Random Chicago tidbits

A picture of  Tom and I at Buckingham Fountain on a bike ride last summer.

A little bit blurry picture of the sunset from our balcony

A really blurry picture of the top of the Wit when it caught on fire during construction.  As you can see my camera doesn't do that well when it's dark...

Wedding Pics

Party Weekend

There were lots of parties this weekend.

I had to go to Lena's wedding shower, and then organize Lena's bachelorette.

Then my mom threw me and Tom an engagement party.  It was really cute, and the food was really good.

Anyway Tom and I are both pooped, and are looking forward to a relaxing weekend this weekend.  Well I am anyway, Tom is going to two Bulls games and a Bears game this weekend, but I will enjoy an apartment all to myself!

The Missing Plant

So I have this dumb plant that sits on my desk.  It's a pink orchid.  It's from World Market, but I got it at Walgreens for $5 as an impulse buy while I was standing in line one day.

I've had this thing for like 3 years now, and for some reason I've kind of become attached to it. It adds a nice splash of color to my desk, and it looks real, so everyone who comes by is always asking me if they can touch it to see if it's real.

When I came in on Monday it was missing.  I didn't even notice until a few hours after I'd been sitting at my desk.  So I sent out an office email just saying, if anyone had it, that I would give a reward for returning it.  I was thinking someone probably borrowed it for some weird reason, who knows, and forgot to give it back.

Turns out, the cleaning person on the weekends had accidentally knocked it over and broke the base.  When I found out what happened, I told Carlos (our maintenance man), not to worry about it, it was no big deal, I would get another.  Well Carlos said, the cleaning person felt really badly about it and was making me a new base for the my plant, and he just needed to paint it and then he would bring it back!  I couldn't believe it.  I felt so bad, that poor guy was probably really worried, and went through all that trouble to make a new base for my stupid $5 plant.

Well it looks great now, and it's probably worth more than $5, since it has a hand crafted pot!  I will have to make him some baked goods to thank him.

Barack the vote!

I went to the Obama rally last night.  It was incredible.  There were thousand and thousands of people.  SO amazing. Even leaving was so strange because Michigan Ave, and all the big roads east of that were entirely closed to traffic.  There were just throngs and throngs of people strolling down the middle of the street.

Madness

Ok, I haven't blogged in forever...not that anyone reads this thing anyway.

The reason we haven't blogged in forever is because we haven't been doing much, except the usual stuff.

But this weekend changed that up.  I feel like I have wedding fever.  It's all I can think about now, and I feel like my list of to do's just grew ten fold.  Here's what our schedule was like for Saturday.

9am Meet the band

10am Meet the wedding planner

11am See the ballroom

12pm Meet one baker

1pm Meet the other baker

2:30 Meet the florist

Afterwards we went shopping and then straight out to dinner.  It was a CRAZY day.

Some highlights are, the room we have isn't hideous.  I really like our baker, and I think she's going to do something really amazing with the cake.  And the florist is SUPER nice, and she's got some great ideas, and really understands what I want.  So the good news is that while I don't love the ballroom, it's plain, and all of the other elements will be really nice so I think that will set the mood.  Fingers crossed anyway.

PS Another highlight, is that we went to dinner a place that had "chicken lips" on the menu.

Feasting

This weekend Tom and I took a trip to the burbs.  Us going to the burbs always results in a feast.  There are always a few rather large meals.  So I always come back about ten pounds heavier.  It's almost like we went on vacation, but not.

This weekend was no different, and we ate heaps.  We started out in Chinatown on Saturday morning and ate our fair share of dim sum, 13 plates, but only 4 people.  Then on to Chili's for dinner with another couple, Ryan and Cherry.  I tried to go light on this meal because I knew the Sunday had a lot of food in store, so I only got the chicken tacos, and only ate two.

Sunday after 3 hours of tennis in the morning, we went to Yu's.  I had never been before but as long as I've known Tom he's talked about the Yu's Hot Noodle Soup.  So I finally had said soup, and it was amazing.  I've been dreaming of it ever since.  It has homemade noodles and the perfect spicy, but not too spicy broth, and some seafood and pork and some vegetables, YUM!  I just had lunch, but I still feel like I could eat one of the gigantic bowls of Yu's soup.

Then for dinner, we went to Bob Chinn's. Apparently it's one of highest grossing restaurants i the country, but they only have one location.  It's ridiculously large, and it was REALLY busy.  We all had the surf and turf.  I only ate the lobster and brought the steak home for another meal.  I think Tom and I will be able to live off the food we ate on the weekend until the next trip to the burbs.