love, architecture, and heartbreak in Chi-Town

Before Thanksgiving we took a weekend trip to Chicago for our friend Sarah's wedding, who we hadn't seen in ages. And while we were in town we made the most of it, packing in as much as possible in 2.5 days, rekindling a forgotten love of the city.

We hopped off the plane at 9 a.m. Friday morning, were reminded how just plain nice Midwesterners are as we rode the rental car shuttle, and by 10 a.m. were on our way to Wrigley Field. After a few photos and a walk around the park we headed downtown, where we spent the rest of our day hitting architectural high points (Millenium Park, future site of the Sasaki riverwalk project, the top of Sears Willis Tower..) as well as gastronomical high points (Frontera Grill).

Sarah and John's Saturday afternoon wedding was beautiful. Sarah, who converted to Catholicism a few years ago, made sure it was Protestant-friendly. I loved catching glimpses of Sarah and John's relationship from the viewpoints of friends and family, since Sarah and I have been maintaining our now long-distance friendship solely via email correspondence for the past several years.

After the ceremony we had a few hours to kill until the reception. Based on a helpful local attractions list provided by the happy couple, we headed towards the All Chocolate Kitchen. Ian, however, upended these plans after glimpsing a Frank Lloyd Wright house out of the corner of his eye. He yelled, pulled into the next driveway, and turned around so we could take a closer look.

We made a slow journey around the exterior as Ian examined every detail. Thanks to our handy iPhones, we ascertained it was the Mrs. A.W. Gridley House, aka Ravine House, which had been on the market for almost four years and was sitting unoccupied. (I just found out it was sold less than two weeks after our visit!)

While we are confessing nothing, we might have discovered the doors were unlocked. And we might have regretted not taking advantage of the opportunity to examine an architectural gem up close. And we might have wandered around the house (after several knocks and yelled hellos generated no response) while I panicked about possible silent alarms and imagined the police were descending upon the house while we were oblivious to our impending trespassing arrest.

After Ian had his fill of architecture history, we continued on to All Chocolate Kitchen and sipped hot cocoa and ate chocolates while glancing over our shoulders.

Finally, we headed to the reception. After a minor setback thanks to Siri misdirecting us to the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood, we were congratulating Sarah and John. We made our way to the Chronicles of Narnia table (loved the book theme!), where we swapped Sarah stories with her Chicago friends. I can't express how much I appreciated seeing Sarah, meeting John, and catching up in person. We wouldn't have missed sharing in their big day.

The next morning, Ian wouldn't allow me to wallow in our beloved Wildcat's loss to Baylor and dashed national championship hopes, which we had witnessed via ESPN iPhone app on our drive back to our hotel. (I am baffled we couldn't pick up the game on AM; we weren't that far away from EMAW land. And fellow Wildcats, I fully accept my share of the blame: we weren't watching in Boston, and I wasn't wearing my Powercat necklace.)

So we headed back to the city for a morning at Navy Pier followed by deep dish pizza. It did the trick, getting my mind off our purple heartbreak.

We were cutting it close, but after lunch we detoured to Eli's Cheesecake. A box of Eli's cheesecake dippers sent on dry ice for my 19th birthday was the first gift Ian ever gave me (my dad pronounced "he's serious."). We shared a cheesecake bite then raced to the airport and just made our flight.

We were back in Boston by 8 p.m. Sunday night. I still can't believe how quick and easy it is to get to Chicago, and now that Ian remembers it's one of his favorite cities, we might find our way back more often. (That's a warning, Sarah and John!)

a snowstorm, giant cookies, and Young House Love

I think it's safe to say that Young House Love is one of my favorite blogs ever. It's full of inspiring, doable projects infused with family and a personable, quirky, lovable writing style. John and Sherry just released their first book (Young House Love: 243 Ways to Paint, Craft, Update & Show Your Home Some Love) and one of their first stops on the book tour was West Elm in Boston. No way was I was missing it.

While the blog world allows people to make amazing connections, it can also be very contained: you know who you follow and to some extent who follows you (if you blog), and occasionally connect with another commenter on the blogs you follow, and that's it. A perk to real-life blog events is you sometimes discover people you know and love in real life happen to be fans of the same blogs as you. Thanks to the YHL event, I connected with one of my coworkers and we made plans to attend together.

The day of the book signing, it snowed in that wet, not-really-cold-enough-to-be-pleasant kind of way. We were a little worried we'd have to wait outside, but West Elm had cleverly snaked the line around inside the store. We waited and chatted for 30 minutes in the home office nook, and then John and Sherry appeared to cheers. They quickly ran through some travel-friendly book projects they brought with them, then moved on to the signing portion of the evening.

We waited in line for a little over an hour, but it was fun to spend some time getting to know Sarah (we have so much in common!) and West Elm kept handing out house and heart cookies (made by a local bakery) and hot chocolate. We slowly browsed the majority of the store thanks to the winding line (brilliant marketing) as we moved closer and closer to the signing table.

