On Friday December 15th, we headed over to Torie's for her annual ornament exchange. To my and every other fellas luck, the exchange was opened up to the boys this year. It was previously a girls night event thing. Rachel and I were the first to arrive at Torie and Tim's. Once the party got bumping and people enjoyed some apps and drinks we started the main event. Let the exchanging begin! The exchange was pretty uneventful until Rachel and I went into an intense battle with another girl, trying to get the Hedgehog and the hat (seen below), but we ended up not making it happen. After some back and forth Rachel ended up with the hat and I ended up getting a dipped strawberry in chocolate, not edible though. After the exchange we all were hanging out and Rachel and I stuck it out, eventually throwing on some Jcubed videos to clear the party out. We were the last to leave. Party animals.
The next day on Saturday December 16th, Rachel, Torie, Nikki, and I hit up Yoga Sculpt at Core Power and got our butts kicked. Later that evening, Beth, Sarah, Danny and the kids came over to our place around 6pm. We ate tacos and tried to keep them away from everything in our apartment since nothing is child friendly. Then around 7:30p we headed on a quick walk / wagon pull to the Lincoln Park Zoo to check out the Zoo Lights. After the Zoo Lights, which was a way different experience when you are walking around with three little kiddies, we came back to our place and watched a couple of movies, including E.T. which put them to sleep real quick. Once the kids were asleep, we had a few drinks and were able to chat, they all headed out a bit after midnight.
I met up with Rachel for lunch at Doc B's on December 18th near her work. She finished her first semester of grad school! So proud of her!
On Friday December 22nd, Adam, Brandy, Brian, and Megan came over to our place for some dinner before our High School reunion. We enjoyed some pulled pork, veggies, and macaroni salad. We then got an Uber to Old Crow River North. Reunion time! The reunion was super fun (blog all about it coming soon!) and it was great catching up with some old friends and classmates.
Two days later, Christmas Eve was already here. It snowed a bunch that morning, which means snow for Christmas! Wooo! We did Christmas Eve at Grandmas and then went to Church with the fam in Darien. I got a special shoutout during the sermon as I was the only "Joshua" in church. After church we headed to New Lenox and hung out at Rach's parents house, sleeping there. Christmas day was spent with Rach's family and we spent another night out in NL. The next day was Rach's Grandpa's birthday, 94 years old this year! We visited him down in Manteno at the Veteran's home and then headed back to Chicago.
On Friday December 29th we went out to eat at Gilt Bar with Torie, Tim, Sarah, and Colin. It was pretty delicious, we even got a sparkling cookie pan with ice cream for dessert! After dinner we went back to Sarah and Colin's to play some cards. Their pup Russell was making trouble, but I was the one who sampled his sour apple spray, not too bad! We played kitchen bridge until about 1am. Rachel got second place, and I got last, not bad for our first time playing.
Get ready for the New Year ya'll.
Josh