Chicago + 2 times + 1 summer = FABULOUS!

The Corner Bakery - our favorite eating establishment due to the entertainment

Not that anyone would have questioned, but us ladies had an absolute blast in Chicago! It was 100% stress free and just splendid! Just what us girls needed!

I arrived in Chicago last out of the group and quickly made it to my shuttle van only to have to sit and wait for almost 15 minutes while it filled up and then of course, just my luck, I am the last one to be dropped off. So I raced up to the rooms and was greeted by all my lovely chicas and promptly poured myself a drink!

We played it low key b/c I didn't even get to the room until 10:30. So we just all relaxed and drank in the VIP room. (VIP = vodka in pineapple) We joked, gossiped, laughed a TON and caught up with each other before crashing around 2 am.

Saturday afternoon was spent leisurely shopping on the MAGNIFICENT MILE. I love that street. A shoppers paradise. I controlled myself fairly well and only bought a new red spring coat, some purple leggings, some bangle bracelets and a short sleeved tunic. I was proud of myself for restraining somewhat, but what I really wanted was this or this or this.

Or all three! But I resisted. Even though I REALLY, REALLY wanted to splurge.

That evening Kara, Nicole and myself got ready to head out for dinner and I grabbed the door handle to our room and it broke! The damn thing nearly fell off and we were STUCK in our room! We called the other ladies to have them come down and try to open it and they couldn't. We had a slight meltdown before the "engineer" came up to fix our door and let us out. It was hilarious in the end and thankfully we were only stuck in there for 5 minutes or so.

OMG! OMG! OMG!!!!

We had dinner at Carmine's that night which was a hoppin place! Great chicken parmesan and wine too! Then we wandered out into the neighborhood to see what kind of trouble we could get into. We ended up at McFadden's where we met a bachelor party and they did the N'Sync "Bye, Bye, Bye" dance perfectly choreographed. I think they had spent a lot of time practicing for just such an occasion. It was hilarious. After too many drinks and shots to count we slowly made it back to our hotel. Jenni passed out in the elevator which was so funny. I'm just glad we all made it back to the hotel in one piece. The gracious Lord was watching over us b/c I have no idea how we made it back. I don't remember a damn thing from that part of the evening.

(PSA: Overconsumption of alcoholic beverages may be dangerous to your health and hamper your ability to walk, talk, remember things from only moments ago, recognize whether or not another person is attractive and/or make it home safely. Please drink wisely. *yeah right* The more you know.)

The start of the night at Carmine's for dinner

The whole group of us at McFadden's

Sunday I woke up hungover (go figure) and needed to prepare myself for the White Sox/Red Sox game. I wasn't feeling too great so I think I watched about 10 minutes of the whole game. We decided that since we are old we needed a nap and after the game we headed back to our rooms for a quick nap before getting ready for another night out on the town. Dinner Sunday was at Cafe Ba Ba Reeba which we called Cafe Ba Ba Ba Barann. Their menu is mostly made up of tapas so we each selected 2 since they are generally quite small and sampled a lot from their menu. So many good things but I think my favorites were the bacon wrapped dates, the goat cheese and tomato sauce and the beef tenderloin skewer. Mmmm... so tasty!

All of us at the White Sox/Red Sox game

After dinner we cabbed it over to the piano bar, Howl at the Moon. We definitely howled! My already hoarse voice was basically a goner by the time we were done there! When you are talking and laughing constantly it's hard on the vocal chords and my girls definitely crack me up. We closed the bar down and headed back to the hotel making sure to reinact the elevator scene from the previous night b/c we are cool like that.

Our bathroom line up (way to fuck it up Ang) :)

The whole group at Cafe Ba Ba Ba Barann
Howl at the Moon piano bar

Ang, Me & Meggie
We are good sing alongers
The necessary elevator shots :) (Eat your heart out CB!)
Reinacting the pass out from the night before
This is my beer baby from the weekend. It's getting so big! I'd guess myself to be about 4-5 months along! :)

And those are my Chicago highlights in a nutshell.

In other news the hubs went back to school this week so Tuesday and Thursday nights will be quiet for me. I'll get to watch all the girly shows I want! Yippee! And this is his last semester as he graduates in December. I couldn't be more excited for him! What an accomplishment he will have!

This weekend is the big rivalry game: Iowa vs. Iowa State. We will be heading down for some massive tailgating! ISU knows how to tailgate even if our football team isn't the greatest. Let's hope we can pull this win off though and kick those Hawks asses! Whoopee!

