Fun with Work Friends & Tiffany's Wedding!

This past weekend was a fun one.  Thursday night went to a work happy hour at a mexican bar near work. I wouldn't recommend it since they tried to pad the bill TWICE at one table...jerks.  But aside from that we had fun. One of our support staff is leaving and heading to med school and another coworker who recently moved to North Carolina was back in town for a wedding.  Which brings us to Saturday night when another coworker, Tiffany got married. 

We showed up early to the church because we had no idea what traffic was going to be like on a Saturday afternoon in Chicago. Then we had about a 5 minute panic attack when we thought we were in the wrong place because there was some kind of hispanic celebration going on inside and not a single other person from the wedding was there.  Finally the bridal party arrived so we knew we were in the right place.  We couldn't believe the church would book two services so close together but everyone finally cleared out and it ended up being fine. 

Tiffany's twin nieces were the flower girls and they were ADORABLE!  The one on the left sniffed the flower the whole walk down the aisle and the one on the right looked like she was mad at the world the whole time! The aisle was loooooooooong and they were moving at a snail's pace but after they finally made it down the aisle everyone clapped for them...it was too cute.  Tiffany looked ah-mazing and I'm annoyed with my last minute decision to not bring my camera and use my iphone instead. Epic iphone fail as every single picture turned out blurry!!! 

There was about an hour and a half to kill between the ceremony and the reception so about 60 people packed into this tiny bar right next to the Stan Mansion (where the reception was being held). The poor bartender/waitress had no idea what hit her but she did her best to serve everyone....and probably made 50 times what she would normally make on a Saturday afternoon! It was fun to hang with work friends before the reception!

Finally we made it over to the cocktail hour and it reminded me of being in a crowded college bar! The place itself was really nice but the cocktail room where the bars were was tiny and it was SO LOUD!  We eventually made our way into the dinner area and found a prime spot for standing inconspicuously right where the servers were bringing out the hors d'oeuvres (the bacon wrapped dates and crabcakes were my favs!)  After a long dinner there was a lot of dancing and we had a great time. Although their taste in music was a little different than ours (DJ with techno rap versus 80's cover band), my feet were still sore at the end of the night!

Digi Tiffany and Andy!

Yo-cago

Last weekend our friend Mike Yo came to visit.  The last time we saw Mike was a few years ago when he came to visit us in Alabama (Yohanabama).  (For some reason we like to give Mike's visit an official name...we should do this with everyone!) 

Mike got into town Friday afternoon and we headed to Old Town for some dinner before catching another show at Second City.  We ate at O'Brien's, which ended up being perfect. The heat finally decided to break a little bit so we sat outside and caught up before heading to Second City.  We saw the same show that we saw a few months ago with Joe and Laura (100th Revue), and it was just as good the second time around! 

Saturday morning we had breakfast at our new favorite diner (the Sunshine Diner) around the corner before heading downtown.  We thought Mike would enjoy the Architectural boat tour, so we booked tickets and ended up with the same tourguide we had when we went with Joe and Laura.  He told the same lame jokes but we still found them funny. You can't go wrong when you're sitting on a boat with a cold 312 in hand on a summer afternoon in Chicago!

After the boat tour we took the obligatory trip to the Bean in Millenium Park before heading to the original Pizzeria Uno for some deep dish.  (Or maybe we did pizza first and then the Bean since Mike is holding our leftovers...aka a 10 pound weight...in the Bean picture below)!  Tom kept making fun of me and Mike the whole time because we were bonding over how awesome our iphones are.  (Mike was a late iphone bloomer like myself). 

Saturday night we made plans with our neighbors to meet up at this german bar that is right down the street from us (Mirabell). Our friend Kedar drove down to join us and we had a good time hanging out in the beer garden, catching up, drinking german beer and laughing!

And of course Bailey was beyond excited to be able to sleep on the couch bed. Mike said she even cuddled with him the second night! She never cuddles!!

Paige & Wes get hitched!

We travelled to Hot Springs, NC this weekend to see our friend Paige (from Bham) get married!  Hot Springs is about an hour northwest of Asheville, right smack dab in the middle of the Appalachian Trail. We had an absolute blast!  We arrived Friday night, just in time for the post-rehearsal dinner party. 

We stayed at the Iron Horse Station (one of three "hotels" in Hot Springs) where the party was being hosted.  We got to catch up with some old friends from Birmingham that we haven't seen since we left and some new friends of Wes's that we met a few weeks ago.  AND we got to have some YEUNGLING!!!  I was beyond excited!  Go figure, you can get Yeungling in the middle of the mountains, but in Chicago they won't sell it!  After the party, we experienced Hot Springs night life at the Spring Creek Tavern with live music and plenty of drinks, dancing, and conversation.

Live music at Spring Creek Tavern

The soon-to-be newlyweds

Saturday morning we didn't get up in time for breakfast, but had an awesome lunch at the Smokey Mountain Diner (complete with fried green tomatoes)!  After lunch, we took a drive up to Max Patch and hiked about a mile up the mountain for some ahhhhhmazing views. We met Luna at the top, a local dog who likes to go on hikes with vacationers (a couple staying at a local B&B brought her along on their hike).  She was so good, Bailey never would have hiked up and stayed with complete strangers!! Once we got to the top, there was a large clearing with a 360 degree view of hundreds of miles of mountains.

This is what it looked like when we started out...thankfully it passed over before we got to the top!!

Luna, the town hiking dog

After the hike we walked around the town for a little bit and went to this cute little ice cream shop for root beer floats.  They were delicious!!  And a perfect way to cool off after being up in the mountains!

The weather was in the high 80's all day and it seemed to cool off exactly at 6:00, when Paige and Wes got married.  The wedding was outside at the Mountain Magnolia Inn and it was beautiful!! After the wedding Tom and I entertained, (or rather were entertained by) Noah (Ashley and Tony's baby - who is no longer a baby anymore)!  Ashley was in the wedding so she was summoned for pictures and Tony unfortunately couldn't make it to the wedding.  Tom and Noah played "catch" or "baseball" or "hockey" (it changed each time) and we laughed at Noah's favorite phrases, "See that?!" and "I'll be right back."  After dinner we danced into the night and had a great time!! 

Noah still must be working on his aim ;)

Sunday we got up, said goodbye to everyone, and headed back to Asheville. We had some time to kill before our flight, so we stopped at the Stoney Knob Cafe in Weaverville, NC. I highly recommend this place if you are ever in the area! It's about 10 minutes north of Asheville and it was sooooo good!  I got the shrimp n' grits (I couldn't pass up grits since we were in the south) and Tom had biscuits and gravy.  After brunch we checked out Asheville and then finally headed to the airport to head home. We had a fabulous time!!

Garden Update!

These pics were taken last weekend. I'm kind of mad at my tomato plants.  It's almost the middle of JULY and I don't see a single tomato. Grrr.

Tomato plant #1
(My pride and joy)

Tomato plant #2

Oregano
He's going a little crazy



Cilantro
It's beginning to grow flowers which means it is finished producing cilantro leaves. But I have 2 more cups of seedlings on the window sill, just waiting until they get a little bigger to put them outside

"Dill".....if that's what it really is

Pepper plants
We had to move away from the railing because the wind kept blowing them over

Basil