If you’ve known me for a long time (and by a long time, I mean several years), you might know that I had a tradition called the Annual Buffalo Wild Wings Winter Trip. It started completely randomly when we realized we had gone to Buffalo Wild Wings in the middle of the winter, surrounded by snow, for two years in a row. It was also more significant back then because all of my friends and I were off at different universities trying to earn our undergraduate degrees, and this was the time when we all came back for academic break.

After we graduated with our Bachelor’s degrees and we went different paths – some got employed while others went to different graduate schools for Master’s degrees – the tradition sort of died down. The tradition then proceeded to completely die after I moved to California, because I was the main one who organized the trips and vlogged them.

I don’t know if this counts, but seeing as I’m back in Illinois for a week, Ed and I decided to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. We didn’t vlog this trip, and we didn’t see our old server Adam who was our waiter for a few years in a row (who ended up moving out-of-state), but we still got our boneless chicken.

Ed proceeded to look at the second photograph, see his own face, and say “what a beautiful boy.”

Unfortunately, no first class upgrade this time, but it didn’t really matter – I’m thin and flexible enough that I can actually get decently comfortable in regular economy seating. But, what else was unfortunate that didn’t quite fall under the “didn’t really matter” category was the fact that we couldn’t fly through the storms in Illinois.

One amazing thing about me living in California now is that there are barely any poor weather conditions. Now, of course, when it does end up raining, everyone drives at 50% of the speed limit because apparently they’re terrified that their cars’ anti-lock braking systems will all fail, but that happens very rarely. Illinois, on the other hand, has storms all the time.

Our pilot wanted to avoid going through high winds, so we ended up going around the storm.

Literally.

Notice how I was flying from Los Angeles International Airport, which is in southern California, but somehow approached Chicago from Wisconsin … yes, we literally had to go that far out of our way to avoid storms.

An interesting thing about Yorkshire terriers is their changing hair color. Baby Yorkshire terriers are generally mostly black, but as they age, their hair turns more silver and tan. This usually happens as they get closer to adulthood, but for Mango, it seems to be happening a lot earlier.

You can’t really tell the difference from that photo, because he still looks pretty black – this was taken after his haircut and bath, which clearly exhausted him. The color change most likely isn’t noticeable because he’s curled up in a ball, and the lighting in the bedroom wasn’t really that great.

But, if you take a look at this “before and after” comparison photo that Karen posted:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BX6799Ng_h3/

Yes, that is still the same dog. I actually like him a lot better like this – he actually looks like an alert and intelligent puppy now, rather than a shaggy old man.

If you’re not already aware, a cockapoo is a mix between a cocker spaniel and a poodle. Lucky wasn’t exactly intended to be purebred (or designed to be a specific breed in general), so I’m sure there are some extra mixes in there as well. He is Karen’s mom’s new dog.