There Really Are No Words....

Fry Fest 2012

As most of you know, I LOVE my family.  We are fun, funny and just overall good people.  No bias here though.  I think we are one of those rare families in that in our immediate family, we are super close.  We have our moments but generally we get along.  Throw the cousins in there and it is one big party!
Having a such a strong alliance to University of Illinois in my family, we try to make it to at least one football game a season and "tailgate".  About 4 years ago, my dad had the brilliant idea to bring his deep fryer and literally fry everything!!!  It was then that "Fry Fest" was born!

Fry Daddy!!

My dad does most of the shopping and let me tell you, he absolutely does not hold back.  We have everything from homemade doughnuts to corn corn dogs, toasted ravs and one year, we even tried to deep fry a chicken pot pie!  And of course, there are a couple of turkeys that go and this past Fry Fest, we had a dish of mac and cheese and we decided to ball that up and throw it in as well!!  Along with all of the eating, there is definitely a lot of drinking.  My uncle makes the most amazing bloody mary's so that starts the day off right.  It has become a huge family event now!  Even my cousin from Texas who is at IU now drove over for the day to eat, (not drink) and be Merry!!

Everyone is invited and as the day goes on and the beverages are flowing, we extend to our right and left because a small country could never eat the amount of food we have.  So we offer it up to everyone around us!  We are very popular.  The first couple years, some people actually used to go to the game...this year, no one went.  Let's be honest, who wants to watch that football team when you could be eating friend food, drinking and spending the day with the Rybicki family!!

Seems like a fitting time to take a Christmas Card picutre!!

Not so sober sibling love

We have so much fun it shouldn't be allowed!!  And in all honesty, probably isn't!  Not sure how we have not gotten in trouble before, deep fryers are definitely not allowed.  But we will continue to party hard and eat right until they stop us!  If you are ever up at a U of I game...check out research park and look for the crazies with the deep fryer!  Everyone is welcome.  Maybe one of these years, U of I will be a football team worth watching:)










Until next time my friends!


Eat, Drink and Be Mary!!

Been a LONG TIME!!

Sorry for being SUPER MIA...there is no reason what so ever for it!!  But, I am going to try really hard to make blogging a priority since it is not like I have much else going on right now.

Who is ready for the holidays??  I certainly am!!  There are lots of fun things coming up for me and my family over the next month.  First and foremost, THANKSGIVING!  It is a favorite holiday of the Rybicki family for sure.  I have cousins that are extremely close in age to my sisters, brother and me.  We have pretty much grown up together and I think of them as brothers more than cousins.  As children, we loved our Thanksgiving basketball games.  They were fun and generally ended up with someone in tears...one of the boys most of the time  As we have gotten older, we actually have way more fun!!  We eat at 2 so everyone arrives and my mom and dad's at around 11.  Generally, we started drinking at about 10.  Once we start we never look back!!  Tons of fun and lots of drinking!  There is usually a pretty intense euchre game that one time lead to a full table flip and then this happened last year....

Yes, that is my dad, in the kitchen, with the beer pong table!  After everything was washed, put away, taken back out, re-heated and washed again, we decided it was time for a little family beer pong.  Alas, we realized we had not ping pong balls.  What did we do, all but broke into my best friend's house and searched high and low through her basement while her family was at her grandma's house for the day.  Thank goodness for them never changing their garage code...in my defense, I called first!  It was a family affair and the people who wanted to play but not drink had "designated drinkers".  And to top off all the fun we normally have, my Brother's birthday is on Thanksgiving Day!  The beer, wine, whiskey and vodka will be flowing!  Thankfully, the wee one (my little sister) is a very good mixologist and we have a half barrel in the living room.
After all the fun family time at Thanksgiving, we will get to head up to Champaign to celebrate my niece's FIRST birthday!  I can't believe she is already ONE!!  I love her to death and would do anything for her.  It should be a great day!
I hope everyone else has an amazing start to the holiday season.  If I can offer one piece of advice to everyone, don't get too hammered the night before Thanksgiving.  While it seems like the best decision at the time, take it from someone who spent most of Thanksgiving day yacking or passed out, it's not worth it.  Thanksgiving dinner never tastes as good on the way out as it does on the way in.  And, let's face it, you become the laughing stock of the family until someone else does something really stupid!

Eat, Drink and Be Mary!

Bring Home the Gold!!

It is literally one of my favorite times right!!  First of all, it is summer, and I LOVE SUMMER!!  I love the hot hot weather and the sun and fun summer drinks and bbqs and the list goes on!  But this year, 2012 is the year of the Summer Olympics in London and I am so EXCITED about it!

