32nd birthday in Chicago

Jake was out of town at a work commitment for the entire week of my birthday this year. So I made a bunch of plans, including spending my actual birthday in Chicago with my immediate family. Since I got a DSLR, most of my Chicago trips haven't allowed for a lot of random wandering and picture taking. It was great to spend a few hours out in the city with family, camera in hand, on my birthday.

 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who made my birthday and my entire solo week so great. I am blessed to live near a lot of family and to have so many good friends in Milwaukee.

a throwback photo share: the last 12 days of summer 2009

I'm not sure what got me thinking about the summer of 2009 recently, but as my last 12 days of summer 2009 happened this time five years ago, I got inspired to share it here on a blog. Somehow I never did share those photos here because back then I mostly stuck to sharing beads, jewelry, and Etsy related matters. So here we go.

I spent the last 12 days of the summer of 2009 before the 09-10 school year started (I was teaching back then, remember?) traveling over 1,100 miles for some family happenings and a college friend's wedding. It's one of the last times that I got to visit my undergrad campus and one of the longest periods that I've spent in Chicago during the past decade. It was also the most time that I ever spent driving by myself in a two week period.

 

What were you doing during the summer of 2009?

photo share: Benihana's

Most of the photos that I took during the week of my brother's wedding this fall were of the wedding or other wedding-related events (surprise, right?). One of the nice things about being in Chicago all week was that Jake and I had a little time to enjoy the city on our own. Among other things, we took an unscheduled night to go to Benihana's. I'm sharing pictures from that night here today. Enjoy.

Do you ever take pictures in restaurants?

photo share: Scotch tasting at Binny's

Over the next couple months, I'm going to be devoting a number of my photo shares on this blog to my brother's wedding and the events around it. As part of the bachelorette party the week of the wedding, we went to a scotch tasting at Binny's. For those of you who aren't from IL and have never heard of Binny's, it's a liquor store that has an impressive number of tastings and other alcohol related events. It was a surprisingly amazing place to take pictures. Enjoy.

 

 What have you been taking pictures of lately?