Birthday Bonanzas

If you'll recall from our last update, our friend Ben had a sketchy karaoke birthday party back at the beginning of February. Not wanting to be outdone, our friend Jackie convinced a local bowling alley to open up about an hour early so she could have a private bowling event for her birthday the very next weekend. One of my favorite comedians, Jim Gaffigan, says there are two types of bowlers: bored people who can think of nothing else to do before they die and hipsters who think bowling is ironic and funny. Both were present at Jackie's birthday, along with a 3rd: people who take bowling very seriously.

Thankfully even the serious bowlers had a great attitude because none of us were very good. (You know the bar is set low when your friends are cheering because you broke 75.) Both gutter balls and strikes were met with encouraging high fives. When you're playing with a bunch of non-bowlers, it's also entertaining to watch people's form. Kelly goes with the one leg hop...

Ben goes with the barely-keep-from-falling-sideways...

And Amanda goes with the try-to-look-professional-but-end-up-tossing-my-ball-into-the-next-lanes-gutter. That's exactly what happened in this photo, and I was very excited to get the shot. Notice the red blur flying oddly high in the air? Yep, that's not normal.

At the beginning of March, our friend Betsy came into town. Betsy was involved in theater with us during the one year she went to University of the Cumberlands. She transferred to a different school in 2009, so we hadn't seen her almost 4 years. She was in town visiting the Art Institute since she's considering going to grad school there. We met up with downtown, and grabbed dinner. It was nice to catch up, and we tried to tell her about all of the great reasons to move to Chicago. (Though do really need any more reason than "we live here"?)

Towards the end of March, we decided to host Kelly's birthday at the apartment. Earlier, Kelly and Amanda had decided that we should throw a Beach Bash since everyone was growing tired of the continual bleakness of winter. They decided to call the party "Leave Your Pants at the Door," and it was decided that no one would be allowed in unless they were wearing shorts. A few days before the event, Kelly went out and bought a bunch of beach-themed items, so on the Friday night of the party I came home to kiddie pool and an inflatable palm tree in our dining room and a blow-up tiki statue in our office. To be honest, it really looked like we were about to host a beach-themed Vacation Bible School. Except for the fact there was a little male nudity...

You can't have a pool without a lifeguard on duty, right? Safety first!

As the evening set in, our apartment began to fill up, fast. It quickly became clear that this shindig would be more intense than the s'mores house warming get-together we hosted when we first moved in. Our hallway became crowded with discarded coats and pants and our dining room table couldn't hold all of the drinks and snacks people were bringing. Our apartment became divided into 3 different sections: the living room became a dance party, the kiddie pool became a place for people to converse, and, with a little help from my tripod and DSLR, the office was transformed into a photo booth. There was laughter and music, and a blender full of fruity cocktails was continually being passed around. Thankfully, everyone seemed to have a fun, relaxing, and safe evening.

The next morning, our apartment was a hot mess, but Cary Anne, Kelly, and I had a good time sitting around the table looking at all of the pictures from the photo booth.

Only 4 more months until Cary Anne's birthday!