The Pre-Departure Festivities

We are now 9 days into the "non-Camping, non-Road-Trip" part of our road trip.  All this time "off" has given us a chance to catch up on our posts and we realized that we were soooooo busy before we left, that we totally neglected to write about all the pre-departure festivities!!  Which were MANY.

There was bar-b-q in Elgin with Grandpa,

and swimming with my god-daughter, Maxie,

and a helicopter ride with Greg's mom, Barbara, to celebrate her birthday,

(she liked it a lot!!!)

(and so did Greg!)

and happy hours with the girls,

and hangin' with my bro and sis-in-law,

and hangin' with the niece and nephews,

(goofy kids!!)


and a happy hour with the co-workers,

(my boss, Shirlene.  She's the best.)

and a dinner party given by our dear friends, the Boyets. Ania is from Poland and made some of her favorite Polish dishes.  I don't have any pictures of them, but everything was delicious! 

(here we are..."helping")

(I thought everyone was going to do the "thinking" pose.  I was wrong.)

Amy making the party favors...paper hats!!!

Stefon and Thad tie for wearing the best hat....just check out that 'tude!!


And then there was the biggest surprise EVER.........
SURPRISE!!!!

That was Jess, my bestest and oldest friend.  She lives in Rhode Island and arranged with Scott, Amy, and Greg to surprise me.  Obviously, her diabolical plan worked!

She got a chance to check out Le Tigre

and she and Amy put their stamp of approval on it. 

And then she joined us for an afternoon hang at an aptly named bar, The Tigress.

(Mike likes The Tigress)

 

We love you, Jess!!!

And, finally, the night before we left, we had pizza with the DeValpines.

There was a Candi gig too, but I've already written about that.

It was a great send-off.  We're going to miss our friends very much!!  And we hope to see many of them on the road (hint, hint)!!!

P.S.  You've got to check out this video.  It has absolutely nothing to do with Le Tigre or the trip, but Greg, Scott, Amy, and I must've watched it about 186 times before we left.  And we forced everybody we knew to watch it.  It's just that good! 

Watch me!!