Toulouse got a makeover!

Check out the before and after shots of Toe! She went from scraggly to sleek in just 6 hours at the groomer!

Ginger's Photo Album

Just a few shots of life at Ginger's! Ame Steph and Linny...Linny and Phillycakes...Amy and Phil having acting class (show me angry...show me delighted!) and Ame and Steph doing our best to liven up another Saturday night...Come see us some time!

Ride 'em Cowboy!

Yee Haw! Today me, Linny and Jason went to see professional bull riding with Auntie Ronni and Uncle Lee. When Uncle Lee asked me last week if I wanted to go see bull riding i said thanks but no thanks. Then after some discussion with Linny, we decided that besides the fact that it might be fun to see some guys mauled by bulls, we also realized that it could be some excellent people watching...who doesn't love a bunch of rednecks?? Actually no, we just realized that any time we go anywhere with Auntie Ronni and Uncle Lee...its a great time. And it was! We did get to see some bulls trample some cowboys though. When we walked out to the car, we discovered that Uncle Lee had not only left the keys in the ignition, but he had LEFT THE CAR RUNNING!! Haha. He said he was just trying to keep it warm for us. Thanks Uncle Lee. After that we went to dinner at Maria's (for Mexican). So...good time had by all. Thanks for a great day!

xox
Ame

Go Cubs Go...

CUBS Win! CUBS Win! Last night my dad took me to the Cubs game and we watched them crush the Mets 7-1. It was a lot of fun and nice to hang out with Ronnie. We had great seats on the first base line and Ron Santo sang the 7th inning stretch. A good time had by all. It was a gorgeous night...probably the best weather we've had all year! Ronnie thinks this is gonna be the ubs' year...let's wait and see!

xox
Ame

Nice day for a white wedding!

Wow Shannon McDonough is MARRIED! Yesterday was a big day, I went to Shannon's wedding to her new husband Adam. She is the first one of all my high school friends to get married so it was really fun and exciting! Even better maybe was the fact that this was the first time since graduation that Shannon, Dana, Lisa, Kelly, Annette and I have all been together! We re-created our prom pic from 8 years ago (YIKES!) and all had a great time. Shannon looked amazing (see pics) and was serenaded by all her groomsmen during the reception. The church was in Hampshire, IL and the reception was in Crystal Lake. I went with Josh (Dana's boyfriend) and Ann (Dana's mom), and they were both excellent dates. Also, the wedding favors were delicious (see pic of me eating white chocolate lollipop). The suburbs sure are a different world though...felt like I was away on a trip again! Well, back home now, reading about children, families and the law. Tonight I'll be working at Ginger's if anyone wants to stop in!

xox
Ame

More Munich

Hi again!

I've just realized that you can't see my pics on myspace unless you have a myspace account...so I thought I'd post a few more on here for ya. First, you see me and Corie in a decorative pit of some sort, sitting on things that look like bottle tops. Next you have a cute little square with German cafes. Then is Theatinerkirche, and Odeonsplatz, the square where Hitler was arrested in 1923 right before he was imprisoned and wrote Mein Kampf. Next is the Chinese Tower in the Englischer Garten, with an Oom-pah band on the second story (we ate a huge lunch here at the beer garden), and finally you have the view of Hoenschwangau from the castle on the mountain. The yellow castle you can see was King Ludwig's other castle in the village...I mean, is one castle really enough for anyone?? No way! Anyway, hope you like the pics! Auf Wiedersehen!

Munich was GREAT!

