My Tour of the Midwest: Chicago & Michigan Edition

This past weekend was spent with one of my nearest and dearest friends! She is pregnant and due in July and her family and friends hosted a baby shower for her that I would not have missed for the world. Since I was flying out for the shower we decided to make the most out of the weekend and spend the night and a day sight seeing in Chicago. I know, what a trooper she is playing hostess and tour guide while growing a human in her belly!

I have a book: 1000 Things to See Before You Die and checked it out before heading to Chicago. There were a few sites that we planned to visit before heading to Michigan for the night then off to Indiana. Yes: 3 States. 3 Days. Amazing.

I flew into Chicago on Thursday night and we proceeded to stay up way to late catching up and chatting. We woke up, started the day with a delicious/hearty/filling breakfast at Yolk.

After breakfast we headed back to the hotel to check out and noticed a poster on the wall stating the the hotel offered discounted tickets to some of the City attractions. We asked the front desk if they offered any discounts to tour Willis Tower, formerly known as Sears Tower. We got tickets for 11 bucks! Awesome! This made that attraction even better! We walked from the hotel to the tower, and since it was a Friday the lines were short and quick and it wasn't too too crowded.


After Willis Tower, we headed over to Grant Park and Millennium Park. On our way we, of course stopped in for some Garrett's Popcorn: Chicago Mix (note: if you ever get this, ask for more cheese and less caramel - trust me).


Also, in my version of 1000 Things to See Before You Die is the Chicago Blues Festival, which happened to be the same weekend I was visiting! Awesome! So we walked through and listened to some blues music before heading over to Millennium Park. We sat and ate our popcorn and enjoyed the beyond beautiful day!


Next stop, of course, was the bean. We had a mini photo shoot...Lindsay's Bean with the Chicago Bean :-)


We then walked by the Crown Fountain to see the changing facade. It was pretty interesting.


We couldn't have visiting Chicago without some deep dish pizza, and of course, I love pizza, so that was an attraction not to be missed. We decided to get it 1/2 baked and take it home to Michigan to enjoy with Lindsay's Husband.

By the end of the day we were absolutely exhausted. We stayed up too late the night before and had been walking around and in the sun all day. We headed back to Michigan, popped out pizza in the oven to finish baking and then drove to see the sun finally setting over Lake Michigan. What a beautiful site to see.



Saturday and Sunday were spent in Indiana, with family and friends for the Baby Shower!

Time for Birthdays

Today is my oldest little brother's and my sweet mother-in-law’s birthday!

Happy birthday you crazy kids! Love you both, always and can’t wait to celebrate in spirit and in person!

Santa Monica Sunsets

are truly spectacular.

Book Review: Half of a Yellow Sun

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Let me start out by saying that I love to read. I love novels. I love fiction and nonfiction. Rich had to read this book for one of his classes and when he was finished he recommended that I read it. 

The book takes place in the 1960s and is written from 3 different character perspectives: Ugwu - a houseboy, Olanna - the significant other of a political figure/professor & Richard - a British writer. The novel portrays each of their lives and how they interconnect during the Nigerian-Biafran War and definitely keeps the pages turning.

The Beer Formerly Known as La Tache

Check out my earlier post about the Beer here.

After contacting the brewer and getting the history behind the name of the beer, I just had to have (a) a bottle and (b) a taste! I was finally able to get my hands on a bottle, well 2, and enjoyed it this weekend with my husband!

I contacted the brew master and he gave me the run down of the name and has a.ok’d me to share the story here!

“The story with my beer goes back to 1996 when I was in fermentation school in Davis, CA.  I made a number of friends, and many ended up in the wine industry.  One of my friends ended up getting a little dog that he called 'Tache' and all I knew at that time was that the dog had a spot on its back and that 'tache' meant 'spot'.  So cute, I thought.  Anyway, I name my barrels as opposed to giving them numbers.  2 years ago or so, I got a barrel with a giant spot on it and called it 'La Tache'.  The beer that came out of that barrel was magnificent, so I named the beer 'La Tache' as well, thinking about how clever I was to remember such a trivial piece of info from years ago.  Anyway, when my friend (who had the dog) found out, he emailed me and told me to be careful, that 'La Tache' is a trademarked name of the DRC.  So then I found out about the wine...

