Remind me NOT to go to Texas/Louisiana...gross.

Raise your hand...

...if you knew I wasn't going to blog one day after that last post as promised...guilty as charged. In my defense, I've been sick ever since Friday and trust me, I'm doing you a favor by not elaborating.

Anyway, I do want to recap the rest of our trip to Chi-town, so here goes. On Saturday we went to an afternoon Chicago Cubs game, which was really fun and actually an exciting game. I had never been to Wrigley Field, so that was really great. Then, the game ended in a walk-off run for the Cubs to win it! Here are some photos:

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

And this hotdog:

From Drop Box

which bears a striking resemblance to this one, from the Sonic classic hot dog series.

Unfortunately, it rained all day on Saturday. Luckily, for the game, we sat under an awning, so we stayed dry and it didn't rain hard enough to delay the game. After the game, we went back to Hilary's place and spent most of the night drinking, chatting, and watching TV. Taylor and I made Mint Juleps and watched the Kentucky Derby then Hilary made us some DELICIOUS lasagna which we enjoyed with a couple bottles of wine before heading to bed early.

Here I am with my Mint Julep:

From Drop Box

Sunday morning was Rachel's baptism. We got up and got to the church bright and early. Unfortunately, they don't allow cameras in the church so we don't have any photos of the actual baptism. It was absolutely adorable, though. They had 6 babies baptized on Mother's Day. Rachel was so good, she didn't even cry when the strange man (the Pastor) held her and sprinkled her with water 3 times (though she did get more dubious with each drop)!

After church we all met back at Scott and Tracy's house where I got to see my good buddy, Bailey, their dog. Bailey and I have always gotten along really well, except for the time he tried to attack my Goddaughter!

Just kidding! No Goddaughters were harmed in the making of these photos.

Here's a video of Bailey entertaining Rachel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaLKLwUTV4s

Those were taken in January. Now, Rachel is almost 9 months old. Here are a few photos from the luncheon on Sunday.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

Adorable! We love her and can't wait to see her again in a week when Tracy, Scott, and Rachel come to New York for Memorial Day!

Good times in the Windy City

Last weekend, Taylor and I took a nice trip to Chicago for our Goddaughter's (God-daughter? God daughter? I'm not sure how to write it) baptism. We left Thursday night and arrived in Chicago about an hour late due to poor weather over Midway airport.

We arrived at our brother and sister-in-law's apartment on the North side of Chicago in an area called Lincoln Square. It was Cinco de Mayo and we hadn't eaten, so Taylor and I decided to go out to a Mexican place we had discovered near Hilary and Alex's place on our last trip to Chicago for the marathon. Garcia's was crowded, but not overwhelmingly so, and it was delicious! We shared a margarita, a meal and some guacamole, and didn't finish eating until 11:30pm.

Mini backstory here. Taylor and I have been in a bowling league for the past 2 months. We play every Tuesday evening at the bowling alley in the Port Authority Bus Terminal (that's right, a bowling alley in the bus station). The way the league works, you play 4 bowling game regardless of how many people you have on your team, and since our team has always had more than 4 people, we've never really played our own game. Taylor and I had a lighthearted (or maybe not lighthearted?) bet going about who would win a head-to-head competition. And here, we resume our story...

So, as we walked back from our Cinco de Mayo festivities, we spotted a sign on the side of a non-descript building that said "Bowling" and then a sign that looked like one you would put up for a yard sale that simply said "Open Bowling." We looked in the door under the sign and it just lead to a set of carpeted stairs to an upstairs doorway. The sign on the door said that the place was open until 2am, so we headed up! We walked into the bar area of the most adorable old-timey scene I've ever seen. There were about 3 older people at the bar watching TVs showing ESPN and Three's Company. The man behind the counter greeted us with a fantastic Chicago accent and asked if we would like to bowl. We told him yes and he gave us some worn-out bowling shoes, turned on lane number 12 (that's right, they had to turn the lane because there were only about 6 other people there, so no sense wasting electricity), and handed us the paper and pencil for scoring (no electronic scoring here!). We played 2 games, which I ended up wining by about 11 points total. Here are a couple photos of the lanes:

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

The awesome bar, where they were watching 1980s episodes of Three's Company

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Action Shot!

From Drop Box

After the games, we headed back to Hilary's and went to bed. We actually went back to the lanes on Sunday before our flight back to New York, which is actually when the above photos were taken. We were the ONLY people there that time. And, for the record, Taylor beat me by about 20 points total.

Friday morning, I did some work before we went to get lunch with Tracy and Scott, Rachel's (our Goddaughter) parents and good friends and Tracy's mom and dad (Grandma and Grandpa). It turned out the restaurant was right next to Oprah:

From Drop Box

and then I snapped this adorable photo of Rachel before we went out separate ways.

From Drop Box

We spent Friday afternoon relaxing before heading to the official "Bulls Bar" to watch the Bulls game. It was really fun, the Bulls won, and we got to see the Luv a Bulls, the Bulls cheerleaders (one of which, of course, was named Carissa). After the game, Tracy and Scott - free of Rachel thanks to grandparent babysitters - came to pick us up and we all went out for dessert at a delicious little spot called Hot Chocolate.

Ok, these 2 days have taken a while to recap, so I'm going to break here and I'll finish the rest tomorrow. Stay tuned!

My latest (and most ridiculous) endeavor

I am fortunate enough to work in the heart of New York City, right next to Madison Square Park, Union Square, and the Flatiron Building, where this photo was taken:

Last week, they erected a 40 foot tall statue of a boys elongated face in the middle of Madison Square Park. The statue's name is Echo.

Having recently acquired (via the Amazon App Store's daily free App, which I highly recommend for Android!) a photo-shop type tool for my phone called PicSay, I obviously could not resist the urge to get creative with Echo with the following result. Enjoy!

Push Ups for America!

Just a quick update, I am officially up to 3 consecutive push-ups! I just heard the news about Osama Bin Laden and almost busted out 4, but alas, my weak core muscles can overcome even extreme adrenaline.

We traveled to Boston this weekend and I'll blog about that this week, but just wanted to provide an update!!

GO U.S.A.!!!