What are my favorite events you ask??  Well, clearly, like every other girl in the world, I love to watch Gymnastics.  Those teenie tiny little girls are freaking unbelievable.  Of course I like to watch Women's soccer (USA just beat France 4-2 if you were interested).  And I think my all time favorite sport to watch is Sand Volleyball.  I mean, are you kdding me?  After the last 3 Summer Olympics I had it set in my mind that I was going to be a pro volleyball player...you know, training for something like that at 24 years old is pretty standard right??  I guess I will settle with watching them play on my couch, with a cold beverage in my hand.  I hope everyone else is as excited as I am for the games.  I literally cannot wait for it to get in full swing.  If you happen to be working and would like updates on what is going on throughout the day with the Olympics, feel free to follow me on twitter...@mkrybicki... I am sure I will be tweeting about it!!  You can visit this this site to find schedules and results for the London games!!  Cherrio my good friends!!!

Eat, Drink and Be Mary




Whoa....

I would like to apologize for my long absence!!!  I need to make a much better effort to blog.  I find myself jotting down post ideas in RANDOM places and then alas, never remembering a) where I wrote them down and b) to actually log on and post something!  I promise, I am going to get better:)  (like anyone really cares!)
Lately, I have had something on my mind that has been driving me CRAZY and it all stems from Facebook.  Don't get me wrong, I am an avid facebook member and enjoying seeing what is going on in people's lives that I care about.  But my goodness, some people have taken it WAY TO FAR!!!  I would have never thought Facebook would be a platform for people's ridiculous rants about the most controversial subjects.  In my opinion, wrong forum!!  I don't really care about Billy's opinion on...well on anything now that I think about it!  I guess the biggest frustration for me is when someone posts about something that is truly controversial and then almost appears offended when people disagree or call them out on their comments.  Uh, shouldn't that be expected??  Differing opinions are what makes this world go round!  I know I can always hide this stuff or unfriend people but it is like a car accident...I can't take my eyes away from it!  I have a feeling that as we get closer to the election, this is only going to get worse!  I also don't like when people use Facebook in a hurtful way.  I have a very great friend who has fallen victim to this and it makes me CRAZY!  Not only did said person make her feel stupid, he really hurt her fellings as well!!!  NOT COOL!!  It is really easy to have a strong opinion on something from behind your computer.  If you want people to respect you and your opinions, I suggest not posting them all over facebook!  It makes you look immature and kind of silly!!  If you want a platform to express your opinions...START A BLOG!
I am not saying I am going to go and deactivate my account by any stretch, but these days, I am enjoying Twitter mch more!  Hard to get on a soapbox with only 140 character!!
Hope evreyone has a great Thursday!

Eat, Drink, and be Mary

Under...WHERE???

So, many of my friends may find this post a little odd simply because, well, they know and some things just won't add up to them. I won't go into details why because that might be a little too much information for people. But anyway, on with my story!

After what some would call...overindulging in adult beverages while watching basketball and playing "Cards Against Humanity" on Saturday night, I was a sleep dog on Sunday morning. With a slight headache, and a tummy full of McDonalds, I took to the couch to take a little nap while College basketball played in the background. My mom left town so it was up to the rest of us to decide what to do for dinner. We grilled on Saturday night and no one was really in the mood to cook so we decided on the lovely Mexican joint down the street. It is awesome by the. By making this decision, that meant I had to get up, take a shower and change out of my XXXL sweats. Why I buy sweats that big is beyond me, but what can you do. I didn't feel like digging around for a clean pair of jeans, I wore the same pair of jeans I wore on Friday...and Saturday for that matter, which I feel like is fairly common on the weekends. We left for dinner around 6:30, I got out of the shower and was dressed by about 5:45.

We had a very nice dinner with quite a few margaritas and a marga-rona. Notice my smaller margarita behind the much larger one! As we got home, of course we decided to have a few more beers and watch some Archer. I was sitting on the couch wondering why my jeans didn't feel right. I couldn't pin point it but something was off. My parents keep blankets on their couch to keep them covered from the animals so I just assumed it was a the blanket bunched up. I flattened out the blanket and didn't help. I stood up and looked around and was still perplexed as to why it felt like there was something behind my knee. Then, all of the sudden, it dawned on me....rolled up my jean leg and stuck my hand behind my knee and what did I find....my underwear from the day before!!! They were all balled up and right behind my knee. Seriously, how in the WORLD does that happen??? How did I manage to sit down for an hour before dinner, all through dinner and never notice that is what was in my pant leg?? THANK GOODNESS it didn't fall out while we were at the Mexican place...how embarassing would that be??? I have a habit of putting my underwear in mysterious places. If you ever come across my friend Jill, you should ask her where she found a pair of my undies. And, if I remember correctly, I loaned a pair of jeans that were washed and dried to a roommate in college and a couple hours later, while we were out, she found a pair of undies in my pocket!!! If you take nothing from this post, ALWAYS check the pockets of clothes that you borrow from me!!! You never now what you might find:)

Until Next time,

Eat, Drink and be Mary

MADNESS!!!!

You guessed it.....its MARCH MADNESS TIME!!! Last weekend began the beginning of conference tournaments to set the first round of automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament!! I mean, who doesn't love this time of year?? I will tell you who does....THIS GIRL!!! There are many reasons why I like the month of March, obvisouly, March Madness is one huge reason, the weather begins to warm up and baseball season is just around the corner...but that is for another post!

