Of martinis and beer bellies.

This weekend I got to head out to Aledo, IL, with my former roommate Katie! That girl lived with me all four years of college. We were paired completely randomly, and somehow, we were a success story. (I mean, I think we were. There were some pretty weird events involving cops and cockroaches and alien presentations and newspaper kids, but it was still fun! Right, Katie?)

We joke that we were probably just the last two random kids who didn't smoke and needed a roommate, so they paired us up. It's pretty probable.

Anyway, my aunt owns a martini bar out there called La Belle Vie. It's gorgeous, and I love taking people to visit.

Katie and I had a nice time touring the town, trying on clothes in the little boutique and sampling caramel candies. Later, we had burgers and martinis (which tasted like cotton candy! The martinis...not the burgers...)

A few drinks in, Katie called up her sister and asked her and her roommate to come visit us because they go to school nearby. And they actually came! It was a lot of fun. They're both under 21 so they had some virgin cocktails. We did get kicked out of a bar called "Beer Belly's" because they were under 21.

To be honest, we just wanted to watch the band play and get some pop. I've never known that place to card anybody just for entering, even though it is a bar. I probably should've figured as much. A scary man who looked like a biker bought us our pop and we left.

Katie and I went back after her sister and her friend left, and we trekked the one block back to Beer Belly's. (The whole town is like...three blocks?)

Let me just tell you...however you're imagining Beer Belly's in your head right now is probably exactly right. Just add a little more camouflage and beards and you're there.

We had some drinks there, I pretended to be on the phone while Katie was in the bathroom and some strange man tried to talk to me, and then we went home! We watched the last part of a really awful Lifetime holiday movie and went to bed.

It was a successful journey. Even when my GPS took me seven miles down a totally unnecessary, icy road. I think Katie saw her life flash before her eyes. Then her train was delayed an hour, so we stopped off at a cute coffee shop to kill some time. We decided we would open two restaurants: A juice, smoothie, salad-type place for me, and a comfort food joint for Katie. These would both be next to the breakfast place my brother swears he will open, called "Eggs N' Stuff."

And here are four photos that proved this trip happened!

Here we are with our friend Luigi...

This next photo...how cute is my grandma's apartment?! I love the lights.