Dirty 30 Pub Crawl

When the Polack turned 30, he had the bright idea of celebrating by doing a pub crawl around Lafayette and stopping at 30 bars. On one condition... the stops had to be at the dirtiest bars around town. No campus bars. No high class, swank. No sir-ree - the bars we went to had crockpots of mystery meat, patrons who were missing teeth, and bartenders who didn't understand the concept of receiving a tip. It was a great day - full of stories we often talk about. And since the Polack turned 35 this summer and we were making a move from Lafayette to Bloomington, we thought it only appropriate to re-enact that magical day five years ago.

This was bar #3 - the Spot Tavern. By far, the dirtiest bar on the crawl but the Polack and Marty perked up when they found out it was for sale. I spent the whole time telling them, "We are NOT BUYING this bar." Fun fact about the Spot.... It's the third oldest bar in the state of Indiana. At least that's what Larry the owner told us. In this picture, we're sitting on his bed as he practically lives at the bar. I wonder where he'll sleep after he sells it??



Have I ever mentioned my mad Ms. Pac-Man skills? I rock at the game and got the
high score of the day. And I can totally do better than this score. But everyone got tired of watching me play. The Polack keeps promising to buy me a Ms. Pac-Man game for our basement.



Bar #8 was the Parkside Deli.



Mom's Place was our stop for bar #16. When we ventured here five years ago, several people in our group chose to wait outside because the bar had a pretty bad reputation for fights and shootings. This ended up being my favorite stop of the day. Oh, and Marty tried to re-enact his bout on the stripper pole from the previous pub crawl. Only the pole at Mom's Place was square. And made of wood. I bet he's still pulling splinters out of his hands.



When we went to this bar last time (Double Deuce - bar #18) they had one side decorated with Purdue paraphernalia and one side decorated with Indiana paraphernalia. Half our group went to one side and half to the other side and we tried to outsing each other's school song. The Double Deuce no longer looks the same except there are still some IU bar chairs which I was excited to see. It's hard to find some IU love in Purdue country!



Outside of bar #24 - Jerilee's Pub. I'm not really sure what's going on here...



When we were hanging out the Filling Station - bar #25 - someone arrived who was driving a limo. He let Lindsey and I check it out. You would think that owning a limo is a rare thing but he is actually the third person I've met who has his own limo. I totally want one!



The Biltmore!



The Biltmore was bar #26 - I was excited about going here but then we got in trouble when Marty used their plastic table cloth as a cape. We had to make a quick escape.



Ace's Pub was bar #27. Ace's wasn't quite dirty enough for our taste but we were getting low on options so we added it to the list. I guess Lafayette just doesn't have enough dirty bars anymore.



We ended up making it to 30 bars. We started at 11am and went until 2am. It was fun day with many more stories we can share in the future. There was our second stop - at the Clubhouse - when we asked the bartender to take our picture. She sent her "bouncer" to do it instead. He was drinking straight from the Jack Daniels bottle and tried to take a picture. I had to tell him the camera was upside down. Then he tried two more times and said the photo's were great but really, he never took any. He was scary and I definitely wanted to disinfect my camera after he had it.

There was also the lady at one bar who was carrying a freezer bag full of brussel sprouts. Who does that? It was quite a mystery to me. I wanted to find out why she was carrying around a bag of vegetables and I was quite disappointed that no one else in the group seemed to care about this.

There was one bar where Gimpy met his future wife. We left his phone number with her but I don't think he's received a call yet. And there was the bar that had the Mexican wedding reception. We tried to go in but were scared away by the guys in Tuxedo's and the girls wearing 1980's prom dresses. The Polack was very disappointed to see that his photo was on the banned for life wall at Chances Are. That was our last stop of the night. Fun times - despite not getting to sing karaoke at Cox's Pub!

And another good thing about having no TV...

... the boys are doing a lot more reading!

Let the games begin

So one good thing that comes from lack of cable tv is the opportunity to play more games with the kids. Seeger is really into Battleship lately. Playing with him can be tricky due to his occasional mistakes. But we still have fun.




Last night, Nicklas and I played Qwerkle. Nicklas dominated the entire time but I ended up winning on my last move. Only because I was the first person to play my last tile which gave me six extra points. I won 201 to 199. Notice that in this picture, Nicklas formed an L with his tiles. He's telling me I'm a Loser which only made my victory even sweeter. (Me? Competitive?? NAAAAAA.)

Random Thought Thursday is being postponed for the week. I just returned from a fun week in Vegas and I'm too tired to entertain today. I'll share more a

I'm Outta Here

Goodbye list - I'm outta here!

Random Thought Thursday

1. Two more days of work and then it's vacay time - the Lake, Vegas, and Cousin's Weekend all squeezed into 11 days. I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation!

