-hitter game, Sammy Sosa got picked off at second, a player got kicked out after a heated verbal argument with a thrown helmet and the player coming back out of the dugout to scream some more, and Jermaine Dye hit some sort of recording breaking grand slam. Anyone who follows baseball at all knows those events don’t often all happen in a single game. And most certainly not when I am blessed enough to be sitting in the scout seats eating free gourmet food (I had brie cheese at out gourmet buffet dinner and then pocketed a hot ham and cheese on a pretzel roll to take for lunch the next day. Yeah, that’s pretty white trash, but I did it anyway). Mike was camera happy (so much so that people who were watching us on TV called his cell to tell him to put the camera down….and then later to tell him “put the nachos down!” hehehe). Here are a few of his shots

 
Such a happy Marky I told his wife congrats as she walked by us crying and she smiled at me and said thanks. It was cool.

Every time (not exaggerating) we go to the ballpark, and even twice just out in public, Mike is stopped and told he looks like this guy - Paul Konerko - too bad all he got was this shot of him adjusting instead of his face. Hehehehe…

Mike, his dad Ernie, and his brother Vince

Also, I recently got my grass put in. These are the first pics. Since then, I’ve had bushes added and it’s grown and even been mowed once. I’m having a patio put in real soon and I’ll put in updated pics then.
 
Yes, that’s my peanut on the stoop.

 
Mike fixed the sod so there as less lines.

On our way to Spiaggia…

A typical pic of our daily lives… Mike thinking “What are you doing now?” and me replying “What? Nothing. Hehehehe”

Think they love their mommy much?

And for my mommy…
Do you remember this hat? I found it while unpacking some stuff…. (ignore the bags and lack of makeup)

And one of my sweet girl…
I think she still looks like a puppy even though she’ll be FIVE in September.

Mike’s dad is the coupon king.  There isn’t one thing in the last 11 months (seriously? it’s been almost a year already? my goodness that was a FAST year) that I’ve done with his family that wasn’t without a coupon or free gift from one of his dad’s clients (IE: the scout seat (TV seats) to the White Sox no-hitter Mark Buerhle pitched).

Last night, we were treated to a superb dining experience at a Levy Brothers restaurant, Spiaggia. This restaurant has won numerous awards and it was easy to see why. Every bite was amazing and while the portions were small (reminded me of dining in Europe), they were so full of flavor and so rich (no fat free anything here!) that I left our dinner feeling full. I can’t even recall what I ordered, because my taste buds hypnotized me. I do remember that they had both of my favorite flavors of gellato (hazelnut and caramel), and I also ordered a pear (you were supposed to pick three I wasn’t being a pig, I swear). It was soooo fabulous and yummy.

I’m sure I won’t be back anytime soon (the bill for just the 4 of us, was about half what my car is worth), but it’s something I’ll remember for long time. If I close my eyes I can still taste my second course. Mmmmmm…..

And did I mention we had window seats looking out over Michigan Ave. where it meets Lakeshore Drive facing the Drake Hotel and looking out past the beach to the Great Lake? Yeah, we did and it was AWESOME!