home is whenever I'm with you

I'm back from 9 days at home in Chicago for an extended Thanksgiving visit. The day-of was pretty standard, but the trip over all was great. It was oddly like stepping into a Twilight Zone version of my life in highschool because so many of my friends are living at home or in the area these days. We spent a lot of quality time together--pretty much every day that I was there--and did a lot of greatly nostalgic things.

Had all of the requisite foods for a visit home: Lou Malnati's pizza, Pita Inn, Buff Joe's (I'm so full just thinking about it). Went bowling at our old standby, Classic Bowl in Morton Grove. Also went to play Laser Tag at a place down on Fullerton which ended up being SO much fun! Played pool and darts, and I realized that I'm not 100% terrible at either one - just mostly. There was a semi-traumatizing throwback game of Kings/Circle of Death, which was probably the point at which we really felt like we had stepped back in time.

The highlight of my throwback week was watching some old home-movie footage that I took during the summers between junior and senior year of high school. It was hilariously charming to watch, and kind of startling to see the ways that we haven't changed. So many of those conversations could have taken place this week and not 6 1/2 years ago. I sadly can't upload any video because it's all filmed in analog (so old!) and, I barely took any photos all week long.

Air hockey pre-Laser Tag. Oh yes.

A nice candid shot from bowling...I didn't even take this

And to close this out, here's a little mix from my Thanksgiving week:

Thanksgiving 2009