Monday, December 03, 2007

Birthday Dinners, Movies and Christmas Concert!

Well this last weekend was a busy one. For well detailed write-up you can go to Kelly's blog under the post "packed weekend." I thought I would just highlight a few other items in my post.

First off, for those of you who didn't know, last Saturday was my 32nd birthday. Originally we thought my parents were coming into town on Saturday, so Kelly decided to celebrate on Friday night with me by taking me to a posh downtown eating establishment known as "Vermillion." They specialize in a Latin American/Indian fusion style food with a trendy, minimalist atmosphere. We started the meal off with tapas that consisted of a banana croquet and an Indian style empenada. For dinner, Kelly had a the lamb chop and I had the surf and turf (fillet and a small lobster tail). It was delicious.

Earlier on Friday, we got word that my parents were no longer going to be able to make it into town because of the bad weather. On Saturday I got up to a huge surprise. Kelly had bought me an advent calendar a few weeks before. Since it was December 1, I got to see what was behind the first door. To my confusion there was a printed out picture of a civil war cannon. Just as I was turning around with a puzzled look on my face Kelly came around the corner with a wrapped present. She had gotten me a brand new Cannon Digital camera. This is no run of the mill camera either. It is a Cannon Eos Rebel XT! After that we spent the day cleaning up around the apartment and relaxing in front of the TV. Later in the afternoon I came found out that the movie the The Golden Compass was playing in Evanston's movie theatre. It is not supposed to be released until next weekend, but apparently they opened it in a few select markets for this weekend. We decided to brave the nasty weather and check it out. It was a very good movie and I noticed no anti religious themes like all the mail forwards I have been getting lately claim. I guess it just goes to show that you should believe random email forward (that you have no idea the source for) and trust your own judgement. The movie was just another good fantasy movie, nothing more, nothing less.

On Sunday, we got up and made it over to the gym for a quick work out on the elliptical machines and some 1-on-1 basketball. From there we grabbed lunch and went home to get ready for the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert later that afternoon. We left about an hour and fifteen minutes prior to the 3:00 PM show to compensate for traffic and weather. Traffic was fine until we were about 1 mile from the off ramp for the Allstate Arena. There was a massive bottleneck all the way up into the ramp and were barely moving for what seemed like an eternity. We finally paid the exorbitant amount of $15 to park and hustled our way to the building at 3:05 PM so we would minimize how much of the show we would miss. Once we got up to the ticket taker we were dismayed to find out that our tickets were for the 7:30 PM show. I am not sure how I messed this up. I thought I had bought the tickets for the 3 PM show bust must have selected the wrong option on the drop down menu when ordering the tickets. So there we were after just spending $15 to park trying to figure out what to do so we wouldn't have to pay to park again later. We decided to just wander over to the Target that was near by to look around. While we were there, Kelly confirmed that we could leave the car in the lot until the next show so we walked over to the Chili's and had dinner and killed some time. We then wandered back to Target and then over to Krispy Kreme's and watched them make their delicious doughnuts as well as sampling a couple. By then the show was ready to begin so we head back to Allstate arena and settled in for a spectacular show. The put on a great performance of their rock versions of Christmas and Classical music complete with laser light show and pyrotechnics. It was amazing. If you ever get a chance I would recommend seeing them.

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posted by Heath @ 1:07 PM 2 Comments