19

Yesterday, August 9th was Kristi's 19th birthday. I don't really know what she did yesterday but I had to work all day so we didn't go out to dinner until tonight. Tonight we ended up going to Benihana's. I had never been there before but it's where my sister wanted to go and it turned out great. I'm not much of a Chinese/Japanese steakhouse type of person at all but I got lemon chicken and rice and it was delicious. I was surprised how much food they served us but for the money we're paying to eat there it was definitely worth it. The chef brought us soup, salads, shrimp, vegetables. This was all extra stuff he served us before we even got our meals. The chef that cooked our food was great! He made it fun and very entertaining, I loved watching him cook everything and do tricks. If you go there on your birthday they will sing to you and even take your picture. They sang to Kristi and we got free ice cream. They also took a family picture of us all on their own camera and printed it and put it in a decorated frame that says Benihana's on it. I didn't expect all that at all! I made the waiter take photo's on my camera as well. I officially love Benihana's and I would recommend it to anyone, it was so fun!

Danielle is 21!

My best friend of all time, my best friend in the entire world, the girl I've grown up with my entire life is now 21. Danielle Chester is 21! Her official 21st birthday was on August 2nd but her huge birthday bash was celebrated this past Saturday August 6th. I was hired as the photographer for the night and I think the pictures turned out wonderful. Editing all 583 photos took me a little while with my busy schedule but I finally got them over to Danielle today. Now that the photos are off my chest I can finally take a breather and blog about Danielle's awesome birthday bash.
All her friends and family were there to celebrate her 21st birthday with her on Saturday. There was lots of good food, games, people, and of course lots of boos.




















Danielle had been drinking nothing but alcohol from 1:00 pm until about 2:30 in the morning. She didn't seem that drunk but looking back on the photo's she says she doesn't remember me taking alot of them. I guess that answers our question haha. Later in the night was when things got a little crazy. Everyone had been drinking all day so that made for some fun photos. Once we put on some music I got some great pictures of some lovely dancing as well.




















By the end of the night only us die hards were left still hanging out and partying in the kitchen. Danielle, a few of Danielle's friends that were sleeping over and a few other people were still around also. I hadn't been drinking at all but I was still around because I had to get the last few photos in before everyone passed out. Most everyone had left by that time but we were still having fun hanging out.

Since I know your going to read this Danielle I just want to say I had a great time at your party and you can hire me for any party's you will be having in the future. I love shooting party's and candid pictures are my favorite.

Here are a few other random pictures from the party...

Kristi, Taylor, Danielle and Holly.












Danny, Danielle and Ciara- Danielle's roommate.












Danielle's 21st Birthday shot glass cowboy hat.












Mom and Dad were working the beer tent this weekend at the Taste of Roselle. They were able to stop by for a little while though.












Homeade chocolate eclair cake.

Pet Sitting

Yes... once again I am pet sitting at Jessica and Carl's. They are out of town in Washington for Carl's work. They asked me to live at their house for the week to watch the cats while their away. How could I turn down free money? Watching cats is basically like free money. Jess and Carl's cats have a bowl of food that gets left out at all times. They have a water system that automatically runs fresh water at all times and the cats have three litter boxes scattered around the house to use. Carl's parents took their dog Tybalt this week so I don't even have to worry about watching him. All I have to do this week is watch over the two cats. Thus, I'm basically getting free money. Come eat our food, watch our TV, hang out, do whatever you want and here's $100 dollars. Cats are pretty independent, there isn't really much I need to do. The money does come in handy for gas though. I still do have to drive about 45 minutes each way from Jessica's to back home or vise versa for work and school. Usually I want as many hours as I can get at work and I'll take peoples shifts. This week however I was glad I wasn't scheduled alot though. I don't want to be driving back and forth all week wasting my gas. I was only scheduled to work Tuesday and Thursday this week so its not a problem. :)
Yesterday night the storms were really bad though. I was driving back out to Jessica's from being at work all night and I was driving directly into extreme lightning. It was about 11:30 at night and the lightning was coming down in streaks sideways across the sky as I drove out to Lock port. Everything turned out to be ok here in Lock port but apparently some of the towns near by lost power.
One crazy thing that did happen to me last night was that my AC Adapter blew up like a fire cracker. It was so scary! I seriously thought the entire bed was going to start on fire. I plugged my AC Adapter into the wall for my computer and pulled the cord so it was up on the bed. All the sudden out of no where is this huge popping noise that sounded like a firecracker. My AC Adapter starts smoking, I immediately take it out of my computer and turn the power switch to the outlet off. I left it in the outlet all night because I was to afraid to touch it. In the morning after school I ended up taking it in to the computer place I go to back home and the guy gave me a new AC Adapter at no charge. He said he had never seen anything like that before. I don't really know what happened but my AC Adapter has been working fine for months at my house. I'm still convinced that it was Jessica's outlet. I guess I'll never know but I'm just glad I got a new adapter. Seems something always has to go wrong when I'm at Jessicas haha. Last time I pet sat for them my car broke down on the highway. This time my AC Adapter blows up. Whats next?

DuPage County Fair

Here I am finally blogging about the Dupage County fair. I've been terribly busy these past few days and I haven't gotten a chance to get on here. However, this past week was the DuPage County Fair in Wheaton. Thanks to Uncle Larry we were able to get some free tickets to go. My dad gave me two of them so John and I could go over the weekend. We had to work the entire weekend though so we weren't able to make it until Sunday. Sunday was the last day of the fair but we were still able to get over there after I worked and see everything before it closed down.
As usual they had tons of animals, food, and carnival rides. Overall it was the same as it usually is but I enjoyed it. Its always nice to get out of the house and do something different for once. Thanks for the tickets Uncle Larry!

Jumbo corn dog, haha!