Oh yeah, and It's Always Sunny starts in ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!!! Yayyayayayayay!

Lata gatas! <3 align="left">

Wordless Wednesday

Happy 9/9/09! That's a reason to drink!

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

I know you guys are just dying to get an update on my pumpkin so who am I to keep things from you. Plus I need your help.

First off, I unfortunately will need to buy a new pumpkin for Halloween this year. It was so damn close but the pumpkin is officially gon-dee. It officially took 10 months for this sucker to disintegrate. You can barely tell it is there but there are little pieces of it that still remain.

My pumpkin corpse

And second, this is where I need your help. Lo and behold something is growing right next to where the pumpkin used to be sitting. Please tell me this is a pumpkin plant. I will just about DIE b/c it will be so super cool if it is a pumpkin plant. I would then have my very own pumpkin "patch"!!! So tell me, those of you who know even a little something about plants, does this look like a pumpkin plant??? Please, please, please!!! :)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This weekend I am heading to Chicago! Take me away Windy City! It's our annual Girls Trip w/ my homies and I am pumped! I leave tomorrow afternoon and it will be non-stop giggling, drinking, eating and just having a ball! We are going to go shopping, to the beach and even hit up a White Sox game. I love my girls and I don't see them nearly enough so whenever I get together with them I start to act like a giggly little school girl. Yippee! Oh and something else that makes it all the more better??? Doni is on the same flight as me! So we are going to have pre-flight cocktails! I adore how that worked out! So needless to say I'm just a tad bit excited about it all and really don't want to be at work. Tonight = packing. I am such a procrastinator!

And that's all I got for you suckas today. Peace.

I Left My Heart in Chi-town

I've always loved Chicago. I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad time there and last weekend was no exception. We have several college friends that live in Chi-town and we decided to take a weekend to visit them. So we headed out Friday afternoon to Naperville, Illinois! Lucky for us, our friends, Bartels and Bill, had graciously agreed to let us crash at their place (thanks guys!!!).

The Three Stooges

Friday night we went out to a bar and caught up with some other good friends, Tai and Alyssa. It was great to see them and Alyssa looks so cute being pregnant! :) Following up the bar time was Wii time! We bowled like pros! Well at least I did. Kara didn’t do too hot, but she’s new so I guess I’ll give her that. I don’t know why I don’t have any pictures from Friday night (damn it!) but we had a great time!

Saturday we woke up bright and early to head out to Wrigley for the noon game. Our plan was to take the 9:20 am train into the city, catch a cab and be at the stadium by about 10:45. The plan didn’t exactly work out quite that well though.

Todd & Wade had to "scissor" on the train... I think they secretly liked it. :)

Our train broke down at the stop just before ours (unfortunately for my parents who were also in town and had gotten on that train and were stuck for over an hour!). So we jumped on a different train and didn’t get to the stadium until the first pitch was thrown! We were in a huge rush to say the least since our friend Paul and his girlfriend Holly were waiting for us and we had bleacher seats so we were pretty much screwed in where we’d be able to sit. Thanks to a few other fellow bloggers, Doni, Phampants and Mawls, Wade and I had the opportunity to sit centerfield for the first 3 innings. Thanks guys! It was great to get to see/meet you all! (And thanks Doni for this great pic!) After that we joined up with the friends we came with for the rest of the game. Thanks to Wrigley for the tasty slushy lemonade vodkas and beers I was feeling REALLY happy after the game. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you the score. I just knew that the CUBBIES WON!!!

Mawls, Me, Doni & Pham @ the game

We headed south on Sheffield to a bar for some more drinks and eats, which was a necessity at this point since I was pretty toasty.

After some fried mac and cheese bites and a chicken quesadilla we headed down to Taste of Lincoln to see one of our favorite bands from college, Hello Dave. They are great. Nuf said. I danced like I should have been in special ed classes all through life and had an utter and unbelievable blast! It definitely helps when you are surrounded by fun friends and I’ve got to say we have some of the BEST! I even purposefully spilled beer down Paul’s shirt so that he could get in on the “spilled drink” look that Bartels and Gossen were so nicely sporting.

Bill was being a wuss b/c he was hungover so I took a picture of him drinking "girly" drinks and holdin my purse. :)
Chicago PBR! Nothing but the BEST!

Me & my main squeeze

The "spilled" beer picture

Rock stars!

We love Hello Dave!

The groupies

Thanks guys for making our weekend in Chicago so much stinking fun! You guys rock the cashba. Hope to see you guys REAL soon!