I'll try to make this as short and sweet as possible. We'll see how successful that is.
Tuesday before Christmas
We arrived in Chicago at about 8am, and were immediately hit with a few inches of snow. It was fun! When we left DC, the temperature had been fluctuating between upper-60's and mid to low-40's, so the cold and the snow helped to remind us that it is indeed winter. After picking up the rental car and heading home (Oswego, IL) to freshen up, we headed back towards Chicago to meet up with Jessie and Joci, and Jeremy's friend Nikki and her husband Corey. We drove around the city for a while, hopelessly looking for somewhere that was still serving brunch. At 3pm. On a Thursday. Not only did we not find anywhere for brunch, but we also did not find a single restaurant that was open for lunch. Seriously?! Finally we gave up and just headed to Starbucks for snack, and then it was off to get creative and paint some pottery. Yep - 5 adults decided the best way for us to spend our afternoon was painting pottery. As lame as that sounds, it was actually a lot of fun - we brought a couple bottles of wine and spent a few hours getting our creative juices flowing. Afterwards, we headed to Cafe Ba Ba Reeba for tapas and sangria, where I once again enjoyed a dish of grilled octopus (not calamari, octopus). Delicioso!
Ha! Look how miserably I failed at keeping it "short and sweet"!
Christmas Eve
Nothing. Jeremy and I ate lunch at Portillo's, went home to digest and finished wrapping gifts.
Christmas
Everyone woke up early to open gifts. Ok, maybe not that early, more like 9am. We all got spoiled rotten - THANK YOU!! It was completely unnecessary, but still very much appreciated. After gifts, we all got ready and headed to Jeremy's Uncle Jeff and Leny's house in Chicago for Christmas dinner. The food was wonderful, and it was great to catch up with all Jeremy's extended family who we hadn't seen in 2 years.
Friday after Christmas
Jeremy and I went to see Blue Man Group, which Jeremy had been trying to get me to see since we started dating. The premise of the show is based on how outsiders (in this case, blue aliens) might view and try to understand humans. I don't know...it's kind of weird. Jeremy had insisted that we sit up close in the "poncho" section - the first 4 rows of the theater, where everyone is given a plastic poncho to wear. I was a little apprehensive, but Jeremy insisted that the front rows were the best place to sit. All was well, until about halfway through the show when (CAUTION: Spoilers ahead!!) they shot some stinky goop out into the audience. Wow...gee thanks, boys. We didn't get too much of the goopy crap on us, but it was enough to gross me out and make me just wish the show was over. Anywho, goopy stuff aside, the show was ok. Definitely not my favorite, but entertaining nonetheless.
After Blue Man Group, we headed to Quartino where we were meeting up with the fam and Nikki and Corey for dinner. The food was wonderful, and we all got stinking drunk on chianti and some sweet-like-syrup orange after-dinner liqueur. Afterwards, Jeremy, Jessie, Nikki, Corey and I all headed over to Pop's for Champagne for more drinks (like we really needed it). After 2 bottles of champagne (at least I think it was two), we decided to head over to the Redhead Piano Bar for MORE drinks. Alas, I was deemed too intoxicated to get in (although I vehemently believe that my stumbling was a direct result of wearing 3.5 inch heels and trying to walk down an icey and snowy path), which one would think might deter us from continuing on, but instead we simply walked across the street to yet another bar. We sat down, complaining about the Redhead and their strict door policies, when the the guy sitting next to us chimed in with "Oh, I own that place!". What?! The owner of the bar we had just been rejected from was sitting next to us. His reason for not spending time at his own bar - he wasn't dressed according to their dress code. Ha! We had one drink there (at least I think it was only one), then decided to call it a night. I woke up at 7am the next morning, still wearing my clothes. It was a fun night.
Saturday
We had a slooooow day, being that we were all nursing hangovers. Then it was off to Jeremy's favorite Chicago-style pizza place, Lou Malnati's for dinner.
Sunday
Up at 5am to fly home. We had an exhausting but awesome time! Yay Chicago!
New Year's Eve
Nothing. Seriously, nothing. I made a dinner of sirloin steak, panko crusted crabcakes with roasted red pepper aioli, twice-baked potatoes and green beans tossed with chives and stone ground mustard. It was delicious. We drank a bottle of wine, and were sound asleep by 11pm. I woke up at 12:30 to the Pussycat Dolls performing at the New Years special on TV.
Yeap, we're just that cool.
And that's it. We're both back to the daily grind, laying low after a busy year and hopeful that 2009 will be as awesome as everyone wants it to be.
 |
| Christmas 2008 |
No comments:
Post a Comment