Windy City Shenanigans: Day ONE

Helllooooo! Like I promised here I am spilling the beans about what we did on our very first day in the windy city! I've decided to break it up by day and really pick and choose the best of the best pictures.

I hope you're not completely overloaded with pictures after this post!

I'll also post them sporadically so as not to totally bore you with all of the days consecutively, you're welcome. 

Here we go!! We stepped off the plane, got our luggage, and took the train to our hotel. Everything was pretty easy to maneuver around and we didn't get lost once (thanks love). It had already been agreed that the very first thing we would do in Chicago would be to eat pizza. YUM. We're both so food obsessed i'm surprised we're not 500 pounds. It's all in moderation..

We asked a couple of our friends that are from Chicago or spend tons of time there where to go first. They said this awesome place: Gino's East.

If you have never been there before it's for sure a must go if only for just the restaurant. This was actually not my favorite deep dish, that came from Uno Pizzeria, but it was still pretty tasty. No complaints from this gal. 

The restaurant had a red tinged light inside of it and I decided to just take pictures without completely annoying everyone around me, hence the weird lighting.

We ordered a supreme and here is a monstrous slice. As I was editing I realized I never bothered to take pictures of the actual pizza, d'oh! We had been up since 4:00 and this was somewhere around 1:00 PM, give me a little break. The above is from Bob's IG.

We decided that right after the pizza we HAD to do some walking. We headed towards the aquarium and as we did we realized that we wouldn't have enough time to explore before it closed for the day. The next closest thing(we thought) was the BEAN. I had been talking about that bean since before we left, Bob was more than willing to just take me and get it over with. Haha! 

It was not as close as we thought and ended up walking a good two miles. Instead of taking our time the boy decided to sprint walk. I have little legs.. I'm short... I like taking my time. I was cursing his name but we eventually made it. Along the way we saw these really cool structures that I had to snap some pictures of.

There were a couple of other ones but I was more focused on getting to our destination at this point.

We got there! Hurray!

Bob looks so upset and I'm super ecstatic. Don't let him fool you though.. he thought it was pretty cool. For some weird reason he thought it was a tiny bean. Imagine his surprise when we got there and it was this huge bean. I laughed when he told me what he thought. 

Why would I want to go see this tiny thing? He's such a weirdo and apparently lives under a rock.

It was pretty filled with people but not as many as I thought there would be, which was awesome!

Taking pictures off of the bean was super fun. I have tons more. I spared you! We look like little people. 

With all the bean excitement and the loads of walking we thought it best to find a bar and have a beer. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures of the place but it seriously had two of the oldest bar tenders I have ever seen in my life. They had some awesome stories to tell I BET! We had a few beers and decided to head back to the hotel.

By this point, we had both more than walked off our pizzas and were already thinking about dinner. More food, duh! On Bob's to do list was Kuma's corner a burger joint that was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. There was a lot of hype for the mostly metal named burgers so I couldn't wait to try one out.

We were closer to their second location, Kuma's Too, so we opted to go there instead. Same restaurant and I'm sure it was as delicious also.

The atmosphere was awesome and all the waitresses were super rad. They played metal the entire time we were there. It was just a nice place to hang out in.

This is my monstrosity of a burger. It was so darn delicious though. It's called the Absu and it had tomatillo salsa, pepperjack cheese, avocado red onion relish, queso fresco, and some fried chiles to top it off. It was an explosion of flavor in my mouth and I can't complain one bit about it.

I cannot recommend this place enough!

After dinner we headed to some random fancy-ish place for dessert. I felt super out of place there and didn't take any pictures because of it. It satisfied my sweet craving and that's all that matters.

As you can imagine we were completely spent after that. It was finally time to go back to the hotel and rest up for day two. Pffffeewww...

Hope you enjoyed day one!

With All My Love,

Pati

Ps: I noticed that when I uploaded some of the pictures on here that they look sort of grainy? Is it just on my computer? What's up with that? Grr..

Pizza Mia.

Hey gals! 

So I love to cook. Loveeeee it. It's super stress reducing and calming for me.

The best is trying out new recipes and adding them to my go-to dinners.

I also love PIZZA. Pretty sure it's the best meal ever invented in the history of meals. If you don't agree what is wrong with you?

Last week my sister and I made pizza. Completely down to the dough. It came out scrumptiously delicious.

First we started with bowls..or so I thought. It was a bowl vs. counter top controversy.

Counter top won, as you'll see by the pictures that follow, and it was a MESS.

There's liquids that go into this recipe. I could not keep them contained and ended up yelling at my sister to help me with the mess. Wish I could've gotten pictures but alas I was too busy trying to keep everything on the counter. Silly me.

I knew it was a bad idea from this very first step but whatever I had fun!

Flour on the counter.

This is after we had successfully joined all the ingredients into this amazing looking dough.

At this point I was just happy it was actually looking like dough and not a hot mess.

My mom graciously took this picture because as you can see, my hands were icky-sticky.

We wrestled up all the dough and stuck it into this super cute bowl to rest.

Into the refrigerator it went for approximately two hours. I know, the refrigerator you say? Weird. Just following the recipe. My mom and I were skeptical about it but the dough came out tasty, so no complaints.

This is what monkey was doing while I was cleaning up the floury mess. I caught him mid yawn. haha.

While we waited for the dough we made tomato sauce and onions. Noms!

After we took the dough out I let the kids make their own mini pizzas.

Pia of course HAD to go first.. this is her spreading the dough.

Her posing with the finished product. She doesn't always smile this weird. I'm pretty sure she had something in her mouth. :\

Monkey had his turn next.. but I pretty much ended up doing most of the work for him.

He doesn't have much patience. NO clue where that trait could've come from!? The apple never falls far from the tree..

My sister was the only one who could properly roll out the dough. I'm pretty sure after doing it 8 times in a row she was over it. I tried to help but just kept thinning it out too much in one area.

Needless to say she got the job back.

Pre-baked pizza.

The finished product. They're not the same pizza though. Have no clue why I didn't take a before and after of the same pie. You get the idea right? Doughy, delicious, cheesy goodness!!

Had tons of fun and spent time with the fam. 

Wouldn't have changed anything.

With all my love,

Pati

New Year

Via

So this year I'll be having a two part New Year's Eve.

We've been making pizza dough and dessert all afternoon with the fam for an at home night.

(Pictures coming up later on in the week)

The second part of my day will be spent with friends on the beach.

I have a really close nit group of couple friends that the boy and I see regularly.

It's never a dull moment with those guys.

I'm sure somewhere in there there'll be fireworks. Sparklers!! I know.. I'm five. Meh. They're fun!

In the next couple of days I need to sit down and jot down all those pesky resolutions that I haven't even thought about yet.

I mean.. everyone has the usual. Eat healthier. Lose weight.

Those don't have much substance though.

I want something that will be soul-fulfilling? If that makes any sense.

Y'all have fun and be safe if there's going to be one or two drinks involved.

I'll see you in the new year!

Here's to 2013!

With all my love, 

Pati