Chicago Marathon

Marathon #8 is in the books! Dave and Andrew headed up to Chicago on Friday, October 5th for the 35th Annual Bank of American Chicago Marathon. They ran the race for Team Salute and both raised over $600 (each) for the charity (a big thank-you to everyone who donated!)! On Saturday they went to McCormick Place for packet pick up (along with the 45,000 other people running the race!). They also attended a Team Salute luncheon and were able to meet some of the people that would be in their start corral and hear inspiring stories from soldiers that Team Salute has helped.

All of the guys stayed with my sister, Dana and her husband, Paul. Dana even cooked for them on Saturday night! :) Paul was nice enough to get up at the crack of dawn and drive them to the starting point of the race too. Generally the guys are running a little behind on race mornings even after preparing the night before. It was also the coldest weather they have run a race in. Omaha was also cold, but not as cold as Chicago. Cold is definitely better to run the race in though, so I don't think they were complaining too much.

This race was tougher than Omaha, I don't think the course was more difficult though. Dave had problems the entire race, he was not feeling well for some reason. (I am hoping he isn't contagious!) However, he did seem to recover after the race and on Sunday night. The guys went to eat at a favorite place of ours, The Bad Apple Bar. They have the BEST burger menu and a huge selection of beers. Their fried cheese is also the best I've ever had. If you're in Chicago, it's a place you don't want to miss!
(Thanks to Paul and Dana for the photos!)

   

What makes people go crazy?

Do you really want to know what makes things crazy at our house before Christmas? It's not shopping for the presents, finding time to decorate the house and Christmas tree, no it's finding or taking the photo for our Christmas card! Luckily we were in Chicago this year for Thanksgiving and made a trip downtown to Daley Plaza to see the huge Christmas tree. Dana suggested that would be the perfect spot for our Christmas card photo and we were hoping that she was right! You know what it's like, either you get lucky sometime throughout the year and get a great photo or struggle to take one the day before you need to order your cards. The past few years, we've been in the latter category. I'm blaming Dylan, it's hard to get a good photo of someone 2 and under :)

We did get a good photo in front of the big Christmas tree though, we were lucky this year! Now I needed to find the right photo card to go with the photo. Fortunately, Shutterfly has hundreds of options to make sure there is something that will go with every photo. Do I choose this one? I like this one too! This could be it...Maybe this is the hard part, deciding what card to choose! I guess you will just have to wait and see! It is fun to look through the designs and see what one will work best with our photo.

Maybe some thank-you notes too... :)

Two-Fer Tuesday

 Sarah, Beth & I at Rotten Apple Tavern.

Dylan relaxing on the drive home from Chicago.

Two-Fer Tuesday

Sorry about missing Two-Fer Tuesday last week. It was such a crazy week I didn't realize I missed it until Friday night!

I thought I'd post a few Chicago photos since that's where we will be spending Thanksgiving!!

(Thanks to Andrew for the photos!)

Another race for Dave - Men's Heath Urbanathlon

This weekend Dave is heading to Chicago to run in the Men's Health Urbanathlon. He will be running with his usual racing partner Andrew, and a few friends from high school, Andrew and Tim. (I know, two Andrew's will make this confusing, so High School friend Andrew will now be referred to as Andy).
Dave and Andrew are flying up to Chicago tonight to check in and meet up with the other guys. Tonight is the welcome party and registration.
The race starts tomorrow at 7:45am and the participants will go off in waves according to their age group. There are over 6,000 people registered for the race this year! Dave, Andrew, Andy and Tim are all in the same age group so they will be starting together. This race is a little different than the other races Dave and Andrew have run, as they are running individually instead of as a group. However, they will be sporting their Olympic Couch Riders shirts and I am sure they will all try to stay together. This race also has 9 miles of running in addition to the obstacles, which include running stairs at Soldier Field (check out the video for the stair running, it's crazy!), and other obstacles at Navy Pier, DuSable Harbor, & McCormick Place.
I'll let you know how Dave does later on Saturday or Sunday and hopefully we'll have pictures up early next week!
Have a great weekend!

