Great Food Weekend

We ate GREAT this weekend! From start to finish it was pure yumminess! Driving home from work on Friday I couldn't figure out what I wanted to make for dinner and had to strongly resist the urge to stop at Pizza Hut. Then it hit me....SUSHI! Thanks to Kelly and our sushi adventure last year, I am now a pro at making homemade sushi! I had most things at home, so I stopped to pick up an avocado and some seaweed wraps. It was so addicting that I made it again for lunch the next day!

Saturday night we had a few beverages and grilled some lemon chicken and red peppers while Bailey stared down the baby birds in the back yard (there are some in the birdhouse above the garage and some more in a nest under the stairs...hopefully they won't fall out like last time).

Sunday I made Paige's Best Ever Chicken Noodle Soup complete with the secret ingredient (Tiger Seasoning) thanks to Paige!! Snacks for the weekend included some of my new obsessions: Skinny Pop popcorn and Trader Joe's Wasabi peas, as well as the remaining fudge bar that was in the freezer. Looks like someone will be strapping on their running shoes come Monday!!

Vacation Countdown!!!

Sorry I've been MIA lately...we had bad storms last weekend that knocked out our cable and internet for a few days...how ever did I survive?! ;) Also last night we had the craziest lightning storm I've ever seen....it was just constant lightning for like 20 minutes...I can't believe we didn't lose power. Funny that we've seemed to get crazier storms since we've been in Chicago than we ever experienced living in the South.

ANYWAYS!! Vacation! 27 days!! I can't wait!! We're renting a little house right on a lake in southwest Michigan. I hope Bailey learns how to run off the dock and jump in the lake!! I'm even contemplating buying a hammock for the sole purpose of having one on vacation (I'm kinda obsessed with them). Here's a pic from the VRBO website. We can't wait!! :)

Things I am Loving Right Now

Trader Joe's Wasabi Peas

Yuengling

Skinny Pop popcorn

Sons of Anarchy

Sitting on the back deck enjoying a cup of coffee

Taking an accidental break from couponing

Bailey playing in the lake

Grilling dinner with Tom while Bailey runs around in the back yard

Mojito's

Getting back into running

LONG tank tops

$2 Jeans

Teen Mom (Can't help it!!)

Lazy weekends

The Dog Days of Summer

Last night we went to a fundraiser for a local shelter with our friend Jess. She doesn't have a dog (YET!!) but has volunteered at various shelters and supports our furry friends just the same. It was held at Schuba's, which I had actually been wanting to check out because we used to drive by it all the time on the way home from work (recently we started taking a different way home). It was fun to actually get out and do something on a week night! It reminded me of when we lived in Philly and would actually go out and do stuff (my couch is just sooooo inviting these days I can't seem to pass it up)! And by "these days" I really mean "the last 5 years."

Anyways, the mac and cheese bar that was promised was slightly disappointing (I thought it would be a variety of mac and cheese, not just 1 kind of mac and cheese with a variety of toppings). I survived ;) I also tried to channel my inner Paige to win something during the raffle, but alas, no luck there either. And I told Tom it didn't feel the same without our Birmingham crew there with us! I kept waiting for everyone to walk in with Stacy smuggling Casper in her purse! A good time was still had by all!!

Family Reunion - Chicago Style

This weekend my parents came to visit. My cousin Laurel lives in Indiana, just south of Chicago, so her parents (my aunt and uncle) and my other aunt and cousin all came out too. So we had a full house! Friday night my parents and my cousin Jamie drove up from Laurel's to hang out and spend the night at our place. They arrived with no less than 2 cases of our beloved Yuengling compliments of Aunt Judy. We can't get Yuengling in Chicago :(

Saturday morning we all met up at our place, then started our trek downtown (past Wrigley Field and via Lakeshore Drive).

First stop? The Bean! Of course we had to take a family pic in the Bean.
The Gold Coast Art Fair happened to be going on in Grant Park a few blocks away so we walked over to check that out. We enjoyed a cool beverage and some live music while we relaxed for a few minutes in the shade.
Mom stayed at the art fair while the rest of us walked down to see Buckingham Fountain. Next we walked along Michigan Ave and made our way down to the River Walk. After all of this walking, we were all getting quite hungry, so we hearded the troops and thought we would check out Navy Pier real quick on the way to get some Deep Dish. Navy Pier was of course PACKED (and annoying) so we decided we had seen enough just trying to drive past the front of it, and we didn't even bother to get out of the car. We drove back up Lakeshore Drive and found 2 parking spots literally right in front of Giordano's.