2. So you probably saw my previous post about riding the bus to work. I've been saying all week that I'm going to do it and the Polack kept making fun of me for not. It finally worked out today.

3. I think I'm going to document the ways to travel to work so I can see which is best - for the environment, for my body, and for time. I can drive, bus, or walk. I'll let you know my results!

4. I miss my sewing room.

5. During our move, we decided to forgo the expense of cable. We've been cableless before and it's not too difficult. Nicklas is struggling the most this time around - especially because his Wii is not working either - but he'll be okay. It's been good for our QT together. This week, we swam at the pool, played some games, and went to the library.

6. Speaking of the library, we signed up for cards this week and oh man, was I disappointed to see they charge overdue fines. That's going to be a big adjustment for us. Luckily, the lack of cable means the boys are doing more reading. Nicklas finished his five books in three days. Seeger is doing just as well. He picked out 10 books and has read almost all of them. The Polack and I are taking advantage of the music section to build our iTunes libraries.

7. Men with manicures kinda freak me out and I hate myself for being sexist and judgemental. Well not really on the judgemental part...

8. I had a meeting at Starbucks today. I'm not a coffee drinker so I can't begin to fathom how a person can justify spending that much money on a drink. Especially since there isn't alcohol included.

9. How long do you think it will be before wristwatches are obsolete?

10. As I was walking to lunch today, I overheard two separate sets of parents with their soon-to-be freshmen-in-college daughters. My goodness, those young ladies were so bratty. They both had attitudes and talked down to their mothers. I wasn't the perfect daughter but I NEVER talked to my mom the way these girls did. And I can tell you, my kids will quickly learn that they won't talk like that to me - or anyone else for that matter.

That's all she wrote folks.

I'm riding the bus to work this morning!

Pool Time

Here is some pool footage. The boys love it when I take videos of them. Seeger just recently began swimming without assistance. Here he is doggie paddling his way across the pool.



Nicklas is a great swimmer and likes to make obstacle courses to swim around.



Seeger is also jumping in on his own and after some persuading, he also began doing bobs in the water. Over the weekend we were at this pool, he did 88 bobs and he jumped in 23 times. He wanted to be sure I wrote those numbers in my blog. Here is another video of him. It ends sooner than planned because my camera card ran out of memory.

Seeger's Day Camp

Isn't this picture the most adorable thing EVER? It's Seeger (and his cousin Ben on the left) during Chapel at Day Camp.



My family is a big fan of Camp Tecumseh. I attend quilt camp there and last year, Seeger and Nicklas attended Day Camp. This year, Seeger is at Day Camp and since we're no longer living close to the camp, he's staying with his cousins for the week. They're having a blast!

I was able to drop him off at the first day. Here they are waiting for and boarding the bus.






The camp staff are great about taking pictures and posting them on their site. Everyday, I've been able to pull several pictures of the Seeger, Ben, and Anna.





Nicklas will also be attending Camp Tecumseh this year. He's doing the residential/overnight camp. He's super excited and makes me realize how grown up he's getting!

A special thanks to my mom who is paid for their camp. This was their Christmas present. What a great gift and great memories they'll have.

Going Away Party

Nicklas has gone to school with the same group of kids for the past three years. They were identified as gifted and as a result, they've been in a self-contained classroom since first grade. Leaving this group of kids is one of the toughest things that come with us moving to Bloomington. They are great kids - supportive of each other, yet they can fight like brothers and sisters. But they are close and they care for one another. They are also very COMPETITIVE. I thought a goodbye party might be nice for Nicklas - as a last chance to say goodbye. More than half the class was able to come and we organized a mini Olympic games.

The first event was a team event. The kids divided into two groups and competed in a relay race. This was definitely the most fun event. Here are the kids strategizing...


The first leg had one member of each team race around the house. Next, a team member had to roll dice until they hit the number 12....


The third leg was another race around then house. Next a team member had to unroll a roll of toilet paper....




Here is Nicklas getting ready for the fifth leg - another race around the house...


Finally the team had to put together a puzzle....






The winning team!



The next event was a contest to see who could stand on one foot the longest. Here is a photo of everyone getting ready. See that guy on the far left? That's Mr. Cole - their third grade teacher! He stopped by and the kids were so excited to see him. It was a nice surprise.


The next event was a game of PIG - Nick's personal favorite!


Have PIG we took a break for ice cream sundae's. Yummo!














After our snack, it was back to the games. Musical chairs...


A water balloon toss...


Corn hole...


After corn hole, we did a trivia game where I asked questions about Nicklas. Nick's friend Jack was smart, a decided to partner with Seeger. They were the winning team. After tallying the points and handing out the prizes, we took got a group shot.


