Avan
I just realized that I haven't really posted anything on my Nephew
Avan. My youngest brother, Clay and his wife Danielle had a beautiful baby boy back in August. He is growing like a weed and seems to be full of
energy. His little legs and arms are always moving. He is going to be crawling and walking in no time. Can't wait to see him in a few weeks. We missed him at
Thanksgiving because they were in Missouri visiting Danielle's family. Here are a couple of pictures of him.
Taken in October
Did you buy tickets....to the gun show?!?!?!
With Aunt Kelly
Labels: Family
Christmas Holidays
Well, I have been very bad again and find myself way behind on my blog posts. So the next few posts are going to be catch-ups starting with Christmas through this week.
So for Christmas, Kelly and I decided to have our own "mini" celebration before heading out of town and we spent the Saturday before opening presents from each other. As you may already know, I had already received my
big gift on my birthday, but Kelly didn't want me to have nothing to open for Christmas, so she found some other cool gifts for me, including a coffee table, picture book from the "
Planet Earth" series. It has some breath taking pictures. I also got the Charlie Brown Christmas CD, plus some Snowboarding apparel. The rest of that day we spent making cookies and candies for Christmas.
On Sunday we woke up to a wind storm. My parents were a little worried about us driving the 3 hours across the country-side in the storm because the snow was blowing around making visibility tough. We decided to brave it and it really wasn't too bad if you don't count the stop we made at the
Dekalb, IL oasis where I had to fill the Jeep up in hurricane force winds. We really didn't have any trouble until we got off the interstate about 10 minutes from my parents house. The country highways were pretty slick and my Jeep fish tailed on me a couple of times. After the second time I decided to put it in 4
WD and that seemed to do the trick.
For Christmas Eve we spent the evening at my Grandma's house across the road, with my aunt (dad's sister) and uncle and their kids. Luke and Clay couldn't make it because they were with their significant other's families. We had a nice time enjoying a ham dinner, opening presents, catching up and enjoying some homemade deserts.
Christmas morning at the Port's is usually reserved for opening presents with the immediate family, but due to schedules Clay and Luke couldn't make it until closer to noon. So Kelly and I spent the morning visiting with my Dad and helping my Mom get ready for the dinner she was preparing for her side of the family that afternoon. Once Luke,
Rebecca, Clay and Danielle arrived we commenced with the gift exchanging. We usually let each person open one gift at a time so everyone can see, but by the end of the process, my mom's sisters began arriving so we had to quick open the rest all at once. Everyone had a good time and got some great gifts. My parents got me a new zoom
lens for the camera that Kelly got me and Clay got me some cool stuff for my
PSP and Luke got me a gift card to Best Buy among other things.
Later that afternoon we settled in and had a turkey dinner with my mom's sisters, their significant others and some of my cousins. After dinner we had a "white elephant" grab bag gift exchange that was fun and then had a regular gift exchange. My cousin
Audra got me a gift certificate to Best Buy. After that Luke, Clay, Kelly and I played a game called "Landslide" where you try and accumulate votes and states to win a presidential
election. It was a pretty interesting game that isn't made anymore. After that we joined the rest of the family in the living room for a few rounds of "
Catch Phrase" that got pretty competitive but was so much fun that Kelly and I decided to go out and buy it ourselves. From there we spent the rest of our stay at the Port farm relaxing, playing some Halo 3 on my Dad's new 50" plasma and catching up with family. It was a really nice Christmas and I was really happy Kelly could experience it too! Hope everyone else had a great Christmas too!
Labels: Christmas, Family, Holidays
The Middle Port In for a Visit
So, this weekend my middle brother Luke came into town to visit, collecting the
prestigious honor of being the first out-of-town visitor to visit our new abode. He came into town early Friday evening and we put him up in the office/second bedroom for the weekend. That evening we went out for pizza at
Gulliver's in Rogers Park (Chicago). Its a little neighborhood nugget that we found not too far from home with great pizza and a very eccentric decor. The place is decorated from floor to ceiling with thousands of antiques and old lighting
fixtures. Seriously you could look around for hours and constantly find something new. To top off the evening we went back to
casa de ChamPort for a little Guitar Hero tourney. We started off playing Dance Dance Revolution but Luke and I were not coordinated enough (or too tired) to get the hang of it so we switched to Guitar Hero Encore. After that we hit the sack.
The next morning we let Luke sleep in for awhile and then we when to Potbelly's for lunch and then made our way out to Clark Street Beach in
Evanston around noon. The beach wasn't crowded the sun was out and the lake was warm. It all combined for a beautiful day at the beach. We spent a lot of time in the water
swimming around and playing with a new toy Kelly found online called a
WoBoBa ball. It is made in such a way that you can bounce it off the water. Later in the afternoon the wind kicked up and we got some good size waves coming in so we went back into the water to play. By about 4 PM we decided to hit the showers and go get some grub. As we were heading back to the apartment we all noticed how red each other were and realized later that we should have applied some more sun block. At least Kelly doesn't have to worry about those weird tan lines she got during her
triathlon the weekend before. We were all seriously burnt!
After our showers we decided on dinner at
FlatTop's Grill in
Evanston. If you never have been there they have a buffet of vegetables sauces and meets that you put in a bowl and drop off at the counter and they cook your collection up on a giant grill and bring it to your seat when it is done. In the past I have had some good experiences at this place but our experience that night was not great. By the second round of food Luke found a hair in is mix that grossed everyone out. On top of that my second round of food did not come until well after Kelly and Luke had stopped eating. After the hair and the wait I was no longer hungry. We decided to get out of there and try and make the 7:40
Bourne Ultimatum at the local theatre. Before we left Luke decided to make a sign on his
place mat complaining about the hair in his food where he strategically placed the hair on the sign with a circle around it and arrows pointing at it! I wonder if they got the hint?
From there we made haste to the theatre where the movie was going to start in 5 minutes. By the time we got to the counter the woman tells us that the show is sold out. This was surprising to us because it had been showing for a week at this point. The next show wasn't coming on until 9:45. We decided to hangout in downtown
Evanston until the next show. Luke and I decided to buy the tickets for the next show in advance since the first one was sold out and it turned out that was a smart choice. We killed some time at Urban Outfitters and then headed back to the theatre 30 minutes before show time. We bought some snacks and made our way down to the theatre only to find a line outside of the door 30 minutes before show time. Finally, we got in and found decent seats. The showing sold out (thank goodness for buying tickets in advance and showing up early). Fortunately, the movie was really good. After that we decided to head back to the apartment. Unfortunately, I lost my parking ticket so I had to pay the maximum to get out of the garage, but I was tired and didn't care at that point. We closed out the weekend by sleeping in Sunday and then Luke had to leave early because he needed to get back for an open house for a house he was thinking about buying. Kelly and I just worked on getting my fish tank moved from my old place to our new place. We also had to do some minor fish surgery because my catfish got his fin all stuck in the net. He seemed to be doing
ok this morning.
Labels: Family, Leisure
