Boys Visit + Pictures

We had a great time when Ben and Andy were here this past week. It's always fun for us to have visitors, we get to do fun Chicago things and just go out and have a good time and relax. Having our new "guest room" all set up was nice too, it was nice to have 2 spots for them to sleep and not have to put the big blow-up mattress on the floor in living room. While they were here it was SUPER hot here...pretty much around 90+ each day with lots of humidity. Our place was a little hot, even with the two window AC units on full blast every day. :-/
Here's what we did while they were here...
Sunday, Andy arrived and we got dinner in Lincoln Square at Garcia's, a nice little Mexican restaurant. After we got home and settled in, the 4th of July mayhem began. Much to Chloe's dismay, the fireworks were just as loud this year as they are every other year. This was the first year Joe and I left the house during "firework time" on the 4th. Andy and I went out and walked around at Winnemac Park (the large park that's directly across the street from us). I was surprised at how many people were in the park. There were hundreds of people set up all around the park in chairs and blankets watching multiple groups of fireworks being set off all around the park. People were lighting off HUGE loud ones that almost looked like professional firework shows. It was fun to finally see what we usually only hear from the inside of our apartment!
Monday, Joe, Andy, and I went to the lake/beach because it was super hot and sunny out (not raining like was expected). We got there early enough that we found a good spot and it wasn't too crowded. We went to Montrose Beach, which up north near us, and very nice. The sand was hot and the water was ice cold, but it felt good after we got used to it. Unfortunately, near the lake it was super windy and the sand was pelting us in the face and burying our towels within a minute of putting them down on the sand. We all took a dip and soaked up a little sun before deciding to leave because we had sand EVERYWHERE. We even had it in our mouths...icky! On the way home we grabbed lunch at Potbelly.
Later that night we picked up Ben from the airport and on the way home we hit up a neighborhood bar near our apartment. We had some drinks and wings and chatted. For some reason they didn't even card Andy (who is only 19) so he got to have a couple drinks with us and act like an adult for the evening...ha ha.  I had one too many vodka-cranberries because I was pretty dizzy when we got home. ugh...We all called it a night.
Tuesday we woke up surprisingly early, and walked down to eat at Over Easy, our favorite little brunch place only a block away from our apartment. Unfortunately they were closed. So we hopped in the car and headed to Ann Sather's...a Chicago tradition. After too many eggs and cinnamon rolls, we headed home, stuffed for the day. Later we went to Navy Pier to see the Imax movie "Hubble 3D", about the Hubble telescope. The boys liked it, I was really tired and dozed off like I usually do in Imax movies. :-)  Check out us in our 3d glasses in my pics. Afterwards we rode the big Navy Pier Ferris wheel and took in the great views of the city. Its always nice, but not sure it's worth the $6 price tag.  Afterwards we headed to dinner at our favorite Barbecue place all the way on the other side of the city, Smoque BBQ. The boys loved it!
Wednesday was Ben's 22nd Birthday! We went to watch the Germany vs. Spain World Cup match at Bowman's bar in Lincoln Square. We sat at the table with some guy and his little son because the place was packed. I ended up entertaining the kid the whole time, making fans and flowers out of napkins...ha ha. Anyway, Germany lost...oh well. So after that, we were off to Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder for some Pizza pot pies! Yum! Andy has been there before but Ben hadn't so he got to enjoy his first "ppp" on his birthday!  Afterwards we headed off to what was supposed to be the most fun day of the trip...a kayak tour down the Chicago river to watch the Navy Pier fireworks. The weather was turning crappy that day, storms in the area and thunder and lightening in the distance. We got there, got suited up, did the on-land paddle training and kayak rules, etc... then the owners deliberated and decided that it was too dangerous to go out because there was too many red storm cells in the area and we might run into something on our 3 hour trip. BOO. So we didn't get to go. Joe and I will have to reschedule and find some friends to join us.
So we headed home, had birthday cake and attempted to watch a movie, but we all dozed off after only a half an hour or so. All of that kayak practice made us tired! ha ha.
Thursday was time for the boys to leave. They couldn't leave Chicago without having their favorite "hot Asian buns" from Wow Bao...so we ordered lunch from there, picked it up and ate it in the car on the way to the airport. Yum...best lunch ever...and quite easy to eat in the car, I might add!

All in all we had a nice few days with the boys. It was good to have them visit, we hope they'll be back soon to finish our kayak adventure!

See the slideshow of pictures below. Click on it to view the pics larger and/or individually on Picasa.

Ben + Andy Visit

I just got to work after Joe and I dropped Ben and Andy off at the Airport. We had a fun time while they were here. The time sure went fast, but it seems like we did a lot of fun stuff. I will post pics and more about their visit when I am home and I can upload the pictures.

Boys Coming + Office Re-do!

