Return of the Sunday Morning Brunch Tradition

A couple years ago, James and I, along with a few of our friends started doing a weekly Sunday Morning Brunch. I think it all started when one of our friends had a bit too much to drink and ended up spending the night at our house. The next morning, we got up and all had biscuits and gravy together. She then felt like she owed us, so the next weekend, she had us (and a couple others) over to her house for breakfast. Then, it just kind of became a tradition. We didn't do it EVERY week, but we were doing it on a somewhat frequent basis....and I really enjoyed it.

Then for whatever reason (probably everyone being busy, or maybe the fact that we live further away now) we stopped doing it. A couple nights ago, James and I decided we should start it back up. So, this morning we had a couple friends over for Belgian waffles, bacon, and fruit. It was really fun...and gave me an excuse to get up early and clean up the house!

Now, who's hosting next time???

Chicago Trip - Day 4

This was our final day in Chicago.  We got up at a decent hour, met Josh and Jaime for breakfast, then packed our stuff up.  We checked out of the hotel and then headed down to the Shedd Aquarium.  I was fortunate enough to go to the Shedd Aquarium my sophomore year of high school on an NHS trip.  I had loved it then...particularly the penguin exhibit!  This time around, the lines were ridiculous.  We got there and saw what was probably the longest line we've ever seen (we've never been to Disney World).  Anyway, it took almost two hours to get our tickets purchased.  We were tempted to spend an extra $20 a piece to skip the line, but instead just played a lot of back and forth Dice with Friends on my phone.

When we got in we got lunch from one of the concessions (not impressed).  Then started walking around.  Shedd has a great selection of animals and I was yet again, not disappointed.  We saw Belugas, White-sided Dolphins, penguins, jellyfish, seahorses, and lots of other cool fish and sealife!  My favoite was of course, still the penguins!

We got done looking around at 3:30 and walked solemnly back to our car, knowing we had nearly 10 hours of driving ahead of us.  James drove most of the way home, which I appreciated because I got some reading time in.  Dramamine does wonders for those who get carsick, by the way.  We got into Lee's Summit around 12:45, picked up the dog and then headed home. 

It was a great trip...a nice break from everything we had going on, but we sure were happy that night to get to sleep in our own bed!

Chicago Trip - Day 3

Sunday morning we were supposed to get up and join the bridal party and other friends and family for brunch at our hotel.  Needless to say, getting out of bed was....hard.  I was feeling pretty rough.  But I powered through it long enough to go down to brunch, nibble on a bagel, visit with the newlyweds, then head back upstairs to go back to bed.

The rest of the morning/afternoon was a bit of a wash.  James watched golf all day and I slept.  It was seriously the worst I'd felt in a LONG time.  Around 2:30, I forced myself into the shower.  We took a cab back to Monastero's and got our car then went to lunch.  We then went and picked Josh and Jaime up so the four of us could go downtown for an architectural boat tour.

Again, Chicago's parking situation got to us.  Our boat was scheduled to leave at 5:00 and after driving around for nearly 30 minutes looking for parking, we found a garage at the Trump Tower.  It was only about a quarter mile away from where we had to be, but at that time it was 4:45 and we knew they stopped selling tickets for the tour at 4:55.  We booked it on foot to the Wrigley building.  Found the Wendella ticket office and impatiently got in line.  We listened as the lady taking tickets onto the boat called "Two more minutes to board the 5:00 tour!"  At that point, we got to the front of the line and purchased tickets using one of the automated machines, which of course, broke midway through.  So then we had to talk to an actual person at the time booth.  Meanwhile, I hear, "If you want on the 5:00 boat tour, you have 30 seconds to board!"  My heartrate was going double-time.  I was just sure we were going to miss the tour, but we ended up getting our tickets and boarding the boat just in time.

And I must say, I'm glad we did.  The boat tour was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  Chicago is such a beautiful city and it was really cool to see and hear about all the cool buildings there.  We did the combined river/lake tour, so the first half of the tour was along the Chicago River.  We got to see a lot of Chicago's finest architectural structures up close and personal.  We then traveled to the lock system between the river and lake.  The locks are there to control the water flow between the lake and the river.  I was actually quite fascinated by the locks and some of the information they shared about both the river and the lake.  Did you know that the level of the lake is higher than the river?  Also, did you know that the Chicago River's flow was reversed back in 1900 to keep the lake from being contaminated?  Interesting, eh?

After going through the locks, we coasted along Lake Michigan and took in the beautiful skyline view.  On such a hot summer day, it felt so good to be on the lake and having the wind blow on my face.

After the tour, we walked to the Dana Hotel which has a rooftop bar called the Vertigo SkyLounge.  Josh and Jaime had gone there a few nights before and thought we might like it.  The bar had a really cool atmosphere and an awesome view, though the drinks were overpriced ($14 for my mojito) and the customer service was lacking.

The four of us then met Emily and Johnny at a little tapas restaurant called Quartino's two doors down from Vertigo.  We had a nice dinner with them followed by drinks at Rock Bottom Brewery.  It was really nice to see Emily.  For those of you who don't know, she's my friend that I've taught next door to for the last 4 years.  She recently moved out to Chicago less than a month ago because her husband got accepted into grad school at Northwestern. 

Anyway, by the end of the night Mr. Asher had had far too much to drink.  I drove us all back to the hotel, proud of myself for being the responsible, sober one.

