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.

Lazy Dayz

For the first time in about three months, Tom and I made plans to not make plans on the weekend.  We had some things we were going to do around the apartment, like hang pictures and shelves and such.  The following is a list of activities that took place:

Napping

Eating

Watching TV shows

Watching movies

Reading

Laying out on the balcony

As you can see, none of that included actually doing anything, and I'm feeling so relaxed.  I'm glad we made plans to not make plans.  We should plan that more often.

Rainy Marathons

Abbie was visiting this weekend.  We just hung out and ate and watched some movies.  It was nice to see her.

On Sunday we ran a half marathon.  The run actually went really well.  We finished around 2 hours and 30 minutes.  Which is pretty good for us slow people.  Abbie and I even got matching shirts so we could be twinsies.  For those of you who have never run a long distance race, this isn't dorky.  We were one of many who dressed alike for the race. Tt shows solidarity, OK.  And since we bought our shirts at the expo (they said "Will run for wine", sweet, I know), we were not the only ones wearing the exact same outfit.  So on accident, we were quadruplets with a few others.

Sadly, since it was raining, I have no pictures of this glorious event.  Let's just talk about the rain for a minute.  It didn't just sprinkle.  It RAINED.  In face, It was a record setting day for Chicago, for the most rain, ever recorded in one day.  At least now Abbie and I can brag about how hard core we are.  

YAY!

Abbie is here!

She made it out of the hurricane.  Hopefully we will have a really nice weekend and a good run and she won't go back to tons of destruction.

Christina has family in Houston, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they're OK.  

I'll let you know how the run goes.  I'll post pictures on Sunday (if I don't fall asleep after running).

Visiting

This weekend was busy, like all of our other weekends for the past six months.  I feel like Chicagoans only have 4 months out of the year to live life, and the rest of the year we hibernate.  This way we don't rest for the summer and then sleep through the winter.  Ok, maybe just me?

Anyway, this weekend my mom came to town.  She took Tom and I to run all the errands we'd been saving up until we had a car.  So we went to Home Depot, Best Buy, Target and Jewel.  It was a solid 4.5 hours, we were tired.

Then my dad's cousin was in town with his new wife.  I call him Uncle Mike, but I'm not really sure what he technically is.  Anyway I had volunteered to have everyone over to our apartment for drinks and appetizers, so right after we got home my mom took a nap while Tom and I busied ourselves cleaning and cooking.

I turned out to be a nice night, with lots of wine.  I made a cheese plate and zucchini wrapped goat cheese and some marinated shrimp skewers.  My dad and Gay made home made ravioli with a red pepper sauce.  Yummm.  I think I gained another ten pounds this weekend :(

New apartment woes

Dear New Apartment,

I really liked you when we first moved in.  I love your hardwood floors and sweet balcony.  But, I'm afraid I'm not so happy with you these days.

You can't get your internet working correctly, which is a real pain for me.  Our phones still won't work on the Wi-Fi so we're running low on minutes.  You decided to lose power today while Tom as working from home, which is a real pain for him.  Your A/C is too strong and we have to turn it off and on to regulate the temperature.

My mom is coming to visit this weekend, and Abbie is coming next weekend, so Apartment, if you think you can, please pull your shit together so they don't hate visiting us.

Thanks for rallying.

Love,

Me

The long haul

This was a long weekend.  And what's better on a long weekend than a long haul?  We drove 12 hours to Pennsylvania with my Dad and Gay to go visit my grandparents.  The only word that comes to mind every time I think about the drive is "brutal".

Dad and Gay picked us up on Friday night around 8pm.  We took off, and Dad drove until around 9:45pm.  Tom took it until 1:30am, and then I took it until about 3:30am.  It was brutal. Especially since Tom was ditching me and falling asleep.  I was ridiculously tired on Saturday but we had to just deal since two aunts came to visit, we didn't have time to mess around with sleeping all day.

Needless to say there was heaps of food.  Like seriously heaps.  I will post some pictures of that later.

Sunday, another uncle came to visit, so there was heaps more food.  I am so fat.  I even ran 10 miles in preparation for the half marathon coming up, and I still think my jeans are tight.  My iPod said I burned 1,400 calories, but I don't think  it was enough, not nearly enough.

But on Monday, we took Tom on a tour of Lake Ariel, to show him the lake of course, and why not the local watering hole while we're at it?  This dive is straight out of a movie.  There was even a dog that acted as the bar mascot AND a guy with an eye patch.  Not like one the doctor gives you when you scratch your eye, but a pirate kind, like this:

Anyway, he finished his Yuengling before I could sneak a picture on my phone, which makes an annoyingly loud noise when it takes pictures. I need to figure out how to turn it off for covert operations like this one, I didn't want to rial up the locals.  The bar was nice and festive for 4th of July, even though it was only 2 months ago.