Tall Ships, Hot Day

My parents drove up to Chicago for a quick visit this past weekend. While Matt and I were out in the burbs Saturday night, they went to the Sox game. On Sunday, we ventured over to Navy Pier for the last day of the Tall Ships festival. Besides being about 1,000 degrees outside and packed with a bazillion people, it was a lot of fun. It was pretty cool to get to walk around on the boats.

Matt, Ross, Dad and Brett

Tall Ships and the Chicago skyline

We waited in line a LONG time, so we were having a little fun!

Bros-in-law

Family pic in front of The Bounty

Matt and me in front of The Bounty

Erin and Mom on The Bounty

Brett, Dad, Ross, Erin and Matt

Erin, Dad and me

More pics from the day are here (password is mattstacia).

Afterwards, we walked over to D4 to get some a/c and away from all the crowds of people. We downed large quantities of water and beer and cooled off. Then my parents headed back to Rochester.

Matt grilled out steaks, corn on the cob and sweet potatoes for dinner. Yum! And I crashed around 9:30pm!

20 Key Limes

That's how many little key limes I squeezed by hand on Saturday morning to get about 3/4 cup of key lime juice for this pie. And no, we do not have a lime squeezer or garlic press or anything that would have made the process easier. That's on the list to get. I probably could have run to the store, bought a lime squeezer and had the juice all squeezed in the time it took me to do it by hand. Oh well.

This was my first attempt at a key lime pie and I think it turned out pretty tasty. We went for dinner at a co-worker's house in the burbs and one of the other people going requested key lime pie for dessert (kind of just joking). So, I decided to give it a try. It was a big hit with him; he even took the leftovers home!

The dinner was fun, too. They grilled out pork loin and we had red-skin potatoes and grilled veggies... and LOTS of wine. All very good!

Sushi

On Friday night, we all checked out a new BYOB sushi restaurant, Nano Sushi. The waitress from Erin and Ross' favorite sushi joint (restaurant = Agami, waitress = Linda) opened this place not that long ago. It's right across the street from Celtic Crown on Western. We loved the sushi and Linda - she's like the cutest little thing!

Heat Wave - comes to the table on fire

TGIF

So glad it's Friday! I'm looking forward to the weekend... fun dinners planned with friends, my parents are visiting, the weather looks awesome, Taste of Greece is going on in my 'hood... bring it on! : )

An update on the "move"... Matt and I found out our seating arrangements at the new office. We will be on different floors now (somewhere Matt is smiling about this). Since our new office building has a lot more offices than our current one, a lot of people are getting upgraded from cubicles to offices. That includes both of us! : ) Of course, some of the people moving from that building to the one we're in now are going to be really unhappy. They will be getting demoted.

Having an office will be nice for the privacy factor, but it will be harder to just yell over at someone and ask them a question or have a quick conversation. I'm sure I'll manage just fine! : )

Cooking with Beer

Last night, a group of us went to Bespoke for another cooking class... this time it was "Cooking With Beer".

Menu for the night:
Appetizers: Beer dip with housemade chips AND Grilled ostrich skewers with beer-horseradish dip
Salad: Mixed greens with pears, walnuts and goat cheese dressed in wheat-beer vinaigrette
Entrée/Sides: Beer-brined pork chops with smokey baked beans and fennel-leek mashed potatoes
Dessert: Chocolate stout cakes

We broke up into groups and each cooked a different part of the meal with one of the chefs. John and Erin D. were on the beer dip team. Jeff, Ross, Brett and Brian were on the ostrich skewer team. Matt and Keely were on the entree team. Erin C. and I were on the dessert team.

Then at the end, the chefs served the meal to us in the dining room. We always have a lot of fun at these cooking parties! I think the amount of wine/beer consumed helps! : )

Of course, I had my camera...

Erin stirring away at the beer dip

Brian, Ross and Brett mixing up the ostrich meat

Matt and Keely seasoning the pork

Crazy eyes! Do we really want this guy cooking our food?!?!

Erin and I making the glaze for the chocolate cake

Self picture - Take 1

Self picture - Take 2 - Much better!

Group photo

I am an idiot

I left the office for about 20 minutes today to run an errand. When I got back, I could not log back into my computer. I could NOT get my password right! It's very similar to the passwords I use for Gmail and Yahoo mail and I kept trying different variations. I ended up locking myself out of my computer! Ugh!

About 15 minutes later and after a conversation with our help desk in Mumbai, I am back on.

And of course, 30 seconds after that, I remembered my password.

Matt and I are moving... offices!

At the beginning of this year, the company Matt and I work for merged with another company. Both companies are about the same size and both have locations in Chicago. We've been hearing rumors for a while about what they were going to do about relocating employees, but it was officially announced a week ago. The group Matt and I work in (Retirement Consulting) is moving to the other company's office building and other groups are moving over to the space we're currently in. And it's happening pretty quickly... Sept 24th! Our new office building is about a block farther of a commute, which isn't bad. We still live about a mile from work, which I love!

Now, the big question is... where will we sit in the new office??? Right now, Matt and I sit about 10 feet apart on opposite sides of a cubicle wall. I think Matt is ready to be a little bit farther away from me. : ) It would be nice to have conversations on the phone about him without him being able to overhear me! jk

We are supposed to find out the new seating arrangements this week.