Chicago Trip - Day 2

Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast at the hotel.  We then got ready and headed down to Lincoln Park for the morning.  We took a stroll through the Lincoln Park Zoo, which was nice.  Then we walked down to the beach.  We didn't lay out or swim, but enjoyed dipping our feet in the water and taking in the beautiful view.  We then went to Portillo's for a Chicago-style hot dog.  It was at this time that we started to realize the true joy (note my sarcasm) of Chicago parking.  Not only is parking in this city expensive, but it's incredibly hard to find places to park.  By the time we actually got to lunch (around 2:00), we both felt like we might eat our own arms off.

After lunch, we decided to head back to the hotel to take a nap before the wedding.  When we got up, we called our friends Josh and Jaime to see if they wanted to ride with us to the wedding venue.  We met them downstairs and headed to Monastero's Ristorante.  It was a nice, short but sweet ceremony.  I was excited because it was my first (semi) Jewish wedding and they did the whole stomping on the glass at the end, which was cool to see.

After the ceremony, we proceeded to the banquet hall next door and began to take advantage of the open bar.  The night went on with the dinner, cake cutting, dance, photobooth fun, and a trolley or some sort of shuttle ride home that I don't really remember.  Despite the hangover I had the next day, it was a lot of fun!

Chicago Trip - Day 1

My husband and I went to Chicago last weekend for a friend's wedding/anniversary getaway.  The trip came at the perfect time.  I had had a really rough week leading up to the trip and needed an escape.

***Note: Because I tend to get a little wordy in my blogs, I'm breaking our trip down into day by day posts

DAY 1:
We left at the crack of dawn Friday morning.  We decided to drive to save some money since we had just flown to South Carolina earlier in the month.  The drive really wasn't bad until we got into the Chicago area.  It was then that we discovered the dreaded Chicago highway tolls.  Where we live, tolls aren't really a big deal.  If you drive on I-70, you pull up to the toll booth, take your ticket, then an hour or so later, you pull up to another toll booth...give the cashier a dollar or two and you're done.  Chicago must not believe in the simplicity of this system.  First off, we were unaware that the highway we would be driving on was a toll road.  We were also not aware that in Chicago, you have to stop roughly every quarter mile to pay yet another toll.  Oh, and they don't have people at the booths.  Instead, you have to put change (coins only) into the little bucket.  We pulled up and paid 60 cents to the first one.  Then shortly after, paid another $1.50.  Then we had to pay another shortly after that.  At this point, after looking under the seats and emptying out my purse, we realized we didn't really have any coins left.  We pulled off the highway and both searched our phones' GPS for an alternative route.  In the end, we finally got to our hotel, but needless to say, the whole thing probably added another hour to our trip and quite a few gray hairs to our heads.

By the time we got checked in to our hotel, we had about 20 minutes to freshen up and change before heading to the rehearsal dinner.  We met our friends Chrissy and Ben (the couple getting married) and road over to Hota for a cocktail hour and dinner.  The cocktail hour lasted quite a while and the hubby and I may or may not have had a few too many drinks.  It was a fun evening though, and we ended up crashing pretty hard once we got back to the hotel.

A Rough Week

People always say bad things come in threes.  My past week has proven this to be true.  It's been an emotionally exhausting week:

I had to say goodbye to my beloved grandmother, Marjorie Taylor.  Grandma Taylor was an extraordinary woman who touched the hearts of everyone she encountered. She had more love in her heart than anyone I know...love which she shared with her dear husband, 8 children, 25 grandchilren, 26 great greatchildren, many other friends and family, and most of all, the Lord. I strive to be even half the woman she was during her 88 years of life. Grandma and I both shared a love for music, writing, and (mostly) friendly board game competition. I will miss her tremendously.

During this same time, my oldest sister and her family were being evacuated from their home in the Colorado Springs area due to the Waldo Canyon Fire.  They had to grab a select few belongings and flee to her mother-in-law's home near Garden of the Gods.  They spent a few nights there, then were forced to evacuate again when the fire took a turn for the worse, and blew into the Colorado Springs city limits after 65 MPH gusts of winds.  They've been fortunate enough to get to go stay at the Olympic Training Center where my brother-in-law works.  From what I hear, they have been well taken care of there, so that has eased my mind a little.  Even still, I look over photos of this devastating fire and I can't imagine what it would be like to experience this firsthand.  It's terrifying.  My heart goes out to the people of Colorado.

And just when I thought it couldn't get worse, I got a phone call from my sister Margie informing me that my childhood best friend's mom had passed away.  This was the girl whose house I stayed at nearly every weekend as a kid.  Growing up, her mom was like my second mom.  Needless to say, this news came to me like a punch in the stomach.  A flood of emotions came over me.  I was sad for the loss of such a wonderful person.  I also felt a twinge of guilt.  This girl was my BEST FRIEND when I was a kid.  We did everything together.  As adults, our lives went two very separate ways and needless to say, we haven't kept in contact.  I haven't spoken to her in five years and knowing that she's been by her mom's side throughout this horrible disease and that I was nowhere during all this, just made me feel like a horrible person.  I felt even more guilty when I realized I wasn't going to be able to make it to the funeral, as it fell at the same time as our trip to Chicago for Chrissy's wedding.  I fought back and forth with myself as to whether or not I should end my trip early to come back for the funeral.  In the end, I ended up not going.  I hope my friend understands how much my heart breaks for her during this hard time, and I hope I can reconnect with this person who once upon a time was such a big part of my life.