Beer & Champagne: Time for a little Reflection....

Mentally and physically....hear me out!!
We have now lived in Chicago for a month and it has been one fast and furious month with lots of change, new surroundings, new schedules, new forms of transportation, etc. And so this weekend we had a long chat reflecting on life here and life there (Denver)! (this is the mental part!!). We talked about meeting new people and me feeling like I'm dating again in the friend world and AK feeling like he has to maximize time on the weekends as he is busting his booty working on the road. We talked about going on dates via a bus/the El but that we are grateful for so many great restaurants and so much entertainment. We reflected on being closer to family and how great that is. We reflected on the difficulties of leaving comfort, such as comfortable jobs, very great and comfortable friends, a comfortable/familiar drive to the mountains, etc. We reflected on many comparisons trying to point out what we find different and similar between Chicago and Denver and basically came to the conclusion that that is like comparing apples and oranges....IMPOSSIBLE!! Either way it was fun to try!! So in the end there may have been a few tears (happens to champagne occasionally), but we reflected on the fact that we are happy about that too, because that means we loved Denver and didn't waste a good chunk of our 20's. We met great people, had great experiences and made countless memories, and on the flip side, we are already doing all those things in Chicago....so lucky us!!
So the experiences and memories created this weekend are:

Friday: a date night at this pizza place/brewery in Bucktown called Piece..... Very yummy and where the reflection started! We had delicious food and even better entertainment as we sat next to a group of fourteen 60 somethings all in for a Chicago reunion....they were hilarious and had us laughing all night!

so good!!

Saturday: The reflection weekend continued while we went for a brisk morning walk along the lake and soaked in a little more "fall!" This was all before we celebrated a BIG....I MEAN HUGE Iowa win over Michigan and a Sparty win over Minnesota. Next week could be interesting....Iowa vs MSU at Kinnick. Stay tuned and I will keep you posted!! :) Saturday night we went to a local watering hole for some more entertainment/football (as if we hadn't had enough) and took in the LSU/Alabama game. We live on School Street and this place is no further than 10 blocks away on our street and it is called the Schoolyard....with name like that, how could it not be fun!?!?

"Fall" on School Street


a self shot along the path....notice the city in the distance!!

Sunday: Began early and productive as we made it up for Church (a Lutheran one at that Momma)!! ;). After church we headed downtown as Andy had to pick up his rental car. This has been a regular occurrence on Sundays and a good reason for us to noodle around downtown. This time Andy took me to Millennium Park and I saw THE BEAN!!! Something I have always wanted to see!! And this is where the physical reflection comes in to play. This thing is a huge bean shaped mirror essentially (I'm sure the creator of this would be horrified with my explanation, but that's all I got at this point). It's right off Michigan Ave so the distorted funny reflections were not only of people but of the skyline as well....just wait, you'll see!! We had so much fun and were cracking up at how silly we looked. After all that, I had a fun skype date with 5 of my Denver girls, which I was so thankful for. ANNNDDD after that, AK made us a fabulous dinner and we watched Water for Elephants....to keep our Sunday night ritual of dinner & a movie going!! Cheers to a great weekend!