The pizza was awesome and this is definitely our new favorite deep dish pizza place!! After pizza we all went back to our place and had a little birthday celebration for my Aunt Shirley (who is turning 60 in a couple weeks) complete with Middle Sister wine (since she is the middle sister)!

We just hung out and enjoyed spending time together while watching the Pirates/Cubs game on TV...which was kind of ironic considering my entire family that was visiting are Pittsburgh fans and Wrigley Field is about 3 miles from us on the same street (the game was in Pittsburgh). Sunday we drove down to my cousin Laurel's house for a final family breakfast and said our Goodbye's. What a great weekend!

Awesome Birthday Weekend

How can a birthday weekend go wrong when you kick it off with flowers and dinner at an Italian Restaurant?! Friday we had big plans originally to go check out Taste of Chicago, but after virtually every single person we talked to gave a resounding "NOOOOOOOOOOO DON'T GOOOOOOOOOOOO!" we started to rethink our decision. That and the fact that it was supposed to be 97 degrees on Friday. I won't quote my co-worker OR the opinion column in the Red Eye, because someone will probably get offended, but let's just say they didn't make it sound too appealing. So we decided that a cooler (and cheaper) option would be to take Bailey to the Dog Beach instead. Well, as it turns out, we got some pretty crazy storms Thursday night and Friday ended up being overcast and kinda cool, with the potential for rain at any moment. We ended up having an extremely lazy relaxing day on Friday and didn't do a single thing except grill out for dinner.

Saturday morning we got up and went to Panera for breakfast. I know, all of the fabulous brunch places in Chicago and we go to Panera. I had been wanting eat at Panera every day for the past 6 months because we always drive by it on the way to work. After Panera we packed up Bailey and our towels and headed off to the Dog Beach. She was a little unsure of the water at first, so we took her over to a "corner" of the beach so she could explore the water on her own terms. It didn't take long until she was frolicking in the lake, drinking the lake water, and trying to do the Basenji 500 twenty yards out from the sand.

We got quite a chuckle (quite a chuckle? What am I like 80?) out of this funny bulldog with a lifevest (just like FTT's!!). First of all, he's wearing a lifevest. Second, he tried to crawl up on the ledge (the one that Bailey has her paws up on) but kind of half fell off, then just stayed there for like 30 seconds, half on/half off. Third, his dad had to carry him off the beach via lifevest handle as they were leaving, and about 30 seconds after he put him down he barfed all over the sidewalk. Too funny!

Saturday afternoon I had wanted to do some shopping for my birthday, but it was too hot, so I did some online shopping and ordered 5 shirts from Gap/Old Navy and got them all shipped right to my door for less than $9/shirt (including tax and shipping!!). We also finally booked our August vacation in Michigan. I'm so excited and I had been stressing about this for months! It will give us something nice to look forward to after this awesome 4-day weekend ends. For dinner we decided to check out this sketch Mexican restaurant that is right at the end of our street, The Burrito House. I had actually been wanting to check it out for a while but Tom thought it was too shady. A few weeks ago our neighbors told us how great it was, so Tom agreed to eat there for dinner...besides, how can he say No to me on my birthday ;)? It was actually pretty good!

Sunday afternoon our friend Jess hosted a cookout for the 4th at her new apartment. We grilled out, ate A LOT, and sipped some cool beverages.
Sunday night we sat out on our balcony and watched numerous fireworks displays from the comfort of our own deck chairs. Apparently everyone in Chicago sets off huge fireworks like it's no big deal. Our apartment faces directly west and we could see no less than 10 different displays (most obscured by houses and trees, but hey, no traffic or masses of people so that's just fine by me!) Of course the only pic I snapped was of a tiny firework but it at least gives you an idea of our little view :)

Today we're having a mish-mash of a day complete with a little bit of productivity and plenty of relaxing on the back deck. Happy 4th everyone!!