Happy Halloween

Betcha expected a post about ghosts and goblins, but instead you're getting a quick recap about Wine 'Til Nine - the wine and microboo tasting event last week. WTN raised more than $52,000 for the Nebraska Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation and more than 275 boys and ghouls attended. It was a spooktacular success!

Here are some photos from the after party at Witch's Pub...

Be sure to check out OmahaFrightLife.com's photos, too!

How was the party you ask?

I'll let the photos do the talking.

Today's a big day

Not only is today the eighth annual Wine 'Til Nine, it's also my grandma's EIGHTIETH annual birthday! That's right, today she turns the big 8-0. Today marks her 29,200th day. Likely her 29,200th beer and cigarette too.

To celebrate, most of the family is heading to Kansas City. The real party will be Saturday night at Ameristar - per GG's request. I really hope she's not reading this blog today or the surprise will be ruined, but we're going to the casino by limo and just having a hoot of a day. We got a hotel room (Ameristar's been difficult and apparently they have no conference type rooms for us to rent) where we'll have snacks, cupcakes and board games for the po' folks like me who can't gamble for 12 hours straight. Oh yeah - coolers of beer up there too. And koozies to decorate. (That was my idea of course. My dad is going to hate me.)

I'm really excited about the video we made her. My cousin Karli and I have spent a LOT of time on it - though my mom, aunt Bev, Olivia, aunt Deanna and GG's sister Bernice have helped a lot too. The title of the movie? "Lorraine Adele - this is your life (or so we think)." It's a chronicle the major milestones of her past 80 years - or at least what we'd classify as major milestones of her past 80 years. This was an interesting project for many reasons:

1. Karli and I realized we didn't know as much as we thought we did about GG. I knew she was born in North Dakota, but wasn't exactly sure where. We didn't know her middle name. We couldn't spell her maiden name (Friederich) for the life of us. That's bad.

2. I got to scan all of the photos. It's time consuming. But fortunately I am a scanning whiz now and even learned a shortcut so I didn't have to scan each photo individually. I'd probably still be scanning if that was the case.

3. While my family is very close, we don't see a lot of each other. Most of my cousins have kids. We're spread across the country. We have different interests. However, events like this give us an opportunity to get together more frequently and I like that.

4. Don't think you'll cram 80 years into a 15 minute video. This video's going to be about an hour. Not kidding.

The best part of making the video though - by far - is the photos I got to go through and that I now have access to because they're on my computer. We found some great photos I probably would never of seen, let alone have, if it weren't for this project. They are very special to me. Some of my favorites:


A lot of the family with my great grandma in the middle left. I never met her; she passed away shortly after this photo (I think). My mom is pregnant with me in this photo.


My pregnant mom (with me!) and her grandma. Essentially four generations of women here (without my grandma in the photo of course).


My grandma, grandpa and me (technically my step-grandpa because my grandma was divorced and remarried) but he was always grandpa to me. He passed away when I was in high school.


My great-grandfather. He passed away before I was born. I don't think I had ever seen a photo of him before.


My grandpa Ralph (my mom's dad) in the navy. Such a cool photo. He passed away when I was in 6th grade. After a few beers when I am out with my folks I always cry because I think he and Trevor would have gotten along so well.


My grandma and grandpa Ralph's engagement photo.


Grandma and grandpa Ralph's wedding photo.


Grandma and grandpa's marriage certificate.


My mom's baby photo.


I can't wait to see the video! And I can't wait to share this story with the rest of my family:
We were getting a beer stein engraved for my grandma for Saturday night. My mom called me on her way to the engraving place and here's how the conversation went:
Mom: "I'm on my way to get the mug engraved. What should I put on it?"
Wendy: "How about happy birthday GG on one side and on the other side either 80 years young or her birthdate."
Mom: "I don't know what year she was born in."
Wendy: Silence
Mom: Laughter
Wendy: "Wow. That'll get brought up this weekend."

Have a great weekend!

Wine 'Til Nine

All year I've been helping with PR efforts for the eighth annual Wine 'Til Nine event - a fundraiser for the Nebraska Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation.

The event is Thursday, October 25 from 6-9 pm at Champions Club. For your $50 ticket, you get appetizers, wine tasting, microbrew tasting, music by the Chris Saub Trio and the chance to take home great prizes via a silent auction and raffle. It will be a great time and let's face it - you'd easily spend $50 on food and drink at a bar, so why not drink for a good cause!

To purchase tickets, please call 330-6130.

If you're unable to participate, but would still like to donate to the event, you can do so by calling the above phone number or online at http://www.firstgiving.org/winetilnine.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Hope to see you October 25!

PS: Please tell anyone you think might be interested. We're trying to raise $40,000 so we would love to see as many people as possible!

The Biggest 2nd Place Winners

We went to a Halloween party at Josh and Shannon's last weekend and it was a hoot. Here are some photos of a few of the costumes. Larry Bird came in first place, The Biggest Losers came in second and Something about Mary (Sam and Annie) came in third. Sadly I didn't get a photo of them.

Enjoy and Happy Halloween!

Motown Philly Back Again

The 2007 Philadelphia Breast Cancer 3-Day was a super swell event with more than 2,300 walkers and raising more than $6.3 MILLION. Can you even believe that!

Here are some photos from the event. Enjoy!

The Owl, the Key and the Fleur de Lis

Kappa Kappa Kappa Gamma

I'm so happy that I am a

Kappa Kappa Kappa Gamma

Nobody knows how happy I am.

"Oh Pat," said she.

"What?" said he.

