Dear Friends

This weekend was awesome.

My friend Jim, his wife Brandy, and brother Paul drove up from Saint Louis for the weekend.

We had tix to the Final Fantasy, "Dear Friends" concert at the Rosemont Theatre. It was pretty funny making fun of the gamer geeks in t-shirts and/or cosplay in comparison to the older 50+ crowd in full suits and ties, etc. But the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra really did an awesome job. I was most impressed by the behavior of the crowd who broke out into spontaneous applause when the Composer, Eumatsu took his seat to watch the performance, and for a few short seconds when Vivi came up on the screen during the Latin dance from FFIX.

And that was only the beginning of the weekend! On Sunday we drove downtown to Ed D'bevics for dinner, my sisters Ruth and Rachel joined us since they hadn't seen Jim in... wow, probably close to 9 years. We had a good time, even with the meandering trek through Chicago to actually get there.

Brandy is soon to be a momma! It was a little strange to see Jim being the protective husband at first, but I think he will fit the position well.

Jim's brother Paul was a great guy, too. I am glad he was able to head to the show and hang out with us. I hope my sisters didn't intimidate him too much, though. ;) And I will never hear some jock rev his engine without breaking into a spontaneous grin.

Sunday evening we hung around the appartment. Napoleon Dynamite was the movie of choice for the evening. THAT IS A HILLARIOUS MOVIE and a little embarassing how much that resembles the boonies of the Midwest where I grew up. I think Rachel was in denial, but hey, I will admit it, we really WERE that geeky and neive. And the "skit" scene... that just rocked. Napoleon is my pseudo-hero.

Jim and crew were going to head out early that evening, but we went on for hours on ranging topics from hauntings at Milikin Univ, how to tell you've just been to a bad wedding, and more amusing randomness.

Around midnight our friends realized they should leave so they could be home by 5am, since they had an appt at 9:30! So we let them part, and crashed to bed in a very good mood.

That has to be the best weekend I have had in a long, long time!