I have been a college basketball fan for as long as I can remember. I am sure it stems from just being a huge sports fan in general. In middle school, I began to obsess over Michael Jordan, so clearly for that reason alone I was a UNC fan. As I got older, I began to pay a little bit more attention and fell off that bandwagon. I will be the first to admit, I was not a UNC fan for any other reason than it was where Michael Jordan played, not a true fan at all. When my sister went to University of Illinois, I figured I would just follow them. Made sense, my mom went there, my sister went there and turns out, so did my brother and other sister. Now, when I went off to college, I clearly had to support my school...The Murray State RACERS! Not sure if any of you have been following them this year, but they are the real deal! Sadly, Illinois is not. Bruce Weber was actually just fired this morning. Sad day.

What I look forward to most about March Madness is getting together with my friends, drinking excessive amounts of beer and watching basketball for 4 days straight. I mean, to the tune of I would schedule "meetings" from 12-4 on the first Thursday of March Madness and go to a local Casino Bar with one of my Best Friends Ever, Sarah Buss!! Last year, I drove straight to that same bar from Chicago after a bachlorette party and joined in the festivities! By the end of this weekend, the field will be set. Right now there are some teams that have punched their tickets but there are so many spots up in the air! It is so exciting! Who is going to get an automatic bid, who will the surprise team be this year, will there be a cinderella team that busts brackets all over the country?!?! As of right now, no one knows. But, by this time next week, the tournament will be in full swing and productivity will be at its lowest point! I have no idea who I think will win and quite frankly, I don't care all that much! I am looking forward to a weekend full of good hoops, green beer and great friends!

Last year we had our March Madness get together on the same day I had a bridal shower. I was a little late to the basketball gathering and I was a little bit over dressed, but I caught up quick! I am pretty sure the last warriors standing went to bed after about 12 rounds of apples to apples at 3 AM. That meant there was not much time to sleep and get back to the bar for tip off of the games on Sunday. I clearly didn't think ahead because all I thought to bring with me was a pair of flip flops so I didn't have to wear my heels all day. Needless to say, I did the ultimate walk of shame, I slept on the floor in my friend's basement, in my dress and made my appearance at the bar the NEXT MORNING in the same dress...at least I had my flip flops right?? One of my finer moments that make my parents hold their head high with pride! HA!!!

I will close this post with one final thought.......GOOOOOOOO RRRRAAAACCCCCERRRSSS!!!!

Until Next Time,

Eat, Drink, and Be Mary

I'M BAAAAACCCKKK!!!

So, it has been....WAY TOO LONG since I have tended to this lovely blog. I could go back and catch all 5 of you up, but that sounds boring for all parties included. How about I just pick up like there wasn't a huge gap, sound good? K perfect

This past weekend I had the most wonderful pleasure of being a bride's maid in my dear friend Kim's wedding!

(Kim and Me)
I have known Kim since college. She was a junior when I was a freshman. We both played soccer and oddly enough, were from the same area and never knew it! Ha! Over the years, Kim and I have remained great friends so needless to say, I was more than exicted to be there with her on her special day. And to top it off, I know she found an amazing guy to spend her life with!! I knew very little about Ryan when they first met. Not long after they started dating, I went to a Cardinal game with them and I knew in that 3 hours that I spent with them, that he was a keeper. He has an amazing sense of humor and an even more amazing heart! Seeing her so happy for the past year has warmed my soul!! Getting to spend her special day with her was an honor for me! Not only did she look amazing, she was beaming with happiness! Ryan himself looked over joyed!! It really was a very special day!

On top of getting to be a part of Kim's special day, that meant I get to spend the evening with these ladies! Well most of them anway! I can't think of anything I would rather do than spend an evening with some of my oldest friends!! I went to college with most of these girls and we have been having a blast ever since! Somtimes I think we forget that we are not in college any more, even though between the girls in this group there are 7 children under the age of 2. That is what their daddies are for right?!?! I look forward to every gathering that we have...especially a wedding!! Nothing is more fun than a Murray wedding!!!!! And that is what we had on Saturday. It was a blast...counting down the days until our St. Patrick's Day/Madness Party!!! GO RACERS!!!!!!!!!!!

While I would like to say that this weekend ended with Kim and Ryan heading to the beach for their honeymoon, they recieved some sad news. Ryan's dad suddenly passed away this morning. I don't know details I just know how sad I am for one of my greatest friends. For anyone that reads this, please keep this amazing family in your thoughts and prayers. From what I knew of him, he was such a nice man and will be greatly missed.

But, I will say one more time, Congratulations to this wonderful couple and can't wait to see what the future holds for them! Hopefully lots of babies!!!

Aren't the so cute?!??!! A vision of true happiness!!

Unitl next time,

Eat, Drink, and be Mary!