Hi Everybody,

Well, Munich was fantastic! We did a lot of sightseeing in a little bit of time...These pics are: Me having a Radler (beer mixed with lemonade) at the Chinese Tower beer garden, where we also had some bratwurst, levakase (bologna-flavored meatloaf thing), dumplings, and of course, pretzels...A monument in the Englischer Garten which is bigger than Central Park...Me being confused in the U-Bahn tunnel...Double fisting dark radlers at Hofbrauhaus (the most famous German beer garden...they were HEAVY!!!)...and finally Neuschwanstein Castle on the German/Austrian border. It was SO PRETTY! King Ludwig of Bavaria had it build in the late 1800's and he dedicated it to Wagner's operas...strange...he even had a whole room build to look like a cave and grotto scene in one of the operas. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but it was really cool. We took a two hour train ride to get there, spent about an hour at the castle and then had dinner at a cute bistro in the village below. We ate a ton, went to a carnival (my new main pic), saw all kinds of famous buildings, squares and monuments, and of course had plenty of german beer. We were only there for two days but we covered a lot of ground. I posted a lot more of the pics on my myspace page, which is www.myspace.com/ameonthemove so if you look there and click on "pics" there are about 60 or 70 shots from the trip. Back home now and back to the grind. I have three papers to write this week...Yikes! Wish me luck! I think I'll go visit Linny at the Four Treys for a while, then get to bed early. I'm not really jet-lagged, but I am tired... See you all soon for the family pic.

xox
ame

Happy Almost Birthday to Dana!

Hi Everybody,

Tomorrow is Dana Jones's 26th Birthday!! Happy Birthday Big "D"! She will be celerating by attending the White Sox game with a bunch of people. Ew. Go Cubs.

I'm going to Munich tomorrow night. Yes. You read that right. I'm going to Munich tomorrow night. Just till Tuesday afternoon. My friend Corie works for United and she invited me along...so why not!? I've never been to Munich before. I hear there's good surfing there, from some artificial waves they make in the river. I'm up for anything. So I'll post some pics when I get back.

Everything else is good...school's cool, internship's cool, my plane tickets are booked so I'm leaving on June 10th for Dublin and then going to Barcelona to board the ship on June 25th. That's all the news I have for now.

Love to everybody!

Amers

Happy April Fools Day

Hi Folks,

Today I went back to school for my final class term! Yippee!! I'm taking "Children, Families and the Law", "Clinical Treatment of Adolescents" and "The Social Meaning of Race". My law class is being taught by an actual lawyer and she seems very serious, a lot different from my social work professors who are all pretty casual. She won't even call us by our first names. She took attendance and when she called out "Ms. Thorn" I almost didn't raise my hand, because no one ever addresses me by my last name.

My internship is going well, I only have about 6 weeks left there. The most interesting part of it has been being part of an advocacy group for court-involved girls. We've been working on recommendation papers for the state and county juvenile justice systems regarding the health and mental health of the girls in the detention center/jail. It's a pretty big debate because on one hand, we want to provide good services to the girls in detention and hopefully keep them from returning. On the other hand, we don't want detention centers to be the best option for a judge when she's trying to decide where to place a girl. I'm going to a big conference about it next week at the Fairmont, which my organization is co-sponsoring.

Other than that, same old, same old. Thorn kids had lunch with G&G last week which was really nice, and always entertaining when Saddlebrook Farms stories are involved. Then I stopped over at Auntie Julie's for a while and got to play with the kids, so that was nice too. I'll be at Auntie Laurie's house on Sunday, along with Linny and Jay-bird, so we'll see most of you soon.

Love Ame

Spring Break '08 Baby!

Hi everybody,
Sooo...I finished writing my last final on Tuesday morning, phew! Then I went to meet my friend Evelyn from D.C. who was in town for a conference at the Hilton on Michigan Avenue...ooh la la... We had a great dinner at The Italian Village on Monroe, have you ever been there? It's really cute. It's decorated to look like you're sitting in at outdoor courtyard in Italy somewhere. So we had A LOT of food and some chocolate mousse for dessert...mmmm...and then I stayed over at her hotel which had the comfiest big beds ever. Wednesday I went to my internship for a few hours, then when Ev finished her conference around 2:00 she came to see my office and we did a little sightseeing downtown. We walked through Millenium Park, made the hike over to Navy Pier, shopped at Borders, had some Starbucks, and then it was time for Ev to catch her flight back to D.C. It was a great day! Today, Linny and I brought some groceries down to Theresa's house on the south side, and then we took two of her daughters shopping downtown for the day. They're on spring break this week too and they said we saved their break...they've been sitting home bored all week. Hooray for us! We all bought some shoes, except for Linny, got some delish Garrett's popcorn and had a smoothie at Watertower Place. Another great day. So we aren't spending spring break on a white sandy beach somewhere...but we're still having a pretty good time. I'm working at the bar the rest of the weekend, but I don't go back to school till April 1st. Oh how I love sleeping in. Well that's all that's new and exciting around here. Dana's in Las Vegas with Josh and Linny and I are watching a movie with Toulouse. Three months from now I'll be in Europe...but until then I'll be right here on the big red couch. Love you all!

