It started off with my trip to Dallas to see my Brother, Sister (-in-law), and Niece for a weekend full of fun and family. We went to the park, to Downtown McKinney, to Downtown Dallas, and to a few other various places around town.

Once I got home, I adopted Brutus.

I took Red for many, many excursions around town.

I went camping in June, July, and September, each time at a different Illinois State Park.

I celebrated the birthdays of a few friends.

I went to Chicago a couple of times and Indianapolis once.

I helped J & J repaint the inside of their home.

I started rehearsing with the Philharmonic Chorale again.

Somewhere in there I found time to relandscape an area at the front of my house, but seriously only mowed the lawn about 6 times over the 3 months of summer.

This was probably one of the most exciting summers I’ve had in a REALLY long time, and I loved it. It was fun to be able to see so many friends and relatives in various places. However, I’m also glad that the majority of my travels have come to an end for a few months. There are a few day- and weeekend-trips planned, but nothing too major.

Along with being in town a bit more, I think I might have a bit more time to blog. I am going to try to blog once a week for a while, and then hopefully I can get back to a higher frequency.

Christmas has always  been family time for me. There have only been two Christmas days that I didn’t get to spend with my parents and most of my siblings. However, as we’ve all grown older, our “typical” celebration has evolved a bit. On Christmas Eve, we have a candle-lit lasagna dinner that my mom always pulls off impeccably. This meal is preceded and followed with chit-chat, laughter, games, and nacho dip. Us boys rally around the crock pot to prepare our post-lasagna feast with excitement and then settle in for the evening with a bag of chips and many bowls of dip. Christmas morning used to be VERY early, but now we casually have a delicious breakfast of Mom’s homemade biscuits and gravy and the most amazing cinamon rolls in the world. After we’re filled to the brim, we move on to the presents and more laughter/chit chat. The rest of Christmas day is very relaxed – if there are friends to visit, we split off to make our rounds; if there is extended family in town, they may stop by for a visit; otherwise, we just sit around in our PJs all day and do whatever the heck we want.

This year, for me at least, had a few new twists. While I would normally just spend the night at Mom and Dad’s on Christmas Eve, I decided to attend a Christmas Eve worship service with some friends, one of which was singing as part of the service. This program began at the early hour of 11pm and lasted until about midnight. While it was VERY different that the types of services that I normally attend, it was very neat to participate in that type of formal activity on Christmas Eve. Instead of just being lazy and having fun with my siblings, I was focusing on a different meaning of the holiday. But that wasn’t the part that was the most profound. Aside from my family, there are a handful of people that may as well be adopted into my family, as far as I’m concerned. But since they “have their own families”, or some other such nonsense, I don’t normally get to actually SHARE these holidays with them. Well, three of these folks were in attendance at this service, and I got to ring in the first few minutes of Christmas with them. I didn’t realize how much I would deeply enjoy that experience, and I would never have anticipated it, but I truly enjoyed being able to lean over to some of my closest friends and just say “Merry Christmas.” It was really special.

And while that was even a bit sappy for my taste, there was still one more heart-warming event that fits right in. First, some history: I have never really known my dad to have “friends”. He doesn’t “hang out” with anyone other than family, he doesn’t go to the ball games or bars or clubs, and, heck, he doesn’t even go out very frequently with Mom. He goes to work, wears himself out entirely, and then comes home and relaxes for the evening. This evening, though, his side of the family was over for our typical extended family feast, and then he all-of-a-sudden had to leave to “go pick up a friend”. But that’s all that was said as he walked out the door. About an hour later, well after the food had been consumed, I cornered Mom and asked her where Dad had really gone. She then quietly explained that Dad had received a phone call from an old friend from grade school who was having a tough time. He was recently released from jail, but had no place to go on the day after Christmas. He was in downtown Peoria and had nothing. At all. On the day after Christmas. So, without hesitation, Dad had left to go get this guy to bring him into OUR place for heat, warm food, and celebration. I was absolutely impressed at the way that Dad brought the guy into his home, introduced him to everyone, fixed him a plate of food, and then made absolutely certain that the guy felt welcome and loved by all. I’ve never, ever, witnessed that type of outreach, and it has really left an impression on me.

Now that I’ve rambled on and on waaay more than intended, I’ll stop. But, I’ll always remember how much better Christmas is when it is shared. I’ve always made it a point to spend it with family, but, while I don’t want that part to change, I want to be sure to share it with as many people as possible. I have been given SOO much and have enjoyed that for myself – it’s my turn to share.

We live about 3.5 hours from Six Flags, so we don’t get there too frequently. It’s probably been three years since I had been there, so I was pretty excited to go back.

In the fall, most theme parks are only open on the weekend, and this park was no exception. So, instead of going up on Halloween itself, we ended up going on the day after.

Six Flags hosts “FrightFest” each year, and I think they do it at each of their fifteen parks. As part of this, they decorate the park all spooky-like, they rename rides and attractions with creepy names, and after dark they have people, dressed in freakish costumes, lurk in the darker areas to jump out and startle people. It’s quite interesting, really.

And while that may sound really awesome to some, I was more interested in riding roller coasters and getting exhilaration in that way. We actually avoided a lot of the Halloween festivities by spending the daytime there, but I think we all had a really fun time.

