Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Normal is all in the way you look at things...

Mikey came to visit Illinois. It was great showing him my ol' stomping grounds... the theme for our week together was road trips and meet as many people as possible. Thanks Mikey for being such a good sport.We spent a lot of time in the car... I was pretty much deliriously hyper for most of it. Road trips means bridges... woo hoo Besides taking in some fun sights we also ate at some "home cooking" type restaurants. Everyone will be proud of Mikey, he almost survived the week without sriracha....
good thing his girlfriend (me) is going through Asian food withdrawl... i sent myself a box from japan before i left full of yummy japanese goodies... and it still hasn't arrived. I am pretty much kissing that box goodbye. :(
Here's good ol' Cracker Barrel with Grandpa and Mikey on the rockers.
Grandma Icenogle, myself, Grandpa Icenogle, and Mikey We went looking for Amish people... seriously, this is for real ya'll.
ahhhh i love the country.
I ventured into some new recipes (including tiramisu) and even made some old favorites...
Jin's Korean burgers...

Hmm... I wonder what I was thinking here.
Oh here's a nice one of us on the Constitution Trail.
Hanging with Grandma and Grandpa (not pictured) Schupbach
We went to a wedding together. Congratulations Jonna and Andy Eiffert.
Mikey and Marcus Burrier helped Andy Kampman move a couple of concrete blocks in Iowa City.
Kelli and I couldn't help because we were hard at ....work?
After the hard work, the boys tossed the frisbee around and even played hacky sack.
It was great being in Iowa City... although it made me miss the Witthofts. I felt like walking into the Java House and saying, "Hey. I used to work here." But i knew that would be pretty ridiculous. But if I were to move to the midwest, I think I would settle in Iowa City. It's such a great little big town. Ya know? The feel of a big-ish city but it's really not.
Did you know shaving your head makes you insta best friends with other bald people?
A crazy friend visit was from Eli and Katie Suddarth (formerly Katie Brannan). They were in Chicago for a long weekend and decided to roll on down to Normal for a quick stop/visit.
Soooooo great to see them. I love Katie.
Our last night was spent with Uncle Bob, Aunt Kay and my parents at their roastery. My Uncle and Aunt roast coffee for a couple local coffeeshops and some retail to individuals. It was so much fun to see the whole process.
Here we are on a bunch of beans....

Here's how you make coffee..
here's the beans...
Here's Uncle Bob explaining the whole process... the beans go in on top...
and a computer generates how hot the roaster must get for each different type of roast. For example the espresso roast is completely different than the cafe blend roast... (and that's the extent of my knowledge but Kay and Bob can give you all the details).
After the beans are roasted they are dumped into a cooling tank. This basically mixes and cools the beans off....
yum!
Lastly, we enjoyed the coffee! It was delicious. We even got to take some home with us. :) So if you are in CA and you want to try some... just ask Mikey. :)I was enthralled with the art work. Niiiiiice.Awwww.... it was a long but fun visit. I was excited to show Mikey Illinois but honestly, I was more excited to show everyone Mikey.

3 comments:

andy said...

ok you need to re-do this post and put the SHOES in a pic! :)

kyle and jennifer said...

woohoo! a new post! the iowa city pics are the best :) someday, someday we will be there together ;)

ST said...

I can't believe I missed you in IC! The place you were at for the wedding is the BUILDING WHERE I WORK! :( Glad to see you had a great time.