Ame
(and Linny and Toe)

Can it please hurry up and be summer?

Buon Giorno! I think that's hello in Italian...now I've just got to learn some Greek. This is my itinerary for the summer, pretty cool, huh? The map shows a 24-day cruise that I'll do about four times while I'm there. Venice is going to be our home port so we'll be there every 12 days or so, stopping for an overnight. That'll be really nice, because usually you get to a port in the morning and have to be back on the ship by 7 or 8 at night. It'll be great to have two or three days there at a time. Uncle Lee is still trying to figure out what would be the best ship job for him now that I found out that the clocks change themselves when you go to a different time zone. He had his sights set on being the clock changer...so now we have to come up with an alternative. I just found out that one of the girls I sailed with in Alaska will be with me this summer so that's cool, it's always nicer to get to a ship where you know someone. (Not that I have a hard time talking to new people...haha...) The hardest part about all of this is that I have to keep all my tattoos covered while I'm working. THAT will be a challenge. Looks like it's long sleeved shirts for the summer. Luckily the ship is super air-conditioned. Right. Well. Just thought I'd share my little map with you. If anyone wants to come visit me you can stay in the penthouse suite for the bargain price of about $20,000...

xo

ame

Have you ever seen such a cute girl???

Okay I'm talking about TOULOUSE, of course. She's just so cute I want to squeeze her til she pops! We've been on the couch a few hours now. Just watched Michael Clayton which was VERY good. I worked at the bar from 6am-noon, now I'm on a break and I go back to work tonight for more fun fun fun. Is anyone actually reading these? Haven't gotten a lot of comments lately people...Dying to know whats up with the family these days...

Okay well just thought I'd invite some participation. Hope everyone's happy and healthy.

xo

ame

Family Night

It's family night here at The Ashland. Me, Linny and Jason are eating pizza, having a beer and watching a DVD of me, Lin and Uncle Lee zip-cording through the Mexican Jungle. Whoa, flashback! Luce is sleeping on my lap and Dad is here trying to fix our furnace...we have no heat! And it's cold out! Who else is ready for summer to hurry up and get here???

Nothing much else going on really...Linny and I are both stuck into school, lots of papers to write and books to read. I have a paper due tomorrow that I haven't started yet, which is why I'm sitting here blogging. Ha. Let's hear it for procrastination! Spring Break is only a few weeks away... but I'll be staying in Chicago. No more vacations til I leave for the ship in June!

What's happening with everybody else? Ronnie's 51st b-day is coming up in a few days. Can you believe it's been a year since his Prom Party? Time flies. Well folks, that's all I've got for you. Sorry there's not more to entertain, but life is a little boring at the moment.