I’m really glad to have good friends that put up with my nonsense, craziness, and erratic driving so that I can enjoy a day of their company.

-We purchased season passes for next year, which means you’ll have to sift through many more posts about theme parks when spring/summer comes. Or, if you’d rather, you’ll just have to plan to come along! Either one works for me .

I was retrieved from my abode about 20 minutes later, and we were off – to Chicago! Okay, okay, so we didn’t actually go to Chicago itself, but to a suburb called Naperville. However Naperville is just about as far away as Chi-town (2.5-3 hours of driving each way), and I’ve been to the same pizza joint in downtown Chicago, too.

The place is called Lou Malnati’s, and it’s got to be my favorite deep-dish pizza. It’s not your average pizza – this is really a pie made from/with pizza ingredients. It is absolutely amazing. I would defintely suggest that any of you readers try to make it to Lou’s if you’re in Chicago. And, if it’s possible, I’ll come with you .

Thanks go out to the Lingles for crazy ideas, crazy times, and crazy-good pie! It was a long evening, but it was absolutely worth it!

Farmington, Illinois, is just what its name implies – a tiny farming community about 40 miles west of Peoria, which isn’t too bit itself. Farmington must have been originally founded by Itialians, ’cause they now have an annual festival celebrating that heritage. I’m okay with that, but I draw the line when some “small town hicks” get up on the flat-bed-truck-turned-stage and start singing Motown classics. Seriously – it was a whole group of caucasian farmers up on the platform singing songs by The Supremes, Arethra Franklin, and the like. “How’d y’all like to hear sum ‘Rethra?” The music was performed well, but it just didn’t jive with me.

The saving grace to the afternoon – well, besides the BEAUTIFUL weather – was this dude.

Apparently his name is Seth, and he was there with his family, who were seated next to us on the lawn. Seth is a Dancing Fool! Allow me to narrate the following pics:

Seth swingin’ the hips.

Oh darn, the song ended. But at least he was clapping!

With a dejected look on his face, Seth returned to his family while the Hicks introduced the next song. I think they (the band) were actually trying to tell a joke during this break, but I was too busy trying to snap decent pictures of Seth so I didn’t pay attention.

YES! Another song begins.

The hips were swingin’ again.

Twistin’ around, back and forth.

He was really gettin’ into it when the stranger approached.

Uh oh!

Run awaaAAAAAY!

She TOTALLY killed his jive.

After the strange lady left, he danced through the rest of the song. Then he collapsed in blissful exhaustion.

Like I said, Seth made a strange afternoon all better. Aren’t little tikes so cool?!

PS – I thought that White Guys had no rythm. Well, Seth puts all of us “whities” to shame, ’cause Little Dude TOTALLY had rythm.

We were there from Tuesday until Friday, and it was hot every day. Their only saving grace is that the heat of the day actually causes thunderstorms almost every afternoon, which, in turn, cool off the city enough so the evening is bearable. These thunderstorms are much different than the ones that I’m accustomed to – they only last for about 30 minutes. In that brief time, though, I thought I was going to die. Thursday afternoon was the worst of them all, and it seriously left 6+ inches of water on all of the roads that I saw. It was raining and blowing so hard that I couldn’t even see the building across the street from our office. It’s like it wasn’t even there. There was thunder and lighting, too, along with wind gusts of 50+ mph. The people from the office that we were visiting said that it’s quite regular for this type of storm to happen, but they also admitted that this particular one was much worse than they had seen in quite a while. Actually, since the last hurricane hit the Texas gulf last fall. I’m sorry, but as soon as people compare a summer afternoon thunderstorm with a friggin’ HURRICANE, I get a bit startled. But all-in-all, it was cool to witness for myself.

Oh – and in the midst of this storm, someone was crushed and died at a construction site nearby.

On Wednesday night, my buddy and I decided to drive around Houston to see what it has to offer. We typically do this one all of the trips where we have a rental car, and if we don’t have a car we just meander through the city on foot until we get tired. So in Houston, we drove to/through the downtown area, which really isn’t too exciting. We saw the former Enron building from about a block away, and then found Minute Maid Park (baseball) and the Toyota Center (basketball). Not too exciting, really. So then we decided to just drive around before heading back to the hotel. We ended up in an area of town called Montrose.

While we really weren’t trying to find the gay part of town, we sure as heck did. The light posts that line the street all had rainbow flag banners proudly displayed. Oh, and we also saw a building from across the street that was painted like it was leopard print. Seriously. How more “gay” can it get than leopard-print buildings?!

The next day, while we were out to lunch at Otto’s, we were talking with a gal from the office that is a Houston native. She mentioned that we should stay away from Montrose because it was the “gay part of town.” We started laughing hysterically because we didn’t know that there was actually a part of Houston that was labled that way, but then we proceeded to tell the gal that we must have found it. She asked how we knew, and we explained the rainbow banners. I PROMISE this is how the next part of the conversation went:

Her: “Rainbow banners? Really? I’ve never seen those before.”

Me: “Yep, and I even took pictures of them.”

Her: “Huh. They must have been having a parade or something.”

Laughter ensued.

SO, this means that I’m not the only one that automatically associates the gay part of a town with parades. And, because of this whole “discovery,” I’m now determined to find a gay parade in action to further prove my point.