IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY YES IT'S TRUE YES IT'S TRUE

today is rogray's actual birthday!!!

30 on the 30th!

champagne year!

golden year!

he's left the free-wheeling days of his youth and twenty-something years behind and entered into old-man hood.

now he will have problems with nose hair, ear hair, and possibly sciatica. . .

ladies and gents, may i present to you 30 year-old rogray:



oh boy do i love this old man. . .happy birthday babe!!

come on, feel the illinoise: part two

ok, i know i said i would continue the post on thursday or whatever and now it's monday -- i've been busy as you are going to find out.

but let's wrap up rogray's illinois birthday post first. . .

where were we? ah, yes!

the chicago chophouse about to grant rogray his biggest, bestest birthday wish:



a trip to springfield!!!

yay!

springfield.

so, like, what's in springfield? i mean, is there anything in springfield? what could possibly be in springfield. . .maybe the one, the only, ABRAHAM LINCOLM MUSEUM & LIBRARY!!!!!!!

that's right -- we woke up the next day at 6 a.m. to drive 3 hours to springfield to spend the day with rogray's favorite president (his words, not mine).

so we got in the car and rogray was already reading up on what we can expect:



and i am really excited to be up that early in a car without a cup of coffee:



after a healthful mcdonald's breakfast we took one stop in the middle of nowhere:



for a bathroom break.

no really. . .it was the middle of nowhere. don't believe me? look closely:



there is nothing on that blue "attractions at this exit" sign.

we finally got there and the first thing we did was situate ourselves for the lincoln museum's 3-d HOLOGRAM production of ghosts of the library:



and then we weren't allowed to take pictures of the actual show because you wouldn't want anyone to steal the secret to the 3-d hologram technology.

rogray stopped for a quick chat with young abe about shakespeare:



and then we went into the wax museum awesomeness but not after reading the first placard:



which i believe compares lincoln to christ:



wow. "with the possible exception of jesus christ." possible.

the first part of the library takes you through honest abe's life as a young, poor, self-taught, romantically mercurial man who had uncontrollable children who used his smarts to get all the way to the white house which was part two.

but before you could get into the white house you had to pass by some people like john wilkes booth (boo! hiss!) and rogray tried to convince him not to do it!



i tried getting in on the convo with general lee and some other dude but they ignored me because i'm a lady:



rogray and frederick douglass compared hair styles:



while sojourner truth was too sad to give me a high-five:



we went through the white house years which were scary and hard because wow. . .lincoln really had it rough and it shows in his presidential portraits and we came out for one last picture with the lincoln clan -- family photo!!



see how rogray has his hand on abe's shoulder? that might be the happiest i've seen rogray in a long time.

after the museum we went over to the library:



where rogray discovered some pretty scandalous political secrets:



we can't tell you what it was though because we signed a document given to us by the department of homeland security after we were body slammed by 10 secret service dudes who took the book away and said that it was best if we forgot this ever happened. forgotten!

next rogray and abe had a last moment together:



before we went to. . .what? you thought that was all the lincoln stuff? are you crazy? we haven't even been to his home!

after lunch we headed over to lincoln's old neighborhood preserved as it was in the last year that he lived there (1860) before heading off to d.c.



we waited for the tour which featured chamberpots:



mary's toilet:



abe's shaving area:



and my hand on the actual bannister that lincoln himself used:



we loved the house so much we bought it!



after dinner and a lovely evening stroll through abe's old 'hood:



we headed back to out b&b (which i'm not even going into but really, i've never met a person so terrified of the homeless as the woman who ran this place and she needs to get over it) to pass out because rogray admitted that he was "all lincoln-ed out."

the next day we ate b-fast, headed back to chicago, bid adieu to rorgay's dad and stepmom and then waited for our delayed flight by drinking beer, eating nachos and playing boggle & set at the fox sprts bar next to our gate. once on the plane rogray settled in and ended the trip the way he began it:



asleep and dreaming of lincoln.

come on, feel the illinoise: part one

it's birthday season here at crosswords and cupcakes headquarters. and, to be more precise, it's 30th birthday season. and rogray's is just around the corner on monday, june 30th.

it's his golden year!! which means this is slated to be one of the best year's of his life and it's shaping up to be:

1: we are working on our play.