Emerald Isle

Hi everybody,

Well I just got home from a three week trip to Ireland and IT WAS GREAT! I had so so so much fun. We spent a few days in Dublin, then 10 days traveling around the country, and then another week back in Dublin. We went on a tour of an old prison in Cork City, saw a bunch of monkeys and other animals at the Fota Wildlife Park, went hiking to a cool waterfall in Killarney National Park, and spent two nights on the Irish speaking Aran Islands which has three thousand year old ruins and amazing cliffs dropping off into the Atlantic. We mostly stayed in B&Bs with some really entertaining owners, but splurged a few nights for nice hotels, and ate and drank A LOT. It was such a blast! Back in Dublin we went to the Guiness brewery and Christ Church Cathedral, St. Stephen's Green and Trinity College, where we saw the Book of Kells. I even changed my flight to spend two extra days because I was having too much fun to leave. I'm telling ya, if I didn't have to come back to finish school I'd probably still be there! Steve's family was really nice to me and one night we cooked them a "real american dinner" of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, tomato soup and apple pie! They'd never had meatloaf before! Well, I hope everyone is doing well. How was the baptism? Sorry I missed it!

xox

Amy

Bon Voyage

Hey Friends and Fam...

Well, I'm leaving again. (What's new, right?) I'm actually leaving three times in the next year. First of all, I'm leaving on Thursday night to spend two weeks in Ireland. Woo Hoo! I'm staying in Dublin with Steve but we're also going to travel around a little bit to places like County Cork, County Kerry and Galway. I'M SO EXCITED!! I'll definitely post pics when I get back.

Next, I'm leaving June 12 for Venice to spend six more months working on ships. I'll post my itineraries when it gets closer and you can see where I'm sailing.

Finally...and this is the big one...I'm leaving in February 2009 to spend two years in the Peace Corps. I've been going through the application process for almost a year now, writing essays and getting recommendations, going to interviews and reading up on possible posts. Finally, my recruited called me last week with my potential placement options. They offered me a youth development post in either Africa, Eastern Europe or the Caribbean, and I chose the Caribbean. I had been planning on going to Africa, but after a lot of thinking, I decided the Caribbean is a better match for me...easier to get home for visits and easier for you lovely people to come visit me! Plus the guarantee of gorgeous white sand beaches didn't hurt. I won't know which island I'll be on for a few more months, but it could be Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Grenada, Antigua, St. Vincent or the Grenadines. So, if you want to know more about the Peace Corps and what I'll be doing, you can go to http://www.peacecorps.gov/ and fill your brain with info. Right now I'm just waiting for my welcome packet and then I'll spend a few months getting medical clearance, legal clearance and waiting on my country assignment.

Sooo...that's all the big news I have for now. Yesterday was Susie's 50th B-day and we had brunch at LePeep. She got lots of fun gifts, like a spa day with me and Linny, candy, slippers, lotion, a nail buffer and other assorted stuff. J.T. picked up the tab since he's such a high roller.

Everything else is good, Linny is in school full time again and taking loads of classes, Dana is working long hours as usual and Toulouse is lazy as ever. I'll have finals when I get back from Ireland and then just one more set of classes before graduation.

Hope everyone is doing well and surviving the snow if you're reading this in Chicago. Cross your fingers that my flight gets out okay on Thursday night!

xo

Ame

BACK ON THE WEB!

Hi everybody!

I've decided to start blogging again, so if you want to see what's up at "The Ashland", this is the place. The most exciting thing going on in my life right now isn't even happening to me... Dana is in St. Lucia for the week with Josh and his family, and Linny and Rick are leaving for Mexico in two weeks. Can I say JEALOUS???

I have one more week on winter break and then back to class on Monday. I'm taking three classes and still doing my internship at Chicago Girls' Coalition. I'm ready to be done, but only 20 more weeks of school and I'll be finished!

Hope everyone has a nice New Year's Eve...I'll be working at Gingers with my bro. Should be a good time. Okay well not much happening right now, but just wanted to let everyone know the blog is back.

xox

Amy

Im drowning in social work reading!

Hi everyone.

Grad school is time consuming! So I have finally finished with all the orientations, meetings, workshops, etc and got thru my first week of classes without too much trouble. The reading load is immense but I have a study group so we are splitting things up to make it manageable. My professors are very good and I haven't started my intership yet (I will this week) but my supervisor is nice and I think I'll learn a lot. I have to apologize ahead of time, but for the next few months I will probably be missing in action. I have class on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and internship in Northbrook on Tues and Thurs and I work at Gingers on Saturdays and Sundays. As you can see...not much in terms of free time. I do have SOME Friday afternoons/evenings free so maybe we can plan something soon? I still haven't seen the Ondrlas since I got back!