I am very excited for Joe's brothers Ben and Andy to visit us next week!! I love having visitors! Andy arrives on Sunday night from Omaha and Ben arrives on Monday night from Las Vegas, where he is currently working with the Air Force. We have a kayak tour on the Chicago river planned for Wednesday night, which is also Ben's birthday! I am SO excited for that and I am praying that the weather is decent. It has been GORGEOUS weather all this week - and next week they are saying storms starting on Monday through Wednesday, which is when they will be here! Crap! I hope it doesn't storm all day so we can go out and do fun things, and of course, we don't want our kayak tour to be cancelled! Cross your fingers!

Joe and I decided to do a major overhaul of the office/2nd bedroom in our apartment, and of course we waited until right before the boys come to start doing it! This past weekend we got a new twin bed which will be a nice addition to our 2nd bedroom. Even though a twin is small, at least it something other than the sofa or air mattress! Then, after searching for weeks I finally found a decent twin comforter set that wasn't super expensive or super ugly - at Target no less! I love you, Target!  I was surprised at how hard it was to find a decent twin set. Everything we liked wasn't available in a twin...I guess that's because usually twin beds are for kids. ;-)  Our thought was that this mattress can be used for our future children too, and for now be a nice extra guest bed.
So I spackled the holes and cracks and taped earlier this week and yesterday we went and got paint and started painting. We got about 1/2 way done with the room and it looks SOO good!! I am loving the color - a very light gray.  They never painted our apartment in between tenants before we moved in (FOUR years ago) and so the walls were pretty dinged up. Plus, the color is your typical yellowy white...forgiving for apartment walls, but just plain ugly to me. Joe and I didn't ever want to paint our apartment because we don't own it, so it seems wasteful, and because we might have to paint it back before we move out. But having painted just half of the room now makes me wish we had painted the whole place RIGHT when we moved in! I can't tell you how much better it looks! I might have to just live in that room 24/7!
I will finish painting tomorrow and put everything back in the room and reorganize it. Then we have most of Saturday and part of Sunday to clean and get ready for the boys' arrival. YAY! So excited!
:-)

Saturday I am also doing TurboKick on stage at the Taste of Chicago with my turbokick instructor from TEAMiFIT. We are only doing half of one round of Turbokick, which is about a half and hour. Wish me luck!

Hunger Walk

This past Sunday, Joe and I walked in the Chicago Food Depository's 5k Hunger Walk. We walked to raise money for the St. Vincent dePaul Food Pantry located in our church.

Needless to say, I wasn't in a good mood on the day of the walk and things kept going wrong to frustrate me more. ha ha. First of all, I was super tired from being out/up too late the night before at the Taste of Chicago with my friend, didn't get much sleep. No sleep = crabby Mindy. I should have known better!

Also, to make my mood even better, I couldn't find the bottle of sunscreen the morning of the walk and spent the morning on a mad goose chase in the apartment to find the magic disappearing sunscreen that never turned up... I knew Joe and I would get sunburned. Arg.... Then, the "team" we were supposed to walk with decided not to wait for everyone to arrive before they started walking. They told us to be there at 9:30 and we were...we assumed we would all be walking together. We called the guy in charge when we arrived and he told us that they started early and were half way done already. What? Hmmm. Oh well, so Joe and I were on our own walking...lucky Joe getting to deal with crabby tired and hot wife. Sorry Joe! ;-)

Anyway...so aside from my crabbiness the walk was fine. It was a hot and very humid day, but we survived. We walked from Soldier Field, south along the lakefront path. We hadn't seen that part of the lakefront path before. It was really pretty and well groomed, the paths were nice and the landscaping around the path was very nice. There were cool yachts and boats in the marina which was nice to see. The best part was the awesome views of the lake as well as the city as we walked back north along the path.

After the walk I went home and took a nice long nap!  I think I overdosed on volunteering that day. I've been doing too much of that this past couple of weeks. ;-)

Here are some photos from the walk...

D4D - Garden Planting

This has been a busy couple weeks of volunteering for me! On Friday I volunteered to help plant a garden with Designs for Dignity at the Madonna House. D4D is a local organization that provides interior design services to area non-profits. With the support of manufacturers, vendors and volunteers they are able to transform environments for those in need.

I signed up to help plant from 10-2, but when I got there at 10, they had a lot done already. I still helped plant a bunch of day lilies and also helped spread mulch and clean up a bit. I ended up being done by about 12:30 or so. In total they ended up planting a bunch of perennials and several trees in the backyard and creating more of a landscaped yard which was only grass before.

The Madonna House is a place for women and children that's affiliated with catholic charities. Recently D4D redesigned the interiors for them. They created a video showing the interior project as well as a couple other projects they have done... I LOVE the video, seeing it inspired me to get involved with them. This was the first thing I have done for them, but hopefully I can do more in the future.

I am posting the video below...the music is perfect and the designs that they did are amazing because they work only with donations. Watch the video and be sure to turn your sound up! :-)