"Tell me the truth," said she.

"What do you think is the best fraternity?"

"Oh," said he, "that's easy, easy to see," said he.

"Nothing is better than KKG."

Oooohhhh

Kappa Kappa Kappa Gamma
I'm so happy that I am a
Kappa Kappa Kappa Gamma
Nobody knows how happy I am

There you have it. If any of you have witnessed a Kappa sing that song where they bop up and down and wave their arms back and forth and sing real fast, now you know that there actually are lyrics. And if you happened to have been at Brewsky's in Lincoln Friday night, you might have heard that song because it definitely was busted out during the Kappa Kappa Gamma reunion.

Nearly 50 Kappas from initiation classes from 1996 through 2001 got together homecoming weekend in good 'ole Lincoln to remember our "dear Kappa days." People traveled in from Denver, San Diego, Chicago, San Antonio and Kansas City just to be there! I have to admit I was a little nervous beforehand - and I planned the whole thing! But there was a range of emotions: will she remember me? Am I successful enough? Is she going to be there? Will I get a chance to talk to everyone I want to? Will I make it to Lazarri's at 1 a.m. to get a piece of spicy chicken pizza?

Those emotions soon went away and suddenly I didn't feel like I had been away from the house for five years. We caught up like we had only been away from each other for a summer. I remembered everyone's name (another pre-event jitter), answered the question "do you have any kids" (with a no, of course) about a million times, and remembered how much cheaper beers are in a college town. We ended the evening at The Bar, which was a Kappa favorite. (Sad that we still knew some of the bartenders). There was definitely a new addition to The Bar - a photo machine. I think eight of us were crammed in there shoving money in the darn thing, but it didn't work. I am sure our pounding and kicking it helped :-).

We ran back to Kappa after (I do NOT remember it being that long of a walk - apparently I never wore heels in college or I walked home barefoot) and Denise and I gave ourselves a house tour. Of course we went on another one the next day when the house was officially open for house tours, but hey, I'll never refuse an opportnity to see where I lived for three years.

Fortunately for Trevor and I we didn't stay for the football game.

Photos below and at this link courtesy of Picture Man!

Busted

This was two days after she was spayed. They say they bounce back from it and man are they right. She's back to her same 'ole ornery self.

Have a good weekend!

Thoughts from 30,000 feet

As I log onto my computer to write this post, aboard Midwest flight 157 from Philadelphia to Milwaukee, my eyes are welled up with tears. I’ve been crying. Almost downright sobbing. So bad I had to pass on the on-board-freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies so I didn’t have to look the flight attendant in the eye. My cocktail napkin soaked with tears…and snot. But once the ThinkPad powered up, this little face appeared at me larger than life as my screensaver and I chuckled. It was as if it were planned.

I didn’t have a bad day. I’m not scared of flying. I just finished reading Marley & Me. And you can probably guess what happens.

The bond between a person and their pet is something a non-pet owner just doesn't understand.



And that’s as far as I got before we were told to shut down all electronic devices. I still don’t understand the reason behind that. Anyway, so I don’t completely remember where I was going with the above but I think it was pretty much something along the lines of 1. dogs are awesome and 2. they truly are man’s (and woman’s) best friend.

I’m now en route from Milwaukee to Omaha. I’m tired. Trevor and any of my friends I’ve traveled with will vouch for the fact I turn narcoleptic on airplanes. For some reason - not tonight. And I don’t know why. I worked 36 hours in the past three days. I’m pooped. I want to go to bed. But I kind of have the restless legs syndrome going on. The other reason I can’t sleep right now might be because of the screaming child in front of us. Now, I know there’s not a lot a parent can do, but it’s annoying. I know I am just setting myself up for bawling kids on airplanes. But that’s another reason dogs are sweet. On my last flight there were two hounds and neither of them made a peep. The good news is since I’m not asleep, I was able to eat two – yes count ‘em two – on-board-freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies.

Apparently the key to landing is for me to turn on my computer. I’ve got to shut down again. Later I’ll post about the Philadelphia Breast Cancer 3-Day, which is where I was all weekend.

from the desk of macy

From: Trevor Fitch
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 10:38 AM
To: Wendy Fitch
Subject: from the desk of macy

dear wendy,

what does "97th and fort" mean anyway? the guy that i've been pestering the shit out of for the last few days keeps mentioning it. oh well. today i've kept myself busy by running around on the bed while that guy is sleeping and licking him to wake him up. when he wakes finally wakes up, i go back to sleep. it's totally fun. oh yeah, and this morning at like 4, i jumped down, squeezed through the closet door to play with underpants, but couldn't get the door open again, so my incessant barking finally woke that guy up and he let me out. i think he called me "dipshit." so far this morning i've been chewing on socks and underpants, and it's making me gag. totally weird.

now that vacuum cleaner is terrorizing me. i'm cowering in fear, shaking as hard as i can shake, but it won't go away. that guy keeps telling me to "quit being such a lame-ass douchebag", but hell, if i can't run around and be annoying, what am i supposed to do with my time? cower, that's what. i hope he understands that.

have a great time in philly. hope i'm still here when you get back.

your ultra annoying dog,

macy.

p.s. even though i got a bath yesterday, i'm completely filthy and pretty much in need of another one! who'd have thunk it?

I get to write-off my haircut, right?

Completely kidding. But I did just get my thank you from Locks of Love, which I thoroughly enjoyed receiving.

I think LOL is a great organization. But now that I've put that out there - they could use some help in the postcard-design area. Kind of creepy and plain weird.