First Birthday As a Married Man

August 6, 2016

July 1, 2016 - On this Friday, I took the day off and decided to head to the Will County Court office and get our Marriage License. Originally planned to get 10 of them, but the kind woman working told me that would be far too many. Ha! Rachel took the train to Naperville and that evening we drove out to the Ruffled Feathers Golf Course to attend our first wedding as a married couple. Jackie from Camp was getting married to Tyler and it was set to be a mathtastic wedding! It was a lovely night, the food was delicious, the friends were great, and the dancing was on point as the kids are saying these days. Solid first birthday as a married man! Congrats Jackie and Tyler!

Saturday July 2, We did a quick photo shoot at Rachel's parents house, and had some delicious burgers for lunch Rach's Dad cooked up. That night, Beth, Rachel, & I watched Jurassic Park 2 in our apartment. Vince Vaugn's breakout film if you didn't know.

We started the morning of Sunday July 3rd, by hitting up Stan's Donuts for the first time ever. I got some kaptain krunch donut, was a decadently filled treat. Beth and Rachel (and me a little) cooked up a pasta salad, coleslaw salad, and an all-american strawberry and blueberry cake for the party to be happening later in the day. We also ate some of that pasta salad and a bacon topped romaine lettuce food of sorts for lunch. After we had some grub we headed over to Sarah and Colin's new apartment downtown. They have a rooftop pool on floor like 30 which was amazing. I was the only brave soul to swim, but did so in elegant fashion. The party was hopping, with great drinks, snacks, food, and friends. Sarah made this amazing Jello watermelon vodka dessert. A tasty and fun way to enjoy the night. Check them photos.

On Monday July 4th, America! I celebrated by staying in the city and watching Jurassic World with Beth and Rachel. Afterwards we went and hung out with Mary and Jeff at the Fullerton grass/beach area all day, getting some sun and enjoying the view of the skyline. We then walked to a little place near the golf course close by to have some drinks/dinner. After stopping at Mary and Jeff's pad, and our place, we headed over to grassy area again to watch the Navy Pier fireworks with some more friends. They were a little underwhelming since they were so far away and the booms came long after the bright flashes of light, but it was still a solid show. We finished the night off like every night should be finished off in the city. At Frank's bar. Amazing place, everyone of the appropriate age should attend. Happy 4th of July everyone.

July 5th, Tuesday, After a days work I started Bloodline Season 2. Season 1 was top notch, pumped for season 2, although Squid tells me it is a little slower paced.

Wednesday July 6th, is a very sad day for a very sad reason. A star of many Jcubed videos, a dearest friend, and the best dog I've ever known, Izzy, past away suddenly. It was a shock to everyone as she had just turned 9, which is very young for a golden. See more about her in this special blog dedicated to her.

Thursday July 7 was a historic day for all my slither.io lovers. I made it to 3rd place in the game I was playing. Highest score I ever got and just 200 points shy of 2nd! Slither on my fellow snakes. This eve I stayed in Napes and went too dinner at Buffalo Wings and Rings with Beth in memory of Izzy.

July 8 a Friday, blessed us with another beautiful sunset, which is always a great site from our "balcony." We also jumped on that Pokemon Go life and caught some pokemon in our apartment. Not the best players since we only play in our place, ha. Rachel and I finished the night off with a game of Yahtzee! This is how we are spending our friday nights... are we married and old?

Saturday July 9th, Rachel was sweet enough to put together a fun little birthday party for me. It involved ping pong, beers, and friends. What a great combo! A new place downtown called SPiN is now one of my favorite places. It has tons of ping pong tables with a lot of space and endless balls. I felt like I was a pro ping pong player the way the balls just kept being supplied to me by these guys walking around with ball picker uppers. John, Melissa, Brian, Megan, Beth, and Grant joined Rachel and I for a night full of ping pong fun. Despite Brian winning our little tournament that we had, it was super fun and I gotta make sure I get back soon. After, we stopped at a Tiki Bar for one drink, it was pretty cool, but super crowded.

