Sweet Home Chicago.

So, Labor Day weekend, Brian and I headed to Chicago for a whirlwind weekend full of fun, friends, cubs, wine and beer. We arrive late Wednesday night, so we just went back to my parent's house and to bed. Both Thursday and Friday we were working, so we spent the days on our laptops and hit up the town in the evening. Thursday night, we met up with Jen, Mike, and Todd at Lou Malnati's for some Chicago pizza and beer. We even went totally Chicago and had Goose Island Beer. It was so nice to catch up with them at dinner AND eat some good pizza. After dinner, we headed over to the 10th Hole Pub for some beers. A trip to Bolingbrook just isn't complete without hitting up the 10th Hole Pub. Amazingly there was no one there that I knew- Hurray!

Friday evening, my parents had a wine tasting at this place called WineStyles in Darien. I highly suggest going there. It's a very cute little wine store and you can try our wines by either getting a tasting of a particular one, or a full glass while hanging out at the store. In the back of the store, they have a private room, where we were, and we tried out 6 different wines while dining on the tasty treats my mom had prepared. All of the wines were very yummy and it was nice to get to see some of my parent's friends and have a somewhat more relaxing evening. After the tasting, we headed back to my parent's house where the girls stayed in and played The Price is Right DVD game and the boys hung out on the patio by the fire while smoking cigars.

Saturday was our true Chicago tourist day. Brian and I headed downtown via Metra (the train) and arrived at Union Station around 10:30am. We started walking towards Michigan Avenue, taking in all of the sites (and smells- I forgot how bad Chicago can smell) and grabbing a quick bite to eat at a bakery. We walked up Michigan Avenue to the River and began our day of waiting in lines as we got in our first line of the day; to get our tickets for the Architecture River Tour. I think we waited in line for about an hour. Thankfully there were still tickets left by the time we finally got to the window. We received our tickets for our tour that would be mid-afternoon and headed out of that chaotic area. Picture a gazillion tourists speaking multiple languages and a very loud lady directly people around to multiple lines, then some more tourists wandering around aimlessly, then more coming in every 2 minutes or so equally confused...

Anyways, we headed over the river and had lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern which was totally fun and, I felt, totally Chicago. My double cheezborger was great and the atmosphere was just as tasty. After our lunch, we headed back to the docking area for the tour boats, as I was determined to be nearly first in line to get a primo seat on the boat, and plus, I felt like we should wait in another line for a good length of time. So, we waited in this line for about a half hour, and finally got to board the boat. We got the exact seats we wanted (well, except the old lady that pre-boarded took our first choice) and settled in for a educational boat ride along the river on a truly beautiful, sunny day in Chicago. The tour lasted about and hour and a half and covered all of the architecture along the river and then some. Pretty much if you could see the building from the boat, we learned a little something about it. I really liked the tour and it was a great way to show Brian a lot of the city without having to walk all over creation!

After arriving back at the dock, we walked over to Navy Pier for a little jaunt out to the end of the pier to check out the skyline. The Pier was packed. Well, I should say all of Chicago was packed. I think with it being Labor Day weekend, it was a big tourist weekend to visit Chicago, plus it's pretty busy any summer weekend in Chicago. Oh, and the Jazz Festival was going on as well. Anyways, we checked out Navy Pier and we figured we'd take the free trolley back to Michigan Avenue and hop on another trolley to Union Station. It all seemed like a great idea. As we were walking over to the trolley stop, one trolley was leaving and with them running every 20 minutes, we figured, not a big deal to wait for the next one. 20 minutes pass... 30 minutes pass... 40 minutes pass.... 45 minutes- Finally! A trolley arrives. One may wonder why we decided to wait all that time for the stinking trolley and not just get in a cab. Well, I figured after 20 minutes, it'd be coming any minute now and well, after 30 minutes, I was just going to give up. I do have to admit, after the 40 minute mark, I was very tempted to just grab the next cab that came by, but I just knew that the second I got out of line, the trolley would pull in behind that cab. So, we finally board the trolley, packed to the brim, and began our short journey over to Michigan Avenue. We get off and then get in ANOTHER line for the connecting trolley that goes over to Union Station. I don't even know how long we were in this line, I stopped keeping track after the Navy Pier trolley stop experience. The trolley stops and it's pretty packed. We're like 4th in line and they cut us off before we could board. I pleaded with the driver and we were able to get on. Woo hoo! All in all, it took about 2 hours for our little journey from Navy Pier to Union Station. We got off at the Union Station stop and headed over 90/94 to Greektown where we met up with Jen, Cheryl, and Jen's parents for a lovely dinner at the Parthenon. YUMMY!

After dinner, Jen drove us back to the Brook and home, but not before the obligatory beer at BWW. I HAD to take Brian to the BWW in Bolingbrook so he could learn how truly lucky he is that our Arvada BWW is THAT cool.

Sunday, we went to Wrigley for a Cubs game during the day with my parents and in the evening we went over to Colleen and Dahx's for dinner.

On Monday, we drove out to Lily Lake where my parents are building a new house to see the lot and to see how far they have come along on the house. It's amazing how quickly the house is being built and it really neat to see it in progress. After visiting the house, we headed back to Bolingbrook and then to the airport for our flight home. I'm tired and I have been working on this blog for far too long, so I'm going to publish it and not look back... In other words if there are typos, don't give me crap for it!!

I'll never look at a squirrel the same way.

So, the other day, I'm at Brian's house and was leaving for some reason or another and went out through the garage. Or I should say, tried to exit via the garage door. I walked into the garage and heard screeching and scratching noises and saw a very frantic squirrel climbing the inside of the garage door in what looked like an attempt to get out or maybe to look at the outside world through the little windows. I proceeded to scream, run back into the house, and shake. Okay, I didn't shake but it DID scare the crap out of me. So, after a conference with Brian, we decided the best thing would be to go outside and open the garage from the opener in the driveway and hope he leaves. So, I bravely go out to my car, click the opener, and eagerly awaited the squirrel to come running out. No such luck. The little thing ran somewhere, but where??? I could still hear him in the garage making squirrelly noises. After a sufficient amount of time had passes, I got out of the safety of my car and started walking into the garage and Mr. Squirrel had crawled up into the rafters and was screeching and looking back at me. Freak Out. Although apparently not wanting to be in the garage, he neglected to leave when the door opened. I left, came back an hour or so later and look in, and he's still there! WTF. So, anyways... Long story short, after leaving the door open for many hours, and finally not hearing squirrelly noises in the garage anymore, we are cautiously assuming that he has finally gone. But, seriously, I'll never look at a squirrel the same way again.