I could totally see Ben doing this...

because I'm bored and Ben's out of town...

1) Your Real Name: Jamie Alyse Curran

2) Witness Protection Name (mother and father's middle names): Ellen Wesley

3) Nascar Name (first name of your mother's dad; father's dad): Henry Walter

4) Star Wars Name (the first three letters of your last name, first two letters of your first name): Curja

5) Detective Name (favorite color, favorite animal): Purple Koala

6) Soap Opera Name (middle name, town where you were born): Alyse Richland

7) Superhero Name (second favorite color, fave drink, add 'the' to the beginning): The Yellow Peach Fresca

8) Fly Name (first two letters of your first name, last two letters of your last name): Jaan ... ?

9) Rock Star Name (current pet's name, current street name): Herman Beloit - we don't exactly have a pet yet but Herman will definitely be the name of the dog we get someday =)

10) Name on the Streets (fave ice cream flavor, fave cookie): Cookie Dough Nutter Butter

Man, I'm bored ... 

love this guy, even if he does look "special" in this picture... hehe

what the....?

What's the first word you think of when I say 'Chicago'? If your answer was cold then you are absolutely correct. Never have I been so cold in my life - minus snow camping in northern Wisconsin - anyways, a few weeks back it was in the 60's! Holy cow! Then if dropped to the 30's and 40's so I wore a thin fleece because it felt so "warm". Then this happened (look at below picture). Not only did it happen this time (which was last week) but it also happened last night. I looove Chicago but won't miss this. Two more midwestern winters... I'm over it - 'nuff said. 

view from our front porch... boo...

valentines and other shenanigans

A few weeks ago my oldest sister Carrie came out for a visit for the first time with my mom. We spent a very "romantic" Valentine's weekend together, hit up a bunch of museums, shops, restaurants, and my sister enjoyed some away time from her three little girls (all under the age of 5 might I add...).

Oh my mother will love me for this... on the "L" train - "freaking" out about the pee smell and homeless citizens that get all up in your face.

We had NO idea what it was supposed to be... man? woman? (sorry for the graphic content in this blog)

For our Valentine's dinner we went to Greektown .... Mmmmm...

Every Valentines Ben gets some sort of themed display. I don't know where it came from but here it is. Last year was a Scooby Doo theme (his favorite cartoon) and this year was pirate. I couldn't find ANY pirate valentines so I had to gather as many things related to that as I could and added the little pink cards with saying like: "Aaaaargh ye gonna be mine?" "Yer me matey!" and "Ahoy me valentine!"

The display for my mom and sister.

Ben was a total rock star on Valentine's Day too. First of all he woke up at the crack of dawn to make all of us a huge breakfast and even delivered it to every girl while they were in bed. Then he bought each of us a huge bouquet of flowers. And the best thing that he did was take off a day of studying (which for a med student is impossible/unheard of/suicidal) and took us girls all around the city to stop at random antique and vintage shops for the day. I love this guy!