On Sunday July 10th, we were in the table tennis mood so we watched a documentary called Top Spin about some of the best players in the USA and their journey to try to make it to the Olympic games. After I drove Beth to the train that day, Rachel and I walked down the street to our local movie theater that we knew about but had never been to yet. We decided to check out the new film Secret Life of Pets. Pretty funny and cute animated film about what our pets do when we aren't home. I would rent it from the library if I was you.

Video of the Week: What's that? Another video of squid dancing around to JT? You got it.

Movie of the Week: The Secret Life of Pets

Keep on keeping up with the blogs. More to come soon!

Yaboy
Josh

The Quarter Century

July 8, 2014

Tuesday June 24 I watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty... the 1947 version. It was pretty great!

Wednesday June 25th I mowed the lawn in preparation of Beth's graduation party. At work I attempted to make ethernet cables which brought me back to my college days in the IT department with Lee, Brad, Andy, & Derek. I spent too many hours that first week working there making cables that worked about 50% of the time. Tricky stuff.

Thursday June 26th, as we waited for men's league to start, we threw on the MLL game to watch our teammate Zak Dorn break the record for fastest shot. He shot 114, then 116, setting a new record. The MLL players seemed uninterested and were pretty rude about it. Not surprised. That evening I watched Captain Phillips by myself in my room. What a riveting and exciting film that keeps you on the edge of your seat. 5/5

Friday June 27th I went to Sam's Club with my mom in the morning to get some goodies for the grad party on Saturday. At work I finished the TCM Goalie Camp video I had been working on. Work was pretty boring so I put on Toy Story 3 for the last 2 hours or so. I didn't cry because I didn't make it to the end of the movie, I had to leave. I picked up Rachel from the train station. What a lovely amazing girlfriend, again coming home to visit me! We picked up Portillos for dinner. I had a double cheeseburger with everything except pickles! So did she! After eating so much and feeling so full, we fell asleep pretty early.

On Saturday June 28th, it was the Day of Beth's grad party. Family and friends came over for great food and great times. Johnny came over as well. After talking to my uncle john & grandpa bob about hiking, I realized I have no idea about anything about hiking. i need to get on that.

Rachel and Phil leave early. Johnny and I follow later, Johnny drives us to the city around 7. We get to Rachel's, pregame shortly and then get in a cab and head over to the House of Blues for the Lucky Boys Confusion concert. It was an awesome venue, very cool atmosphere. Big room with a great light show and sound. My first time at HOB. Lucky boys ended up not coming on until around 11:30, so our 9 arrival was a bit early, but there were 4 opening bands. The last opener, Penny and the Loafers was a pretty great Ska band. Once lucky boys came on, the screaming didn't stop. I sang every lyric (or close to it) to every song except one old one (LBC). I have never been so lyrically into a concert, it was amazing. At one point Rachel and I were looking at each other just screaming the lyrics, it felt magical.

They played their first big cd Throwing the Game cover to cover, which was awesome since I have listened to that so many times, especially to and from Summer Camp. After they finished off Throwing the Game, they left the stage as if we didn't know they were coming back to play some hits. They followed up with so many of their great songs, the only notable one left off was Mr. Wilmington, but a little bit of a downer song, so understandable they did not play. After the amazing show which left us sweaty and with no voice, we head home by cab and get to bed around 2am. If you have never heard of Lucky Boys Confusion, I highly recommend them and actually insist that you give them a listen. One of my favorite artists of all time. Check some poop iPhone picks to prove my attendance of the show.

Sunday June 29th I wake up at 6:30am to be picked up at 7 am by Sean, a fellow Apache. It was short notice, but they convinced me to drive up to Milwaukee with them to win our 3rd consecutive Brewtown Showdown trophy. Before our first games we stopped at a gas station to get some provisions. I picked up a couple of packs of candy. CandyMan activate! We won our first game 13 to 5, I had a couple of goals and a few assists. The attack were working flawlessly together. Then was the championship. We played a brother rice alumni team, which included a friend from college and ended up losing 8 to 5. Sure they had some D1 guys, but honestly our offense just couldn't find the net. We had too many dropped balls and missed shots. I finished with 1 goal and 1 assist, but we fell short of the ultimate goal. Sean was nice enough to drive me back to Chicago. Once back I went grocery shopping with Rachel and we cooked up some pasta fresca for dinner. I burned my hand on a plastic spoon. It hurt pretty bad. Ow. We tried to watch wolf of wall street but I was very tired and fell asleep around 10pm.

