My Girls' Weekend

OK - So I have been gone for a while, I know. At first, I was busy prepping for my wonderful Girls' Weekend in Chicago and then, while I was gone, a natural disaster struck my house. No, not the ha-ha-funny, my-husband-was-alone-with-the-kids kind of natural disaster - an actual honest-to-goodness real one. A flippin' hurricane in the gulf coast caused major flooding in Chicago and did extensive damage to southern Ohio. What are the chances?

Here's what Chicago looked like most of the time we were there:

But let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

Jerri and I booked a room at the James Hotel. A nice, upscale hotel in downtown Chicago. We had wonderful plans to relax, shop, enjoy good food, stroll around downtown, take in some of the architecture ..... And we did do some of that - IN THE RAIN. But it was still nice. We had no responsibilities other than ourselves and we got to eat at several restaurants that did not have children's menus or paper placemats. It was divine.

Thursday night we walked down the street from our hotel and had deep dish pizza at Pizzeria Due.

After dinner we crossed the street to a Trader Joe's and bought some dark chocolate covered oreo's, some oatmeal raisin cookies, a loaf of focaccia bread and a bottle of wine. Perfect fare for a girls night in!

Friday we went down to the concierge and planned some more meals and got some walking maps. We headed to Lincoln Park, by cab, and had breakfast at a place called Toast and then visited some fun little shops. We stumbled across one fun stationery shop called Paper Source and Jerri loaded up supplies for some awesome handmade Halloween invitations. They are going to be GREAT! I wish I could come help make them and even more I wish I could come to the party. After all the shopping we stopped off at a place called Ethel's and relaxed with lattes and chocolate. MMMMMM!!!!!! Friday night we had drinks at Martini Park :

and then dinner at Graham Elliot's :

Saturday we walked, in the pouring rain, to Starbucks for a light breakfast and then headed back to the hotel for the 60 minute massages we had booked for ourselves at the hotel spa. Ahhhhh! Then we spent most of the day shopping at any place indoors we could find. Saturday afternoon we did make an effort to do more than shop, eat and drink wine and took a cab to the Art Institute.

Saturday evening was dinner at Ai Sushi. The doorman told us it was only 5 blocks from the hotel so we walked - in the rain - He lied!! It was more like 10 blocks. We took a cab back.

Sunday we had breakfast at a diner frequented by the locals called, Lou Mitchell's.

The food was wonderful but the service ...... I don't know what Jerri did to piss off the coffee girl but MAN did she have it in for Jerri! Every time she filled Jerri's coffee cup she came closer and closer to just pouring it straight in to her lap. It was in her saucer, on the table, and then a few drops in the actual cup. Funny, but also a little frightening. After breakfast we tracked down some more indoor shopping. And since it was our last day, we treated ourselves to mimosas from the breakfast buffet at the Ritz Carlton. We had a late check out (3pm) from our hotel so we went back, packed up and then had the hotel hold our luggage while we went and had one last deep dish pizza, this time at Girodano's, before I drove Jerri to the airport.

That's when the fun began ...... David called me around 3pm eastern to tell me there were really high winds at home, part of the roof had blown off, and they had no power. I fill you in on all the fun storm details in the next post.