BEAR DOWN!

Friends, Family, people from Russia and China who are randomly reading this (true by the way) Come Sunday, several things are going to happen, 1 I will shut off my phone so if you text me or call me don't expect an answer until about 5 30 or so. 2. My drink fast will be broken, I cant imagine not being able to have a few beers during the biggest game of the year. 3. It doesn't matter who wins or loses either way I'm pretty sure I'm going to cry 4. I will be dressed from head to toe in Bears gear And finally the last thing that's going to happen is if the Bears win I will most likely be streaking!

Alright Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let me apologize for the longest absence to date between posts, between Houston, Los Angeles and school starting I haven't had as much time as I would like. Also one more apology, I usually have pictures to go with my posts, but because of several reasons I just made up in my head, the pictures were lost at sea, eaten by my dog, not taken, taken from me at gunpoint etc, I have very few pictures to put up. But besides all of that I will backtrack and bring you back up to speed on my life.

Christmas

I know my last post was right before Christmas but I will pick up from there. Christmas Eve is always a great day for our family. I make my yearly appearance at Church, I usually try wrapping gifts but get sick of it and give up and finally we go to Star Pizza with the Shipman's. We have been doing this for years on end and it was another great night. I made fun of Caroline (youngest daughter) and her Boyfriend Cold, We ate great Pizza and ultimately just had a really good time. We were also suppose to have Marisa's new BF join us but he wasn't able to make it, which was probably for the better because I was ready to give the once over if I needed too. (kidding, we met him the next night and I didn't up stabbing him so I would say it was a successful meeting). The next day was X-mas morning and we opened up all of our gifts and instead of just saying I got everything I wanted, I am actually just gonna list every single thing I got, kidding . About 2, the rest of our family came over for our Lasagna Linner, Lunchner, Dinch (combining lunch and dinner doesn't sound as cool as Brunch) But not get ahead of myself, when my Aunt Linda arrived a little early we knew something was going on, but really thought nothing of it but when Monica arrived they broke the big news that she had gotten ENGAGED earlier in the morning. 2 things happened when I found this out, 1. I could not believe my Aunt Linda had held in the secret (I only say that because the image of her laying in our neighbors yard will never leave my head and how do you keep that big of news to yourself?) but also I was extremely happy for Monica and Justin. So now after eating, drinking and eating some more we all opened up more gifts before it was time for them to leave. But wait, I know last time I said I would tell you who gave me the worst gift, and after several pleas from family not to say it was them the decision is here. I received a giant box from my Aunt Linda and was told to guess what was inside, here were the contents, Dentyne Ice and an Itunes gift card. The Itunes gift card was great, but the only reason she made the list is because she told me not to use the gum against her in the blog! (I'm totally kidding, I appreciated everything I got and unfortunately this year there was no clear cut worst gift.) After X-mas I really have nothing really exciting to write about, Carly and I met Alice and Drew for dinner the same night they got back from Paris, oh on New Years we watched the Kennedy Awards! pretty exciting stuff right? That pretty much sums up the winter break, I did a ton of eating, hung out with my Carly, and spent time with my family, so overall a pretty good break.

Birthday

This year I spent my birthday out in LA, I left on the Thursday before (missed a class, always a good sign when you don't even show up for the first class of the year.) and stayed until Tuesday morning. Originally the plan was to arrive in LA, have Carly pick me up, she go to work the next day then we pack up the car and drive down to Palm Springs for every ones birthday. But it didn't quite work out that way but we still had a great time. Friday was pretty much a day to myself, Carly had to work late so we just hung out when she got home and I just made dinner, but Saturday was MY day. I was awoken at 7 18 am to Carly asking me if I was up and if so Happy Birthday, I then walked out to the kitchen where can you believe I had to pour my own cereal? But after Carly made my coffee and served it to me the day officially began. Even though it was MY day, Carly left me to fend for myself while she went to Pilate's, but an hour later she came home to me exactly in the same spot as when she left. So after getting ready we went out to Jack N Jill's to have lunch and just

walk around. After a great meal we came back to the apt to watch a full day of football, (this ended up benefiting Carly because she actually had to work for most of the day) but after watching the Packers destroy the Falcons we walked to Larchmont Pizza for my bday dinner. (quick side story, one day when we were walking to Larchmont, Carly saw a dog jump off of a ledge and convinced herself it was a wolf, before I could realize what was happening she took off on a sprint screaming wolf!) At Larchmont we had a half pesto half cheese pizza and it was phenomenal. After eating we walked over to Crumbs for a birthday cupcake, and usually when we go there, there is absolutely no chance I will get to pick what kind we get, but because it was my birthday Carly let me decide and let me say this, usually there are like 25, 3o different choices to choose from but for whatever reason there was a total of 3 different options 3! So after just choosing one, Chocolate Sunday, Carly sang me happy bday and we devoured the cupcake (surprisingly was really good). Since we had to be up early for the drive to Palm Springs my Birthday officially came to a close at 10:17 pm (Thanks everyone for the B day wishes by the way) Also one last thing, I am pretty sure Carly never wants to host my Birthday again, I thought I was being reasonable, but apparently reminding someone every 2 minutes it was your birthday gets kind of annoying. The next day we woke and left for Palm Springs at about 8 in the morning, the drive was pretty uneventful, we jammed to the Biebs, Glee, T swift, Spice Girls, for about 2 hours and ended up making it to her grandpas house exactly 1 minute before kickoff for the Bears game. After watching the Bears take care of business, we hung out for a little but longer before going out to celebrate Phil and Pearls birthdays (Schenckers grandpa and grandma) We ate at a phenomenal seafood place for dinner and unfortunately before you knew it we had to get back in the car and drive back (Phil, Pearl if by chance you read this Thank you again for everything, I really did have a great time and thanks so much for the jacket!) As we were leaving we happened to pick up another passenger, Bret, driving back was no different than before, the Biebs sweet voice led us safely back to LA.

Monday we all went down to Santa Monica and hung out before driving Bret back to the airport, unfortunately other than J. Bryant Shulof (one of Bret's customers) there wasn't really much going on. We relaxed all day and just had a nice dinner back at the house.

Tuesday unfortunately brought my time in LA to a close, and before I knew it, I was back in New Orleans getting ready for class.

Also just to give everyone an update, rehab for my elbow is going great, I am currently throwing at 75 ft and hopefully will be back to 90 ft in a few weeks, I also just booked a

trip to Dallas for the Superbowl, and also will be visiting the the President of my fan club; Kim Levine, My next post will most likely be about the weekend with the Levines/Budwins(hopefully)/Morgan festival and also about the Super Bowl. I promise to take more pictures and everyone better be rooting for a BEARS win. BEAR DOWN!!

(If there is a way for me to do that to my hair, I will be doing it)

MO