Chicago Part 2

We slept in a bit on Sunday morning, but awoke to the sounds of breakfast being made. Sandra is excellent at making breakfast, so we were in for a treat. She made the standard monkey bread, which was wonderful, eggs, bacon, and sausage.

After our huge breakfast we decided we should head back out on the lake for some fishing. We all piled into the boat and went out to Sandra's fishing spot, where we were guaranteed to catch a fish or two. Sarah was the first to catch a fish, about 14" and 7 or 8 lbs. It took me a while, but I also caught a little smaller fish. He sure felt really heaving when I was reeling him in though. Allison was not so lucky and didn't catch a fish, something about the pregnancy hormones scaring the fish away...

Sarah and I got our photos taken with our fish so we can grace the wall of fish in the basement. Now we just need to get the photos from Sandra (hint, hint).

After we were done fishing Sarah and I said our goodbyes and headed back into the city to go to my sisters house. We did get slowed down by traffic, so it took us a little longer than we had hoped to get to Dana and Paul's house. Luckily they live right off the interstate so their house was easy to find. You certainly wouldn't know that they live right off the interstate though, there is no noise from the busy road and their tree lined street looks like something out of a story book. I didn't know these neighborhoods existed so close to the city!

It was great to see Dana and Paul and their new house. I had seen pictures, but it looked even better in person. The house is older, but has great details in the woodwork, built ins, windows, and just the rooms in general are very open letting in lots of light. Unfortunately, Charlie, their cat was not so excited to see me and hid most of the time I was there.

Not too long after I arrived we all started getting ready to head out for an afternoon and evening at Rivinia. If you don't know, Rivinia is a huge outdoor amphitheatre and space where concerts are held all summer long. It is right next to/in the Chicago Botanical Gardens. Everyone that goes to these concerts packs up food, drinks, tables (fun fact, most of the people had the same Rivinia table from Crate and Barrel, the table was named for the place!) chairs and blankets. The gates opened at 5pm and by the time we got in at 5:30 we could hardly find a place to set our camp up. And it was HOT and sunny and we didn't find a spot under a tree. But it wasn't actually as bad out as I thought it would be. It was fun just to sit and people watch and catch up with everyone. We had an excellent assortment of food, Dana brought cheese and crackers, and brownies. we also had taco dip, hummus and veggies, turkey and cheese wraps, Popeyes chicken, corn and mashed potatoes and lots of wine and beer.

Paul, Dana and Holly trying to beat the heat!

Sting started promptly at 7:30 and sounded great. He was playing with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and while we couldn't see him (seriously, this place is huge!) the sound was great since we were close to speakers. The sun had also started to set, so we could enjoy being outside a little more.

We didn't have a problem leaving Rivinia and traffic was light.

Monday morning Dana went in late to work so she would walk me to the train. We had a pretty relaxed morning having breakfast and me getting packed up.

My flight home was also uneventful. We left on time and I arrived into Knoxville a few minutes early! Nina was wonderful and picked me up from the airport since Dave was at a golf tournament in Nashville. It was great to see Dylan when I picked him up from daycare on Monday, I had certainly missed him!

Chicago Part 1

Luckily I had an uneventful flight from Knoxville to Chicago. Sarah picked me up at O'Hare. It was great to see her after way too long. Our friend Beth works very close to O'Hare, so we stopped by to see her before we went to lunch. I haven't seen Beth in even longer than I'd seen Sarah, so just a few minutes of saying hi was nice (even if it was at a funeral home...).

After visiting with Beth for a little bit Sarah and I headed back to her neighborhood (Lincoln Square) to have lunch and catch up. Lunch was excellent, we both had salads and a glass of wine and caught up on friends and family gossip. We headed off to do some shopping after lunch at all of the cute stores and galleries in the area. Our first stop was a general store that has unique cards and gifts. I found a few birthday cards and a "Goodnight Chicago" book for Dylan. We also hit up a few clothing stores (a teal sleeveless shirt and over sized ring for me!) and a gallery that features Chicago artists (where a "Midwest is Best" t-shirt may also have been purchased).

When we finished shopping we headed back to Sarah's apartment to wrap presents for Allison's baby shower on Saturday and get ready for dinner.