On Monday I'm going to a break fast for Yom Kippur. I'm supposed to cook something for the potluck but I have no idea when I'l have time. Maybe I'll just buy something at Jewel...I know that's cheating...

Our place is good, out building manager is here now doing some repairs on our kitchen sink...Jason is over too, watching the NU game. They're losing... :( ...and Linny is in Indy this weekend with Matt. She's doing well but very very busy too. She is working at the Pilsen/Little Village Mental Health Clinic doing drug and alcohol counseling. She has her own clients now and is learning a lot but not getting paid...gotta love internships. Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays she has class at Triton and she's still bartending on Tuesday nights.

Well, I'm procrastinating and should be reading about the history of social work in the U.S. since 1890. How is everyone? Let me know whats going on in the outside world!!

Love,

Amy

Hello from "The Wellington"

That's what my dad calls our new place. The Wellington. Yes I guess we are very posh over here. Sooo...here's what's been going on lately:

I got a job working at Ginger's Ale House on Ashland, so I'll be there most weekends either waiting tables or bartending. Woo hoo! I have about two straight weeks of orientations going on now, first at Jewish Child and Family Services (where I will be interning on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the entire school year), then downtown for my fellowship program (they're even putting us in a hotel Friday night so we can't escape! yikes!) and then next week will be orientation for University of Chicago, where I'll meet my "cohort" which is the group of students with whom I'll have all my classes for the entire year. Hopefully I'll like them because we'll be spending A LOT of time together...classes, projects, etc...then finally, the week after that, I start classes. So I will be running around like a headless chicken for the next few weeks. What's new I guess...

Other than that, our apartment is very very cute and is all done except for being painted. I'd like to have a little come see our new place party but not till after we paint and Linny and I both have the same night off...that's rare. Linny has been very busy too with school and her new internship, but I'll let her tell you about that next time she posts. Lucy is doing great, she really likes her new home and is sleeping on the couch in a little ball at the moment. She wants to play with Gus the bunny, but Gus is scared of her and I'm a little scared she might try to eat him.

Well that's all the excitement I have for now...I have a full day orientation on the JCFS computer system tomorrow AND Thursday, so my life is just too crazy for words...

Love you all.

Amy

hoooorrraaaayyyy!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure that's what you're all thinking now that you've seen I'm posting again!!! Okay so I'm in Pensacola right now with my brother and we will be loading up the Uhaul tomorrow and driving back to Chicago Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday Linny and I will hopefully be moving into our new place. Woo Hoo!!! Sorry there was a month long posting drought, but between leaving the ship, going to France, going to Green Lake and getting down here to Pensacola I've been running like a mad woman. I'll post some pics from France when I get home and throw in a condensed version of the highlights of the trip. It was really fantastic. Had a great time. That's all I'll say for now, so you'll be enticed to come back and read more next week. So for all of you who were worried, never fear. The blog is back and I'll be posting regularly again, even though I'll be back in Chicago. The pictures won't be quite as good as they were in the Caribbean and Alaska...but I'm sure Linny and I can come up with some entertaining posts nonetheless. School starts September 15th and then I'll be transformed back into a bookworm...but I'm excited. I love school. I am a nerd. Okay well time to go for now. Come back and see me again soon!

XOXO

Amy

Fun with Old and New Friends...

Hey friends,
Here are a few shots from last Thursday in Victoria, B.C. Check out the cool dudes we made friends with! Haha. I think the guy in red reminds me of Vlade...very strange. Could definitely have been friends of yours, dad. Haha. Just kidding I love your friends. The other shot is of my much more lovely friends, Tiana, Kristen, Elizabeth and myself. Club HAL, Club HAL, What's up? What's up?...Oh I am so sad to be leaving. I'm gonna miss this so much...