Beer & Champagne: Everyday We're Shuffling.....

This past weekend Chicago or 'Cago known to some hosted it's annual Shamrock Shuffle, and I had plenty of visitors to run the race with. The Shamrock Shuffle is an 8K (roughly 5 miles) and it is run through the streets of downtown Chicago so the runners get a close up view of different sights in the city, such as Grant Park (where you start and finish), the Sears Tower, Michigan Avenue, etc. And luckily for us the weather cooperated so we really could not have asked for a better day to run let alone a better weekend. So without further ado, I will give you the sequential play-by-play of the weekend starting with Friday!!

Friday: Friday night my mom and Nancy Webb were expected to arrive mid-evening so we could enjoy a late happy hour and then head to our dinner reservation. Instead what happened was they ran into a big accident on Hwy 20 on their way here and were detoured for nearly an hour....no big deal, except they detour took the place of happy hour which always bugs a little!! So once they arrived we said quick hellos, got them settled in our place and then rushed off to dinner, but not before the first "crack up" of the weekend. Once we were organized my mom clapped her hands and said "okay, I'm ready now, so Sissy call us a cab!" I of course burst out laughing, because cabs in Chicago are like yellow equipment at Gehrke Inc....always one within sight!! So once we completed "city lesson #1" we were off!! (sorry momma....you know I love the small town, this was just too funny!!) And we were off to Cafe Ba Ba Ree Ba!! Again the name sounds funny, but this place comes highly recommended by many locals and it happens to be one of the only places AK and I have visited twice! Cafe Ba Ba Ree Ba is little Spanish Tapas place so everything comes in small plates to share and pretty much everything is delicious. Besides having great food, they also have very refreshing Sangria that comes by the pitcher and it's a must order. Great meal and great refreshments!!
After dinner we were off to The Schoolyard, which is a neighborhood bar real close to where we live and located on our street...School Street...get it?? :). We went there for a night cap and to meet up with more Eldora locals/Shamrock Shuffle runners. We all enjoyed a few cocktails and the wonderful company....Both were so great we all lost track of time and got home WAY. TOO. LATE!!!

Saturday: Luckily for my mom, Nancy and I our race was on Sunday and not Saturday so we had a day to recover! (thank goodness!). Since the day was wide open, we planned to go to brunch and then hit up as many shops/neighborhoods as we could. We started at this yummy spot called Southport Grocery where I have come to believe serves the absolute best brunch on the face of earth. Yes that may sound a bit dramatic (or "bramatic" if you're talking to my nephew Jack), but it is seriously good. For all my Denver readers....it rivals Snooze (just sayin!). After the exceptionally long wait to get in we were a bit behind schedule (shopping schedule that is), but it was all worth it as always! Our next stop was the big Lululemon store in Chicago. There are multiple stores (something like 4 or 5) but I took them to the Halsted store which I think is the biggest and usually has the most merchandise....yes I have been to all locations (don't judge). Post Lulu fix were were off to another cool area called North and Clybourn, and this is where you will find a great J. Crew/Pottery Barn/Gap/you get the picture. All bets were off as to how long we would be in a two-story J. Crew but we made it in and out in 1 hour! Pretty darn good, if you ask me. By this time in the day the three of us were well spent (literally and figuratively), which meant one thing....it was time for happy hour!! :) The Eldora Shamrock Shufflers came over to our place at about 6p and we enjoyed some appetizers, wine, champagne, etc before our dinner reservation at 7:30p. After dinner we all decided to retire early considering the "big race" was the next day!

Sunday: Sunday was race day!!! We all met promptly at 8a at The Bean (a Chicago landmark) so we could enter our race corrals together. This was a splendid idea, because not only were we all together, but we had a few minutes with The Bean just to ourselves, which means we got to take some cool pics (you'll see!!). Before we knew it, it was time to line up or herd up, considering there were something like 35, 000 runners for a 5 mile race!! Like I said the weather was perfect, the course was awesome, and the company was even better. AK, Kylee Button, my momma and I all ran together and it was so much fun. The fast runners were ahead of us....don't think we left them in our dust! :). As I said it was roughly 5 miles and I think I'm most proud of the fact that my mom RAN all 5 miles and kept up with 3 people in their 20's!! She's pretty awesome and it was pretty cool to cross the finish line with our arms up together!! And then considering it was so beautiful out we decided to follow suit and join the rest of Chicago on an outdoor patio for a nice post race burger+fries+cold beverage!! Sunday may have been race day, but it really was a "fun day" and we had an even better weekend!!

AK and I just want to thank all our peeps from IA for making the trip. It's always fun to run with you while we are home, but it was great to have you all here as well!! Thanks for coming and know that you are always welcome!! :)
And remember...."Everyday We're Shuffling!!!" HA! :)