lately

well i've certainly gone a looooong time without blogging… as usual, it was an unexpected break, and while i had a lot of things i wanted to share, i never made the time to post about them. so here's an abbreviated version of what's been happening around here.

my college friend laura got married on october 19th and had a halloween themed wedding!!! it was so much fun, and everyone went all out on costumes. chester and i went as a bear and goldilocks, and i borrowed his bear coat to wear at work on halloween :) it was a big hit.

we got to see the stanley cup! it made an appearance at a restaurant back in rockford, and my dad invited us girls along. unfortunately my sister couldn't make it, so chester came in her place.

at the beginning of november, we visited our friends denny and krystina in orange county for a super quick weekend trip. it went by way too fast, as it always does, but it was really fun. i'm kicking myself for not taking more photos, but sometimes it happens.

and lastly, the kelly family, along with our handsome dates, attended a family friend's wedding on november 9th.

sorry for being absent from this blog for so long! there have been posts i've wanted to draft up, so hopefully i can get a few up in the next week or so. thanks for stopping by!

california vacation

a couple weekends ago chester and i spent 4 lovely days in southern california - orange county & los angeles to be exact. our friends denny & krystina moved out to orange county in april of 2012, and we were really excited for them to show us around their "new" area. my good friend tim moved out to LA in july of 2012, and it was nice seeing his new 'hood too.

we checked out the thousand step beach in laguna, an awesome brewey (called the bruery) in the OC, the hollywood walk of fame in & the griffith observatory in LA (where we met up with another good friend Dan), and the elliott smith wall in silverlake. the wall had recently been touched up, and it was really cool to see.

we had such a fabulous time, and we are already planning our next trip out there! hopefully we can escape the midwest winter for a few days next year. :)

1,000 step beach in laguna // hollywood walk of fame // legit moscow mule // at the beach // at the griffith observatory

view from griffith observatory // driving in LA // krystina & i // chester & i with denny & tim

hot tubbing // elliot smith wall in silverlake // photo booth at the bruery tasting room