Cubs game

Last night, I went with Erin, John and Carolina to watch the Cubs game from a rooftop. It was great game... almost a no-hitter! And the Blackhawks made an appearance with the Stanley Cup!

The Blackhawks threw out the first pitch


The Sox and Cubs take the field, too


Cubs, Sox and Blackhawks all together!

National anthem... I love that the Stanley Cup is on home plate!


Leaving the field


Letting the fans touch the Stanley Cup


John, Carolina, me and Erin


On the rooftop next to us, it looked like they were filming some sort of reality show. There were two women being followed around by a camera crew. Everyone on our rooftop decided it must be a Real Housewives type show... hmmmm... is there going to be a Real Housewives of Chicago?!?

Yay for Friday!

Another busy week gone by... and I'm looking forward to this weekend and some down time. I have the house to myself, because Matt is in the Big Easy (aka New Orleans) for a bachelor party. They left on the train last night and arrived there today about 3pm. I heard rumors they drank the train out of Miller Lite at one point. Congrats, boys. : )

While Matt was busy downing beer on the train, I was catching up with a colleague from the Netherlands (Carolina) who is visiting for a few days. Some of us that worked over in the NL with her met up for dinner last night at La Madia. We're all planning to go to a rooftop for the Cubs v. Sox game on Sunday night.

Today was the big parade downtown to celebrate the Stanley Cup championship. I had thought about going, but ended up having to go to a meeting instead. We could see the parade route from our building. The parade was running late and I had to bail for the meeting before it made it's way through.

This is all I got to see... sorry folks!

Go Hawks

Lots of buildings are showing their support - here's the one across the street from us!

Showered!

On Saturday, Erin, Ross and I headed to Cedar Rapids, Iowa for a bridal shower the Wilken family was throwing Erin. The drive was pretty crappy - so.much.rain! Luckily, we made it there in time for the shower.

Beautiful flowers!


Erin got a lot of nice gifts!


So many good desserts!


The shower was a lot of fun. We played a few games - one where you had to guess the kitchen utensil through a sealed paper bag, much harder than I thought it would be!

After the shower, we met up with the best man and his wife to go bowling. I bowled much better than my poor effort from last week. : )

We drove back Sunday and stopped off at the outlet mall in Naperville. Huge sale at the Coach store... of course, I had to get a new purse! It was so crowded, there was a line to get into the store; it was one-in one-out. Crazy!

PAWS

Last Friday afternoon, my company coordinated a community service event to volunteer at PAWS Chicago (Pets Are Worth Saving), a no-kill animal shelter. I helped out at the South Side location. We spent a lot of our time organizing the donations PAWS gets. They had a room (with no a/c... ugh) full of stuff that needed to be sorted through. It was kind of an organized mess.

The room full of donations - so much stuff!

People donate the strangest things! Huge stained underwear???


We also spent some time playing with the animals. It was hard to leave without taking one with me. I'm pretty sure Matt would have divorced me if I came home with a pet.

A few of the cuties I got to see

It was a fun day and great to help out, but it was sad to see all the homeless pets. : (

I'm tall, I get it.

I got on the elevator in my condo building this morning and this older guy in a business suit who is himself rather tall (I'm guessing 6'6") says to me "Wow, you're a tall one!" And then continues to scroll through his Blackberry, reading something. I say "yeah". What am I supposed to say? "Yep, you are too! High five, buddy!" I thought, maybe he didn't realize he said that out loud. : )

Then, when I got on the bus, I got a lot of up-and-down stares. I did the standard checks... pants, shoes, shirt... yep, I was wearing them... zipper... yep, it was up. Maybe this happens every day and I just realized it today, because that guy made the comment in the elevator, I don't know. But, it was definitely strange.

Maybe I just look exceptionally tall today.

Another week flies by!

Wow... it's already Friday again! I love short work weeks! : )

Last weekend was busy, but a lot of fun!

On Friday night, we had a few drinks at Boston Blackie's patio with coworkers and enjoyed the nice weather. On Saturday, we cleaned the condo (where does all the dust come from?!?) and met up for drinks and dinner with our neighbors (and coworkers) John and Erin. We went to Market for drinks and sat up on the rooftop in a cabana. Then we had fabulous food at Vivo afterwards. So good! John managed to score us free shots at both Market (because we got booted from our cabana for a reservation) and at Vivo (because the Blackhawks won).

On Sunday, Matt's mom and aunts arrived for their trip to Chicago. We drove out to see Matt's cousin Leigh Ann's apartment and her new dog, Duke. So cute! His mom and aunts were staying downtown at the Palmer House, so we dropped them off and headed to bowling.

Ah, the last night of bowling... I think I bowled the absolute worst three games of the entire league. Our team came in second in the league (or so I think - they don't announce those things). We would have had to sweep the other team to be in first and with the night I had, there was no way.

On Monday, we had a little bbq at our place. We had make-your-own kebabs and used our new kebab baskets we got as a wedding gift. Those things worked great!

Matt's mom showing us how it's done


On the grill


The party was BYOB... and if you are a 1 year old like Samantha, that second B means bottle! : )


On Tuesday night, Matt and I met up with his mom, aunts, cousin and cousin's BF for dinner at the Italian Village and to see Billy Elliot. I loved that show! The boy who played Billy was amazing!

Last night, Matt and I went to dinner at Marche`. Apparently, it is closing soon, which is a bummer. We had never been, but wanted to go for the longest time. The food was really good! I had a pear and brie appetizer and the lamb with whipped potatoes for dinner. Matt had escargot for an appetizer and the whitefish for dinner. We split profiteroles for dessert. Yum! Too bad we didn't go sooner!

I was pretending we were at Medieval Times!


Now, it's Friday! Another busy weekend is just around the corner!