I also finished my last two game highlights from the spring lax season this past week. Check them out. I am thinking a compilation of the best college and best highschool highlights to come soon.

On Monday June 30th, I woke up pretty early and headed toward the brown line to take the L to Union station where I would then take the metra to route 59. Right as I was putting some cash on my ventra card, a woman walked in and gave me a ventra card, saying it was good until Tuesday. As she left she said, "Pay it forward." This reminds me that I need to watch this movie and that I too should "pay it forward." The card actually worked and this got me thinking on my L ride to union. As I bought my Metra pass, I was thinking about what that woman said, and realized that I wouldn't be using the ventra card that woman gave me, so I went up to a woman who was putting money on her own ventra card, and gave it to her, telling her it was good until Tuesday and I had no use for it. I then walked away and hopped on the metra train heading to route 59. The train got in around 8 and I walked over to work, pretty convenient. I had an italian beef sandwich and fries for lunch from Taylor St. Pizza. That evening there was some pretty huge storms with very high winds going on. I had to work until 9pm, and went to bed pretty much when I got home. Before I fell asleep, I saw that our neighbors tree had split in half and that our street was flooding, typical street things.

Tuesday July 1st, the day of my birth 25 years ago. I have now been alive for a quarter century. Halfway to 50! Crazy. This year I spent my morning working out. I had to work at 8am, so worked out from about 7 to 7:30. I was born at 7:15am back in the day, so this year instead of sleeping when I was born like usual, I was pumping iron and getting big. Now we talking. I then spent the next 10 hours of my birthday at work, but this was 3 less hours than I worked last year on my birthday, so I guess we got that going for me. Luckily for me, I have the most amazing girlfriend, who took the train out to see me for my birthday. I picked her up from the station and we headed home. Once home, the family went out to eat at Steak 'n Shake for my birthday dinner. I believe we also did this for my last birthday. This year however, Steak 'n Shake is celebrating it's 80th birthday, so I was lucky enough to get a Birthday Cake Shake. Delicious. It came before my triple steakburger and chicken fingers dinner though, so I ate dessert for dinner and dinner for dessert. That night, once we got home. Rachel, Beth, and I watched Wolf of Wallstreet. An amazing movie that even though it is 3 hours long, kept my attention and deserves 5 out of 5 stars. Makes you hate business people though... so many of them are not good people. Cocaine and strippers though! What a life! Oh also Happy Birthday Canada.

I don't really remember what happened on July 2nd, Wednesday, so we will skip that day.

Thursday July 3rd, 2014, I got a slice of pizza for lunch while at work. I started shooting around and testing my speed since I rip tons of G's. I ended up going into beast mode and shot 92 mph. A new record for yours truly. That evening, I took part in a small portion of the agility class that we offer, and wow, I am so out of shape. My hips have never been one of my strengths, but after spending about 10 minutes in the class, I realized I need to get back into working out more, especially my legs. But that probably won't happen. Laughs. After agility, I stuck around for another hour and played in Men's League. Only 6 kids showed up, but it was some decent 3 v 3 lax with a goalie. After men's league, I headed over to John's and made him stir me up a colorado bulldog as we watched the end of Captain Phillips and talked about our future Colorado trip and other random things in life.

Friday July 4th! America's Birthday! Woke up and jumped in a u-haul with my dad. We headed over to Auntie Frieda's old place and helped move some old furniture and belongings like that. Very nice of Bev to allow us to take some things, also came across some very funny and strange things, take a peek below!