2: he is going to grad school.

3: he gets to marry me.

see? best year evs!

since this is such a special year i decided to go all out for mr. rogray and planned a whole surprise weekend. last thursday i gave rogray an envelope and said "here's your first clue about what we are doing this weekend."

he opened it and saw a picture of an airplane. i had him double check what i had packed and told him we had to wake up at 5 so naturally we stayed up until 1am watching tv. genius!

the next morning on the way to the place that has the planes i gave him another envelope. he opened it and saw a picture of a skyline. but what skyline?

it was a tense car ride while rogray used the power of sleep to figure out what city has that skyline. when we got to the airport i finally let the cat out of the bag that we were going to. . .CHICAGO!!! yay!!!

rogray was a little confused. . .chicago? why chicago? and i was all "we never do things like this" and he was like "yeah, 'cause were poor" and i was all "yeah but we can do stuff like this" and he was all "yeah, 'cause we don't have kids and stuff." it was 5:30 in the morning so cut us some slack.

this is what rogray looked like for most of our flight:




but then i woke him up and he looked like this:



yup. still sleepy.

when we landed i gave him another envelope that were clues as to what we were doing. one was a picture of this:



and of steak. so he knew we were going to the Art Institute and having a steak dinner. but he didn't know everything. . .not even close. . .

we hopped on the el (hip, chicago lingo) and went to our swank hotel compliments of rogray's dad. i told rogray that his dad treated us to the hotel so he wouldn't get suspicious when we walked in and the lobby looked like this:



we settled in and took a quick nap and then i woke him up and told him it was time for a walk and some lunch. so we took a quick stroll and i was texting away and rogray seemed a bit confused as to why i was texting all of my friends on our special trip. as we walked through millenium park and i pointed to the cafe we were going to eat at he was looking around at all the sights which was good because he didn't see his next big surprise right away: his dad and stepmom!

yay surprise parents on our trip! we had a lovely lunch at the restaurant in millenium park and since they had already done the art institute we went by ourselves. but it was being attacked by lions! lions that needed to be stopped!



rogray was very impressed that i was fighting the lions:



the lions that had huge balls:



for some reason the balls came as a surprise to me -- i just never would have thought to put balls on a lion sculpture. props sculptor person!

we went in and had a great time seeing famous paintings and not so famous paintings and i felt like a real nerd when i laughed out loud at this piece:



i'm not really going to go into it but the curtain isn't real and the whole thing is silly. . .ah, the flemish painters.

we went down to the "exploratory" part of the museum and discovered that even with all that armor mid-evil knights could still give someone the finger adequately:



after the museum we took a real walk through millenium park which was awesome as you will now see:







can you spot us:



awwww, yeah:



after all that walking we were beat so we went back to the swank hotel lobby and had a cocktail and i planted another kiss on him:



and then we napped and got ready for dinner at the chicago chophouse where rogray got the t-bone that was as big as his head:



and proceeded to eat the entire thing. don't worry. . .he had room for dessert:



was that all?? oh no. . .that wasn't all. . .tomorrow i will post the real reason that we hauled rogray's behind to chicago.

you smell like one too

today is jk's birthday!!! he's 30!!!

we couldn't celebrate with jk because he's in la at griffith park eating fried chicken, playing capture the flag and wearing a t-shirt with his face on it.

fortunately we were able to hang out with him when he was in nyc a few weeks ago and it involved some of this:



manlove!

a lotta this:



and even more of this:



ms. n and the rockstar joined in:



rogray butchered "your body is a wonderland" by john mayer on a dare:



and i butchered far too many songs to list here:



things started to get a little crazy:







and then the biggest surprise of the night came:



scott wolf from party of five apparently did a karaoke video for the song "the joker."

best karaoke video ev-er!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JK!!! YOU SMELL LIKE AN OLD MAN!