Summer Fun

Hello!  Hello!

What a crazy/fun summer weekend we just had.

There were birthday celebrations with tacos and STRONG margaritas.

Family before picture:

Family after picture:

🙂

There were picnics by the lake:

and hornet stung faces (my baby!)

There was lots of walking, and running, and skipping, and hopping.

Brial shower attending.

and of course… lots of eating.

That’s what summer weekends are made of.

Stormy Run

Tuesday, after a somewhat crazy work day, I had plans to hang out with friends after work.  Since I decided to hit the snooze button ten times that morning, I promised myself that I would squeeze in a run immediately after work to see how my knee was feeling.  I packed my gym bag to bring to work and brought all the necessary essentials to leave straight from the office.  Instead of heading to the gym, however, I just decided to do a quick four mile run starting right in front of my building.

I really honed in on my Tom Skilling skills trying to decide if this was a good idea or not and according to the radar, I was clear from exactly 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.  I could do it.

My run consisted of a “down and back” kind of – two miles one way and two miles back.  I ran down Jackson street until I hit the lake and then headed straight towards the Shedd Aquarium.  I ran around the aquarium and past Soldier Field until my Garmin watch read two miles and headed right on back.

The views on my run were rockin’, but the wind was real real rough (if you can’t tell by the choppy water).

Whenever I know it is going to rain or storm I feel extra pressure to run fast and on this particular run I was a little nervous that my faster pace would resurface my knee pain from the weekend.  Surprisingly it did not.  Not surprisingly at the same time as my knee really didn’t start to hurt until mile on Saturday.

I really enjoyed seeing the dark clouds rolling in from afar and pictured myself finishing just in the nick of time – which is exactly what happened.

When I got back to the office and cleaned myself up a bit I headed outside and noticed that I had literally JUST MISSED a down pour of rain.  Lucky me 🙂

… especially because I neglected to bring an umbrella to work with me.  Phew.

I met my girlfriends at their apartment in Wicker Park at 7:00 p.m., but not before picking up some much needed necessities:

– White wine

– Giant bottle of Cholula

When I walked in the door, my best friend, Katie, had delicious fish tacos waiting for me.

A night of tacos, wine, The Bachelorette and my best friends was just what the doctor ordered.

 

A Night at Wrigley Field

Good Morning!

We have been having really beautiful days here in Chicago and last night I got to enjoy one of these days outside. GASP.  Yes, outside!

As I mentioned yesterday, one of my coworkers was giving away his Cubs tickets for free and I was the lucky person who snagged them 🙂

After work, I raced home where Brian and Bailey were waiting for me with big smiles.  We decided to make dinner and eat before the game so we wouldn’t overindulge too much at the stadium.  Originally we had salmon and asparagus on the menu, but that didn’t really seem like a good base to go with our beer and alcohol consumption, so we switched to turkey tacos instead.

These hit the spot! All I did was Sautée the ground turkey with some taco seasoning and salsa and it was sooooo yummy.

With our bellies full we headed to Wrigley, which is just a 15 minute walk from my apartment.  My coworker has really good seats – aisle 17 row 9 – right behind home plate.  The sky/view was spectacular.

Before we got settled we b-lined it to the beer tent where Brian got some cold refreshing brews and I opted for the white wine.  I know, who drinks wine at a ballpark, but hear me out.  My favorite ballpark treat is a big bag of salted peanuts and when you pair that with a cold glassd of Pinot Grigio you get the salty sweet effect.  It’s heavenly.

My second favorite ballpark treat is of course the chicago hot dog (off the grill not from the concession).  I was pretty full from my tacos at home and half a bag of peanuts, but it was still really hard to resist a hot dog with all the delicious smells surrounding me.  Cheers to my willpower for the night.

Staying healthy at a ballpark is super difficult so I usually try to eat super clean the whole day leading up to the game so that I don’t go to bed at the end of the night feeling like crap.

That being said, there are definitely ‘better choice’ options that you can opt for.  For instance, choose a grilled brat with all the fixings sans bun over a giant helmet of nachos with neon orange processed cheese.  I saw a bison hot dog last night that looked mighty tasty as well as a pulled pork sandwich!  At Sheffield’s Grill inside Wrigley, the do have a gluten free bun option if you’re on that diet and there are gluten free beer options available at some of the beer tents.

Besides the food being awesome it was also a really fun night… even though the Cubs lost… surprise… surprise 😉