Hello All!

What a wonderful whirlwind of a weekend we have had. We arrived safe and sound in Rochester on Friday with a couple of hours to spare. Mom wanted to practice a song to sing for our evening of Karaoke. I'm more of a get up there and wing it kind of girl but that's just me. After an hour searching Youtube singing everything from Carly Simon to Reba McEntire I finally consented to sing "I got you Babe."

We left for Flaherty's a little later to meet Steve and Amy (aka The Tausch's) for some dinner and Sinatra. We ate a traditional Friday night fish fry and waited for the Karaoke Master to start up the evening's entertainment. Steve was one of the first brave souls to get up there and sing. He's a regular and he's really good so of course he made it look easy. It is not. My dad, ever the enabler, began pressuring me to pick a song to sing by myself and even went as far as to make several trips up to the Master to gather paper, pencils and the Karaoke version of the Bible. My palms began to sweat as I leafed through the song book. I must have looked at every single song and artist in the book and couldn't decide on any of them. Dad convinced me that it should be a song to rouse the crowd and also something that I would have a good time singing.

I ended up picking "Hey Jude" by this little group called The Beatles and shortly thereafter my name was called. I thought I was sweating before but now I was soaked. I downed my cup of courage, walked up to the stage, grabbed the mike and began praying "Please let this be painless. Please let this be over soon." It wasn't. I did have fun with it though. I finally realized I am not a singer and that's when I really let loose. I even threw in a heartfelt "Judejudejudejudeee." I was so relieved when it was over and sat down feeling pretty proud of myself before my mom leaned over and asked "When are we going to sing our
song?" Well my dad's ears perked up at this question and immediately got up to grab more supplies for our second song. He's very good at helping other people embarrass themselves. Thanks dad. While we were up there mom and I weren't really sure who was singing Sonny and who was singing Cher but we kept going and have a lot of great pictures to show for it. Steve rocked the house with "My Way" and "That Lady is a Tramp" and even though mom and I tried to convince Dave and dad to get up there, they weren't having it. What goes around comes around guys, you're up next time!

Saturday was a quiet day of running a few errands, playing Wild Uno and watching a movie. It was nice to relax as we knew the next day would find us in Buffalo. And it did!

We left for "The All America City" after church and went directly to The Anchor Bar. After two years of not having good wings in NYC it was so exciting to be in the city that created the chicken wing. My Canadian friend (I always have to say that because I think it's so cool I know a real life Canadian) Amanda and her husband Graham met us there and experienced real Buffalo wings for the first time. They loved them (I think). We then all headed to the Walden Galleria for some window shopping and real shopping on The Lohnes part but really just enjoyed hanging out for a few hours.

After we said our goodbyes Dave and I headed over to Jamie's house to hang out with her and our friend Theresa. We also got to meet Theresa's fiance and really enjoyed catching up with them and finding out how life is in Buffalo. I am happy to report that life is good! Dave was also happy to be near a big TV to catch the Eagles vs. Vikings Playoff game. See I pay attention to sports! We finished the game and headed over to our friend Casey's apartment.

Then the debauchery began (but not really mom, honest). We met her friend Dave and hung out at a local dive bar playing the longest game of Darts ever and Photo Hunt. We were the only ones there on a Sunday night so we headed home to play Scattergories but instead ended up putting in The House Bunny, a movie that is two hours too long. We set up our sleeping bags and settled into an uncomfortable sleep. I kept telling myself I need to get used this now as I no longer have a home or a real bed. It also didn't help that she has kittens that run around the house during all hours of the night. I was luckily on the couch but I'm pretty sure Dave got attacked several times during the night. We are definitely not cat people. But we appreciated Casey's hospitality and loved that we were able to hang out with her before we left for the west coast.

We got up a little congested and decided we needed Creamy Potato and Tomato Mushroom soup. That's right...we were too close to Fredonia to just head home without a quick stop. We had fun walking down memory lane after our yummy bowls of soup and stopped by Forest, my old apartment on Temple and 24 Lambert! We also walked around campus to see all the changes, the new Kranston is amazing and they even have a Starbucks in it. I wish we were going there now, it might actually be nice to go to a real school. We made another quick stop to the clock tower, our old meeting place oh so long ago. With one final look around (and a chicken finger sub) we headed back to Rochester with no regrets.

Thanks to everyone who made our Buffalo trip a great one. We will miss you all and only hope for you the very best!
Emily