Dinner was at a very cute place a short cab ride from Sarah's, Magnolia Cafe. They have an excellent menu of appetizers, drinks, salads and entrees. Unfortunately they were sold out of the beef short ribs, but we were not disappointed with the Crab Cake appetizer,
Sarah's Delmonico Steak, Au gratin potatoes,


and my braised pork shoulder with fingering potatoes.

Saturday morning had us up a little earlier than we would have liked to head to Indiana to visit our friend Sandra. After a quick trip to Starbucks we were on our way! There was a little traffic on the drive, but it didn't slow us down too much. When we got to Sandra's we started getting a few of the dishes we were having for dinner prepped, while lunch was also being made. (We are excellent multi-taskers!) Allison arrived just as we were getting ready for lunch and after a long drive from Iowa.

After a great lunch we suited up and headed out on the lake. We spent the afternoon lounging on rafts in the lake and catching up. And no, I did not leave my raft all afternoon, I had people handing me food and beer. What more can you ask for from your friends? :)

We all pitched in to get dinner ready, and we had a feast. While we were getting dinner ready Beth arrived. She had to work all day Saturday, but made the hour drive out to Indiana to hang out with us for the evening. We dined on asparagus with prosciutto and Parmesan, fingerling potato salad with green beans and bacon, chicken, pepper, tomato and mushroom kabobs, and cucumber salad. Everything was excellent. After dinner was all headed downstairs to the festively decorated basement for Allison's baby shower!

And Allison opened her gifts!
It was a great day spend with great friends!

Look for Chicago Part 2 tomorrow!

Chicago friends and family

I leave for Chicago tomorrow and can't wait! It will be great to see friends I haven't seen in a while and also my sister and her husband. We have a big weekend planned, dinner on Friday night and a show at Second City with one of my best and oldest (and by oldest I mean I've known her for over 15 years, she would certainly correct me on this since I am 7 months older than she is) friends Sarah. Saturday Sarah and I are heading to Indiana to meet up with our friend Sandra, another high school friend to go boating and catch up. Allison (yet another high school friend) will also be driving from Iowa to Indiana to meet up with us for a mini-baby shower that Sandra is throwing for her. And after work our friend Beth is also coming to Sandra's for Allison's shower (Beth is yet another high school friend).
(ASIDE, there are 8 of us that have been friends since high school and we are now living all over the country, CA, FL, TN, IL and IA, so it's rather difficult for us all to get together, but amazingly after 15 years of living in different parts of the country we are still friends!)
Sunday I am heading over to see my sister Dana and her husband Paul (and cat Charlie) in their new house in Irving Park. They moved back to the states from London last October and we did see them at Christmas, but it will be fun to see their new house and neighborhood. Sunday evening has us heading to the Sting concert at Ravinia, an outdoor concert venue in Chicago.
And Monday I fly back to K-town. I know it's going to be a whirlwind of a trip, which will be good. It will keep my mind of leaving Dylan for the first time overnight. I know his daddy will take very good care of him so I shouldn't have anything to worry about. Right?

Can't wait

I booked my flight for my trip to Chicago in July! I can't wait! I haven't been to Chicago in what seems like forever. It will be great to see Dana and Paul's new place and hang out with them. I will also be seeing my friends Sarah, Sandra and Beth, friends of mine from high school. That's right people, high school! There are 8 of us that have been friends since high school and still keep in touch. We don't get to see each other all that often since we are now living in Iowa, California, Illinois, Indiana, Florida and Tennessee, so I am super pumped to see great friends I haven't seen in a long time.

And I love Chicago. I think it's the different neighborhoods that I really like. It doesn't seem like such a big city when you spend time in the different neighborhoods. I do like strolling along Michigan Ave and shopping, but the different neighborhoods of the city have great shopping too! Sarah has lived in different neighborhoods the 8 years she's lived there so when I visit it's fun to explore her neighborhood with her and see what great shops and restaurants are close by. Dana and Paul just moved into their house in Irving Park in March and I've only seen photos and can't wait to see the house and their neighborhood.

Me, Sarah & Sandra during my last trip to Chicago in 2006. It HAS been forever!