Christmas Lights

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good drink!

Skyline and Millennium Park

I took some photos of the beautiful Chicago skyline a couple nights ago:




And then spent some time in Millennium Park:

Catching Up

Wow, it has been a long time since we've posted anything. To try and catch everyone up I thought I would post a summary of our last five-to-six weeks...nothing too in-depth and boring but hopefully enough to give you a good idea of what's been going on:

• We were invited to our ex-neighbor's new-house warming in late October.  The Telfords used to live in the condo below ours and now live in a house a couple streets over.  Their house is gorgeous, we had a great time, and found out their street has a fantastic "block party" with horses, fire trucks, and amazing food sometime in the summer.  We are currently trying to find a way to get invited or crash their next block party.
• I had double hernia surgery in early November, and yes it hurt as much as it sounds. The surgery went very well and Sara was a great nurse.  I was out of commission for pretty much two full days and then started feeling better and better with each passing day (with the help of the pain meds). I never knew coughing, sneezing, and laughing could hurt so much. I'm close to my usual 93% and have started to work out again, although only with light weights. Thankfully there are no pictures to share...
• Also in early November, Sara and I made a trip back to Muncie to see my sister (it was her birthday) and to attend my father's charity event for A Better Way, 100 Men That Cook.  On our way to Muncie we met up with my family to have lunch with my Grandma Doudt in Columbia City, IN. It was great to see her if only for a couple hours. As for the charity event, it was a huge success.  We are so happy for A Better Way and my father. It was also a lot of fun to hang out and share a table with our friends Brian and Holly Ross and David Haynes.
• The next weekend in November, Sara and I flew down to Clearwater, FL for the weekend to attend Dickie Hart's wedding (friend from college). The weather was perfect and the food at the rehearsal dinner and wedding reception was amazing (sushi and steak!!).  We were in heaven.  I got to see a bunch of college baseball buddies and reminisce about how great we were (of course).  And as usual we busted a groove on the dance floor at the reception...I'm convinced people we don't know will hire us just to dance at their reception.  We also got to hang out with our friends Zack and Carrie Roper for the day on Sunday and meet their young son, Tyler. It was a great trip and really nice to be in warm weather as winter is quickly coming to Chicago.

• For Thanksgiving we made a trip to Cedar Rapids, IA as Sara's brother and sister-in-law, Eric and Amy, were hosting the festivities...which not only included fantastic food but also charades. Of course our team won on Sara's great "charading" of the song Earth Song.  Later in the evening, Sara and I destroyed the sibling team of Eric and Katie in Euchure. Twice.  I guess Thanksgiving is the holiday of giving thanks for winning games. We also took a family photo but we all swore not to share it with a wide audience since we took it in the early morning.
• Somewhere in and around these other events Sara and I found time to hit up two concerts at Lincoln Hall, a fantastic small venue south of us in the Lakeview neighborhood.  The first concert was Youth Lagoon and then just this past Tuesday we went to see/hear Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.  Great times!

I think that about sums everything up.

Conservatory Photos

Sara and I walked around Lincoln Park for a couple hours on Saturday.  It was such a beautiful fall day but we had to cut short our walk as I wasn't feeling the best. I took some photos while we walked around inside the Conservatory.  You can see them here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajdoudt/

Fall Comes to Chicago

With Sara away in San Francisco at a conference, I went down to Lincoln Park and took some pictures of Chicago in Fall:

Up, Up and Away!

Due to an IU home football game last weekend every hotel was booked in town so we had to stay at a motel in Bedford about 30 minutes south of Bloomington. Sara was very excited about this (no joke) as this was her first time staying in a motel. And it certainly lived up (down?) to her expectations as it was a very typical motel with some questionable cleanliness, but it was a roof over our head so it did the job.  We had to meet our pilot at 7am so we got up at 5:45am, had a bite to eat of Cardamom bread (homemade by Sara) and fruit, and headed out to Bloomington.

As luck would have it the other people that were supposed to be in the same basket as us did not show up which meant more space for us.  The basket wasn't too big so I'm not sure how we would have fit two more people in with us.  The day before the pilot had taken up eight (that's right, eight) people and they actually skydived out of the basket.  Wow.  We would not be jumping out of the basket today...just a calm trip up to about 3300 feet.

We drove out to the liftoff site (an open field used for band practice) and helped get the balloon prepped for flight.  Soon enough we had liftoff...

And, yes, it was that loud (and hot) when the pilot heated up the balloon. Sara and dad then followed along in the "chase" van.  Here are some pictures from the morning:



If you want to see more pictures that I took during the flight feel free to check out my Flickr page.

Turkey Run

Sara and I made a trip down to Indiana last weekend to complete a birthday gift for my mom.  The entire family had gone in together back in June (on her actual birthday) to get mom two tickets for a hot air balloon ride, and I was lucky that my mom asked me to join her for the ride - my dad is not a fan of heights so he was all to happy to have someone else go. She then scheduled this past Sunday morning for the sunrise flight in Bloomington, Indiana.  Before the Sunday morning flight we met up at Turkey Run State Park on Saturday for a picnic and hike.  Here are some of the pictures from our hike:




After our hike we headed down towards Bloomington but made a stop at one of the covered bridges nearby:




We then enjoyed a Mexican dinner where my dad ordered "the special" that included three plates of food, and unbelievably he couldn't finish all of it.  Maybe the first time I've seen that happen.

We then hit the sack as we had an early morning ahead of us...

Bears Game

Thanks to Alan and Rhonda Wilson, Sara and I got tickets to the Bears vs Carolina Panthers game. It was awesome with all sorts of scoring and we even saw Devin Hester set an NFL record with his 11th punt return for a touchdown.  Here are a few pictures from the day: