Vidette reunion

What a fun evening we had last night. Our college friend, Kathy, came over and the three of us went into the Fulton Market area of the city for an ISU Vidette reunion. Here's me with Kathy at The Bandit, where we had dinner.

Class of 1988 - Mike S., Kathy, Jeff and me. Last time we saw Kathy and Jeff was 10 years ago. Where does the time go?

Talking and reminiscing. We all agreed we were glad we were in college before everyone had cell phones - not much evidence of the many crazy, funny things we did.

Group photo!

This is such a cute neighborhood. After dinner we walked to Haymarket Brewery where we talked some more before calling it a night.

Mike, Mark and Scott.

Jeff, who was one of the groomsmen in our wedding, and Andy.

Vidette party at homecoming 1987, where our story began.

Several people told us we haven't changed at all. I see quite a few changes so I'll take that as a compliment.

Oopsie

I went on my Bird Buddy app to see a live stream of the camera and this is what it showed me - an interesting view of my kitchen. That's when I realized that I had charged the battery but hadn't yet put it back in the feeder.

I can't see the many sparrows that love my feeder without having the camera in! I never post their pictures because they visit so often, but this was a funny pose.

Cute cat puzzle

I thought this was going to be my next puzzle. I opened it up and all of the edge pieces had been placed in a bag. I started putting the frame together and it was missing pieces - unless those pieces never got put in the bag. I decided the wait of putting it together and the frustration if those edge pieces are never found just wasn't worth it. Into the recylcing bin it went. So I started another cat puzzle.

Only 750 pieces so it didn't take me long to finish. Yay, it's complete!

The question I have, though, is whose tail is this?

Dinner with neighborhood friends

Andy and I met our friends, Nancy and Vic, at Fitzgerald's last night for dinner. We were too busy talking to get many pictures but I snapped this bad photo of the band. We went to Nancy's retirement party in June but this was the first time we were able to sit and talk since we got together for dinner last August. They're going to Italy in September so we'll bet to hear all about and see their photos next time we get together.

In other news, I got our cabin assignment for next month's Alaskan cruise. Could be noisy, apparently.

My mahjong bag

Allison found the mahjong reusable shopping bags at Marshall's and got me one! I plan to keep it in the car for any yard sale treasures I find.

Andy and I have been going to the Monday mahjong nights at her church. We were at different tables on Monday and I didn't win at all. Andy won one game.

Is it dark in here?

It seems Piper wanted to turn light but I think she was chasing a fruit fly.

Puzzle swap at the library

There was a puzzle swap at the local library yesterday afternoon and I happened to have some 1,000-piece puzzles, completed, sitting in the basement just waiting for their next home. They wanted the pieces in ziploc bags so I did that and off to the library I went in search of good swaps. I took five puzzles.

Came home with these five even though they said to take as many as I wanted. I considered a couple more but they both looked pretty difficult.

And while I was there, I checked out this book. My friend, Renee, read it for the church women's book club and said even though it is almost 500 pages she read it quickly. She was a littled annoyed she got through the whole book then had to miss the book club meeting when it was discussed lol. I'm not a huge reader so I'll see if it grabs my interest.

Meanwhile in Colorado, L saw cows.

She said they looked mean.

Difference of 14 years

This picture of L popped up in my Facebook feed, asking if I had a current picture to compare it to - and I did. I didn't post it, but did take this screenshot to send to L. Her response was "Oh, wow." I'd say. Kind of funny that she was at Disney in the first pic and now she works there. Quite a difference 14 years makes.

As for her vacation, they had brunch with the family. She didn't send a lot of pictures but W looks nice in his new cowboy hat. When in Colorado ...

Lucky quarter?

I know finding a penny is lucky but now that pennies are no longer being made, are quarters be lucky? I found this one by a (stupid) speed bump when I went out to move my car at work yesterday. The wildfire smoke has cleared up so maybe it is lucky?

The neighbor kids texted me to say there was a three-car wreck in front of the house that took out a stoplight. Yikes! So I came home a bit early to work on the next newsletter and got a closer look. The question is how in the world did that happen? And it's the second crash at the corner this week. We get regular crashes but two in one week is unusual. Maybe they didn't have a lucky quarter.

L's Friday was shopping. She loves that!

Yet another cat puzzle

This cat puzzle was a hot mess. The border is all the same color, so I took B's suggestion from years ago to do the inside parts first. I'm not a fan of that process.

Done, but missing five pieces! I've been good about keeping this one covered up when I wasn't working on it so I must have received it incomplete. Boo!

Colorado wineries

Today L and W went to wineries.

They were riding in style. Went with his mom, her friend and his grandma.

Enjoying some wine.

And W cooked dinner for his family. I thought that was a pool behind him but it's a pickleball court.

Meanwhile in Chicago our air quality is horrible because smoke from Canadian wildfires has moved in. It smells smoky.

CVS had one job

CVS had a special - 100 4x6 prints for 12 cents each. That's a pretty good price especially since I don't end up using them all when I'm scrapbooking. Of course, one of the three CVS stores near me weren't available to print them so I sent them to a fairly close store in Cicero. We picked them up the other night and I come across these ...

10 pictures of strangers that obviously weren't part of my order ...

and doubles of 12 of my photos. At least the 100 I wanted were all included in my order so I guess there's not much to complain about? I was annoyed from the start when I was trying to upload the pictures to the CVS app. It wouldn't work and my phone or iPad so I had to sign in on the desktop and it took me an hour to go through the photos and place the order. It was nearly impossible to enter the coupon code too. I think I'll be sticking to Walgreens for my photo-printing needs.

Colorado Monument

I'm loving that L is sending me pictures of her trip. She said this was today on their way to the Colorado Monument. I had no idea what she was talking about but a quick google search and I found out it's a national park.

And a pretty one at that.

Picture taken by W's mom.

They drove through the park. She said it was too hot to hike.

Not sure if this was on the drive to the park or in the park but what a neat picture going through a mountain.

So pretty.

Be careful! That first step is a doozie!

Close-up.

In Munich?

I'm still in the process of figuring out all of the things Canva can do. The other day I was playing with its photo editor. I took this picture of us, stripped the background and set us in Munich. Andy and I have been trying to travel to Germany since 2020 (you know why that didn't work out) so I sent him this and said I just saved him $10,000. Maybe 2027 will be our year to go.

L and W in Colorado

L and W left Orlando early this morning to fly to Colorado where they're staying in Grand Junction, with his mom.

She wasn't able to join us in 2024 for Cousin S's wedding in Colorado so I'm pretty sure this is her first time seeing mountains ... except in Japan maybe.

Their first stop was apparently a Mexican restaurant for dinner. More to come.