I thought the party was going to be tough for Nicklas. I'd heard that he cried on the last day of school. But there were no tears from him (or me!) during the party. We were all too busy having fun.

Random Thought Thursday

1. I'm all recovered from the holiday festivities and our official move to Bloomington. Everything in the new apartment has been put away and it finally feels liveable. I'm trying to have a positive attitude about the place however I can't help but think it's old and gross.

2. Uncle Bill is giving me my grandmother's 1950's kitchen table. So I'm hoping to take advantage of the old and gross looking apartment to make it look retro and match the table. I love the table so why not embrace the old looking apartment (with bad stick and peel linoleum and copper doorknobs)? I'm inspired by this and this.

3. Will post pictures of the cool retro table when it arrives!

4. This weekend is the Dirty Thirty pub crawl. We're going out with some friends and stopping at the 30 dirtiest bars of Lafayette. We did this five years ago for the Polack's 30th birthday and continue to relive many war stories from the day. I can't imagine what sorts of trouble we'll get into this time.

5. It's so beautiful on campus. Even as a student, I felt so fortunate to attend university on a campus that was stunning and gorgeous. The environment is always inspiring to me. I try to go for a walk every day and I can still find paths I've never walked before and areas where I've forgotten the beauty. Of course my co-workers don't get it and they all make fun of me.

6. I'm not the only one who appreciates the beauty of Indiana University...

7. I checked out my blog stats today - something I hadn't done in awhile - and I was very surprised to see India as the having the most visitors to my blog (after the U.S. of course.) I've had visitors from 29 countries.

Who are you people??

8. The Barefoot Bandit made an appearance in Bloomington long enough to steal an airplane and fly to the Bahamas. What a fascinating story...

9. Black clothing should not be accessorized with brown shoes. I'm just sayin'.

10. Seeger is away at camp this week and having tons of fun. The camp is really great about posting photos so I'll have several to share with you tomorrow - including one from chapel which is just about the cutest thing ever.

See how I'm hooking you in and reeling you back!

Lake George Boat Parade

The Kubatski family generally spends Independence Day holiday at my grandmother's lake home and this year was no exception. We always have a great time enjoying the fireworks, riding the sea doo, going for pontoon rides, and swimming in the lake. But what is especially nice about the holiday is spending time with the family. This year was our best turnout with all the aunts and uncles there and all but one cousin. As kids, the cousins spent many weekends together at the lake. High school and college put a damper on some of that but with all of us in our 20's and 30's, we are seemingly drawn back to the lake for the all the reasons above.

Because it's rare to have so many of us together, we took several pictures. Here is the goofy cousin shot:




And my grandma with her five children:




This year, we decided we were going to participate in the Lake George Boat Parade. No Gallogly family member has participated since my Aunt Kathy played the part of a fisherman as a young girl. I don't know what year it was but I'm guessing it was about 50 years ago. We were especially excited when we heard the theme was 1980's movies. Our boat title was Lake George Drive-In. We had a quintuple feature where we played a song from each movie and re-enacted the scene from that movie. Here we are decorating the boat:




Our movies were:

1. Star Wars (the Polack argued that this movie was in the 1970's but since there were sequels, I made the executive decision to include it) - Nicklas was Darth Vader and Seeger was a Jedi

2. Risky Business - my cousin Lizzie played the part of Tom Cruise; isn't she adorable?



3. Say Anything - my brother Jon wore a trench coat and held up the boombox

4. Caddyshack - my cousin Ryan danced with his beagle who apparently looks like a gopher from the movie. I wasn't sure about including it but since I've never seen the movie, I had to trust everyone else. We also stood around and swung golf clubs during the song.

5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off - The Polack was Ferris and sang Danke Schoen and my cousin Bri choreographed a dance during the float scene of Twist and Shout. It was by far the most popular scene we did and we had fun dancing but oh my gosh were we tired after doing the whole show over and over again. Everyone commented that we didn't realize just HOW LONG it takes to drive around the whole lake.

Our efforts didn't go unrecognized - we received third place. (Sure there were only five boats participating but hey, at least we placed!) Everyone on our bay thought we were robbed though because we were so brilliant, we should have won first. Regardless, it was super fun and I hope we do it again next year. Even though we didn't get the traveling trophy, we all thought it was awesome to watch everyone on shore dancing to our music. Here is our group shot:


To show our Patriotic spirit, we drank red, white, and blue margaritas!



Here are some other shots from the weekend. Seeger swimming...



My dad with Nicklas....



Our new fire pit...



Before dinner on Sunday, I tried to get photo's of everyone...









And I'll end this post with a very terrible video with part of the Ferris Bueller bit. The poor photography can be blamed on the rocking boat and NOT the margaritas. Those weren't enjoyed until AFTER the parade. (We needed our game face, yo!)