Since my brewery is super small and super exclusive and super American, I decided that instead of changing the name altogether, I'd add 'The Beer Formerly Known As' in front of it.  It's kind of a tongue in cheek reference to Prince, (...)”

So that is the story behind TBFKA La Tache. Thanks for sharing, and allowing me to share your story! I love it and I love retelling it! 

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the beer. It’s very light, refreshing and very bubbly! The beer is actually corked, so we needed a wine opener to get the cork out. Be careful, Rich wasn't expecting it to be as bubbly, so when he opened it he almost poked his eye out! If you are ever in Oregon, keep your eye out for a bottle and make sure to pick one up to enjoy!

So freakin' cool!!

And definitely more affordable than the wine..ha!

Reunited & It Feels So Good!

You know when life gets strangely busy and you can't find time to get together with the people who are most important? Well this has happened to both my cousin and I and we were finally able to take almost an entire day to catch up and reunite.

 

We calculated that we haven't seen each other in almost 10 years...that's an insanely long time! How does 10 years go by so quickly and without any warning? Location definitely has something to do with that..

 

Anyway, we met at The Federal Bar in North Hollywood for brunch and bottomless mimosas. We both got the Short Rib Eggs Benedict (eggs benedict is my absolute favorite breakfast item and I will order it whenever it's on the menu) The Federal Bar far exceeded my expectations! I have been having some not-so-great experiences with groupon deals - the places are dirty, the food is terrible, the service is not acceptable - so when we had exceptional service and the food was great, I was very happy with the living social purchase!

 

We sat and chatted over mimosas for almost 4 hours before we decided to make our way back to West LA, then on to dinner and a UCLA campus tour.

 

 

 

 

We had such a great afternoon and I am so glad we were finally able to reconnect! Lets not let 10 years go by before our next lunch date!

 

xoxo, Love Her!

linking up 

Happy June!!

Happy Happy June!!

I hope June is a month of reminiscing about past times and looking forward to future times!

Day 31: Anniversary Celebrations

In keeping with this blogger challenge, which I have done thus far, and with our anniversary week in full swing, I thought I would share the vivid memory of our 2nd Anniversary celebration, that was on Wednesday.

Rich and I have been married 2 whole years, as of last Wednesday! What a bummer treat that our anniversary landed smack in the middle of the week, and a short one at that!

We are celebrating our anniversary this summer with a fun trip to Peru (we are so excited!) but the day before and the day of, May 29th, we celebrated with friends, drinks, some cake from our wedding day (not our cake, cake we gave to the guests, but we figured we would try something else this year), work and school for myself and Rich, and a sushi dinner date.

Tuesday night, we went out for drinks for a friends birthday. We went to the Bungalows in Santa Monica and enjoyed good company, fun ambiance and tasty drinks.

On Wednesday, I woke up to many love and sweet notes. I had breakfast, went to work, and came home to beautiful roses. We went for a walk around the neighborhood and then headed to Sugarfish in Santa Monica for dinner. This place has been recommended to us for a while, so we finally decided to try it out. We got there around 7:30 and the wait for 45 minutes. We were starving and a little cranky and were glad to be seated when we were! We looked over the menu for 1.5 seconds and ordered beer and sake (cold, first time drinking it cold), the Trust Me plate and 2 other rolls to share. O.M.G. The sushi was so fresh and delicious. Totally worth the wait!

We headed home and ate some deliciously decadent cake and watched an episode or 2 of Frasier. :-)

The perfect way to bring on our 3rd year of marriage!

Cheers to one hundred more years of happiness!

--- Challenge: A Vivid Memory