a little obsession of mine

i love photography. i love looking at other people's photographs and i love taking my own. those of you who know me can keep all comments to yourself. although, many of you wouldn't have half the pictures you have today if it weren't for me. i take pictures of everything. i am really wanting to do more "artsy" type stuff. i finally figured out how to use manual focus on our camera and i'm super excited about it. here are some pictures i took while we were on vacation...

return to the real world

we've been on vacation the past week. it was WONDERFUL! you know when you get to the point where you just think, "if i don't get away right now, i might lose it!"? that's where i was right before we left. so it was perfect timing for a getaway. we drove up to a small town called bradley, IL. and by small, i mean only about 2 miles small. but it's tony's hometown and we wanted to visit his family. i actually liked the town. it doesn't feel like a super-small town because it's sandwiched between bourbonnais (with a university) and kankakee. so it's more like 3 smalls towns in 1. plus you can't beat being only about an hour outside of chicago. if it weren't for the winters, i wouldn't mind living there.

we went to a couple pony league baseball games and a little league softball game, went swimming a few times, went to boz hotdogs, jaenicke's (i love me some redhots!), monical's pizza, and the ice deli, went to millenium park in chicago and hung out with the stipps, played homerun derby (i'm not so good), celebrated tony's 1st father's day, held little aurora mai, and just hung out with the family. it was great! jonah had so much fun. he had lots of 1st's....swimming, getting in the grass, playing with cats and dogs, and seeing horses. he loved it all.

if you want to see more pictures, click on "jonah's photo album" on the right.

the most exciting thing for me was our mini-trip into chicago...with no baby! tony and i celebrated our anniversary by having 24 hours (or a little more) to ourselves. we drove to chicago and stayed in a hotel. the next day we rode the train to downtown. tony made an appointment for me at renee day spa on michigan ave. to get a manicure and pedicure and i didn't find out until we were on the train. he gave me a jar of cotton balls (cotton is the traditional 2nd anniversary gift) with a note inside telling me where we were going. it was so sweet! and i got 2 hours worth of pampering to start the day. sometimes i forget how girlie i can be. after that, we just walked around downtown and went over to navy pier for lunch. it was wonderful. i was a little nervous about being away from jonah that long, but i had a lot of fun. i was ready to get back and see him when the day was over, though.

i wasn't really ready to come "home". back to our yucky jobs and smoke-filled apartment, and back to the fact that we still don't know what we're doing with the next few years of our lives. but, it was fun while it lasted. can't wait to do it again.