Life with Jack & Zach: Sweet Home Chicago

Steve and I had a great time visiting family and friends in Chicago. We are looking forward to our next trip back and this time we are taking the kiddos! We woke up super early last Thursday and headed off to John Wayne Airport. Before you know it we were landing in the beautiful city of Chicago. The scene was picturesque...the awesome skyline and fall colors in bloom. We grabbed our luggage and stepped outside. All I could say was BRRRRR. We picked up our rental car and eventually made our way to our old house where we visited with neighbors catching up over a nice cocktail!

On our way to our neighborhood we experienced many different changes in the scenary from blue skies to storms. The pics below showcases parts of Lake County in a matter of less than an hour.

Rainbow in the distance

On our way to see our house

We then met our renters and we are very fortunate to have such down to earth, very NEAT renters. Carrie has great style and their decor fits our home. It was a little weird but a trip to the house gave us a moment to walk down memory lane, thinking about the GOOD times. That is the house we brought our boys home too. I love going downstairs and thinking about all the good times...the boys' playroom where they took their first few steps and having friends over to watch football and hockey. At the end of the day our home is in CA now but happy to see our renters having fun in the house. Did I say they were NEAT FREAKS??! :)

After we visited briefly with the renters we stopped at Fanellas! We met up with my mom, brother, Andy and Andrea w/ their son Brandon, Jeff, Curt and Sue, and got to see Kristin (my hair stylist) as well as many other people we would run into. It was so much fun starting off our trip visiting with such great people.

We heard that our favorite place of all times, Morgans, in Libertyville had a kitchen fire. We had plans to go to Morgan's on Friday for lunch but we were only able to have a drink...or two! I was looking forward to some good grub, but the fact we were still able to step foot inside was just as nice. I mean that is where Steve and I met almost 13 years ago this Thanksgiving! How could I forget, before we stopped at Morgan's Steve surprised me with a stop at El Puerto where we would go for Mexican, one of our other favorite places! We had their famous chips and salsa, margarita, and Steve got his favorite...FLAN. El Puerto has by far the BEST flan ever. Yum. I always have just one bite...this time I had two!

Steve at El Puerto

Yumalicous

BEST FLAN ...

Where we took all of our boats for service, Performance Bob

This is where we launched our boat, well, old boat :)

Snapped this on our way to Morgan's...

This is the house Steve grew up in, passing through Libertyville waiting for Morgan's to open

Us at our FAVORITE of all times...Morgan's

Later that evening we met at Jason and Jenn Wenberg's house for our dinner party. Steve and I would host a dinner party every so often with a group of our closest friends. We had the same clan: Greg and Laura, Jeff and Suzanne, Andy and Andrea, and Jay and Jenn. I love Greg's spaghetti dinner...not sure what the secret is to his dish, but boy oh boy I LOVE IT! That is what we had for din-din...his famous pasta dish. It was just all the way around a great evening. Some of the kiddos were there too and it was great to see how big they are getting! We miss them, but look forward to more visits!

Drue Polka...Hard to believe she will be 10

Dinner Party...the small clan :) Everette, Owen, Nate, Emma, and Drue

Aw...me and Suzanne (miss her)

Saturday we just bummed around for a little bit. We headed into Kenosha for some lunch at Bombay Louie. I love that place and I would always go with my mom. This time we brought Steve and the look on his face as we drove up was priceless, thinking does this place even get business. Of course. We walked in and his look was priceless yet again. :) HA. He agreed, service and food were amazing! Moral of this story...never judge a book by its cover...wink wink. My mom ran a couple of errands and since we were not going to see Jeff and Suzanne later in the evening we made our way over to their house for a brief visit and Greg was able to meet up with us! I cannot believe how big Evan (4) is getting, and not to mention Ben (18 months). I know the boys would have so much fun with the little Nutschnig's.

Ben (18 months)

Ben

Cutie Pie

Finally one of Evan (4)...he was playing hard to get :)

Later that day we went back to my mom's to get ready. We were going to Paisanos in Richmond for a great dinner. Do you see the trend? We made sure to visit all of our favorite places! :) My brother and sister in law, mom, Andy and Andrea, and Greg met us there and had a great time. The food is amazing! Steve usually gets the Chilean Bass but this time they did not have it available...bummer. I got the halibut but should have ordered the salmon because it was D-LISH. Next time...

After dinner we all decided to make our way a little closer to our houses and stopped at a wine and martini bar in Downtown Antioch called Rugans. It was a lot of fun. It was fun watching the festivities; live band and people dressed up for Halloween.

Andrea, Greg, and Steve

Me, Mama, and Brother

Andy and Andrea (Boys' God Parents)

Sunday was a day of R&R. I am happy it was a day of just hanging out because I started to feel sick again. We had Sunday Funday at my moms and she made all this wonderful food. It was just great hanging out watching football, although none of our teams were playing and if they were playing we did not get the game. BUMMER. My brother, SIL, and Nephews came over and hung out all day. They did get out for a little trick or treating in their neighborhood but ended quickly due to some rain. It was so much fun hanging out with them and cannot believe how fast the day went. Before you knew it we were in bed resting to get up VERY early to make our way to the airport.

This is where we moved starting my Sophmore Year of HS

Brother, Mama, Me

Devin and Matthew

Matt, Dev, and Steve

Me with some handsome boys

Dev and Matt...time for TorT

Me with my Mama

SIL Danielle

Brother

By the evening we all had fun playing with these coasters my mom had...it was funny how we all changed by the end of evening...(I cannot list the names on the coasters :))

MUAH

Me wtih Matt

We had a great time visiting but we were surely missing our love bugs and could not wait to see them. We got updates over the weekend of all the fun things they were doing with Nana and Papa. We got into CA around 11ish and so that we would not disrupt Karley's day and putting them down for nap we ran some errands and stopped at Fisherman's in San Clemente for lunch. It was perfect because we were home around 2pm and unpacked before the boys woke up. Jack woke up about 30 minutes early from his nap and when we walked into the bedroom his face lit up with excitement...Dada, Dada, and Mama! Melt my heart. Eventually Zacharoo woke up and he was so happy to see us of course. :) I felt like they matured so much in 4 days. They just appeared to be so much more grown up in just a matter of a few days.

Here are some pics of the boys spending time with Nana and Papa...and Karley. They boys also went to McD's with Nana and Papa and also played in their spa at their house.