After this we stopped at my brother's new house in St Charles which seems like a nice place. After a quick tour, we headed back home and picked up Burger King on the way home. I got the double whopper with cheese. Tasty. Once home I quickly packed a bag and then got in the car and drove to Chicago to spend the weekend with Rachel. Unfortunately, somehow the city messed up and gave Rachel the wrong parking passes, so we had to park a few blocks away where we found some free parking. I was a bit exhausted from the day already, so I took a 3 hour nap from about 2 until 5 while Rachel went to the beach. Once I was up, the party was beginning shortly, so I dipped into some summer shandy's. Everyone then came over and I started to grill up the burgers, brats, and hot dogs. I was the chef of the party. The party was a great hit and very fun. Right around 9:15, I convinced some people to walk over and try to catch the Navy Pier fireworks at 9:30. We caught the last 10 seconds of the show, but then Rachel, Becca, and myself stayed while everyone else left and we got a private Bootleg firework show of our own. Some local Chicago folks lit off fireworks about 20 or 30 feet from us and it was a pretty solid show! At one point one of the fireworks tipped over and it shot into a small crowd of people. Bootleg fireworks at their best! After the show and after we were done cheering, we headed back to the party. For some reason I began massaging everyone that night, man, woman, or beast. It didn't matter, I was getting the knots out of peoples necks like it was my job. The night ended at some point, and then the morning came.

Bootleg Fireworks (Warning: Explicit)

It's been 4 years since this great firework show!

Saturday July 5th began at about noon, which was perfect since Rachel and I do not enjoy breakfast. I grilled up 3 left over burgers from the night before. The delicious, cheddar bacon filled ones. Unfortunately I did not add enough coals and it ended up being a slow hour roast of these 3 burgers that are supposed to cook in about 6 1/2 minutes. Regardless of the time it took to cook, they tasted fantastic! After chatting with Matt and Rachel and eating, everyone got dressed and ready and we walked about 2 miles down Ashland to Mary and Jeff's new apartment. It was very homey and they even had a cat! We only spent about 10 minutes there, then got up and walked another 2 miles to Chris's new apartment. We stopped at Jewel on the way as well, but I didn't go in. Chris was having a 5th of July party and it was pretty fun. He literally lives 2 doors down from a cash bar, so around 9pm we headed over to the cash bar, and despite thinking we wouldn't stay long, we ended up having a great time and staying pretty late. It was a very cool atmosphere, with tons of dart boards, a pool table, an outdoor back patio area, a jukebox, and some seriously cheap drinks. $2.75 for a beer is amazing, especially in the city. We somehow managed to squeeze 7 people into 4 available cab seats for the ride back to Old Town. Rachel and I booked it over to McDonalds once we got out of the cab and picked up 20 nugs, a McDouble, and large fry. We dined on that while sitting on her bed and then fell asleep for the night.

July 6th, Sunday, was the last day of the 4th of July weekend, and we started it off with some Chipotle for lunch. I was greatly saddened to see they had raised each of their menu items by 25 cents. Almost made me not want to get it. Savages. We then started a mini Breaking Bad marathon, by finishing the last 3 episodes of season 3 and watching the first episode of season 4. Walter White is changing and I love it! Straight blazing cats. Can't wait to finish the last 2 seasons (hopefully by 2015? ha.) After some Breaking Bad, we walked about a mile over to the REI of Chicago in search for some hiking boots for our upcoming trip. To our luck, Seamus, one of the staff members, was very friendly and knowledgeable and after much consideration between a couple pairs, Rachel and I both got our first pair of hiking boots! I went with the Merrell Moabs and Rachel went with the Keen Targhes. Both boots seems awesome and we are excited to break them in. We also learned from this trip to REI that we do not want cotton clothing, it absorbs too much water and is not good for outdoors. So we each also picked up 2 pairs of wool socks to keep our feet dry, warm, and not as smelly! Very excited for this trip! Just being in that store is so fun to walk around and look at it all, but also overwhelming and an eye opener about how much stuff we "need" to bring. I say "need" because I know we don't need it all. That evening we cooked up a tasty Quinoa meal with some Italian beef, spinach, pepper, and onion. Very delicious and a kind of, make it yourself meal, designed by Rach!

Monday morning, July 7th, I drove home then headed to work around noon. When I got home from work, I found that my birthday present from Rachel had arrived, a solar powered charger for our hiking trip! It looks awesome and I am very excited to try it out, as Rachel bought me an adapter to charge my camera batteries as well. The best girlfriend ever!

Well that is the end of this double post about my Quarter Century birthday and the birth of Canada & America as well. Hope you enjoyed it and I'd be surprised if you finished! But maybe not, since it was pretty light on the details... or was it!?!?! Dun Dun Duuuuuunnn.

Holla

Josh