Finally, our moment arrived! I'm discovering that meeting bloggers in real life is actually not that surprising. Blogs are often a one-person (or couple) show, which means if you follow that blog, you have a fairly accurate representation of that person (or couple). Just as I expected, John and Sherry were sweet, funny, and open, taking time to chat with us as they signed our books, not distracted or rushed by the still-lengthy line behind us.

We didn't do anything crazy or attention-grabbing (brilliant photo ideas, witty comments, thoughtful gifts) so I'm sure, with the thousands of people they have met and will meet on this book tour, they won't remember me. But I'm okay with that, because in those few minutes, they made me feel like I mattered to them; that they appreciated we showed up in the slush and faithfully read their blog.

John and Sherry, just in case you read this, it was so much fun to meet you; you are both so gracious and kind. I look forward to your blog posts every day and love the book (which is currently full of to-do flags). You inspire me to do more to make our apartment feel like our home, and give me confidence that I can make it happen.

And if you were wondering what happened to the leftover cookies, I dragged Ian to West Elm a couple days later to look at Christmas decorations (Ian hates to do anything Christmas before Thanksgiving) and discovered they styled them around the store. They looked cute with the ceramic owl mug, which seemed very appropriate!

thankful list | November

01. finally, the MBTA putting IE bus passes on tap cards.
02. Megan coming to Boston.
03. lovely weather for wandering around Boston.
04. a delicious Italian dinner with old and new friends.
05. my amazing new coat—worth every penny.
06. an end to campaign commercials.
07. the first snow of the season.
08. meeting Young House Love at their Boston book signing.
09. a heart to heart with Ian.
10. catching up with old K-State friends + new significant others.
11. bike rides around the city.
12. K-State landing at #1 in the BCS standings—so proud of this team.
13. Dane and Micki surprising us with K-State game cups mailed to work.
14. an edible first attempt at Grandma's rolls.
15. a fun Thanksgiving potluck at work.
16. an amazing day in downtown Chicago with Ian.
17. seeing Sarah again, and meeting her new husband John.
18. a deep dish pizza date after a ride on the Navy Pier ferris wheel.
19. a husband who plans out trips so I don't have to.
20. K-State handling a heartbreaking loss with grace.
21. a great pre-holiday night at community group.
22. an encouraging annual review at work.
23. Thanksgiving dinner with great friends.
24. my ribbon Christmas tree craft turning out so well.
25. a day of errands and knocking things off our to-do list.
26. sleeping in three days in a row.
27. a great crew showing up for Sunday morning setup.
28. seeing Skyfall (with two more Daniel Craig Bond movies to look forward to).
29. getting an official L.L. Bean shout out tweet for my Bean post.
30. decorating a real Christmas tree (not ours) with our community group.
31. making it in to the Smitten Kitchen event after all thanks to the standby line.
32. catching up with Erin and seeing Grey (she's grown so much!).
33. Ian arriving safely in Kansas for his football/family/work trip.
34. Fringe on DVD/BlueRay.
35. a new DIY art piece made with old floorboards from the farm.

that time we stole a homeless man's vodka

We kicked off November with visitors. One of my best friends from Kansas was taking a girls trip with her mom and a couple good family friends, and they decided to make Boston their destination. I was thrilled.

They arrived on a Friday afternoon, and Ian and I met them for dinner at Zaftigs—they made a trip rule that (aside from Starbucks) they couldn't eat anything they could get back home. Since Jewish food is hard to come by in Kansas and Wisconsin, it fit the bill. For the full experience, we started with the appetizer combo plate (cheese blintz + potato pancake + potato knish + noodle Kugel), before moving on to other carb-laden entrees. They loved it, and we had fun catching up with Megan and Sharon, and getting to know Brandi and Julie.

The next morning, Megan, Ian, and I enjoyed a late breakfast at Tatte and drove a ZipCar around to take in the fall foliage before meeting up with the rest of the crew, who had a much earlier start and already knocked out a good portion of their must-see list. We enjoyed a seafood brunch at the Chart House (in John Hancock's old counting house) while Sharon, Brandi, and Julie regaled us with their stories of the morning, including a butcher at Haymarket taking them for a tour of his fridge in the back.

We walked off lunch with a stroll to the Seaport District to catch the Harpoon Brewery tour, but they sold the last two tickets to the two people in front of us in line. Thankfully though, our trip was not in vain. We headed up to the retail store to look around, and Ian, Sharon, and Brandi (the beer connoisseurs of the group) even managed to snag a few free samples.

Ian headed to band practice, and we headed back to Sharon, Brandi, and Julie's hotel near the Common to drop off the morning's purchases. Just as we walked through the front doors, a scruffy middle-aged man fell down the last four steps of the lobby stairs, taking a fake plant down with him. Julie, a nurse, flew into action while we asked hotel staff to call 911. While calming him down and keeping him still, Julie discovered he was completely intoxicated. This complicated matters, as we couldn't be sure his intermittent consciousness was due to a possible brain injury or just the alcohol.

As soon as the fire department arrived and we answered their questions, we headed up to the room at last, where we laughed in disbelief about what had just transpired. We wondered if the paramedics took the man's belongings with him in the ambulance. We suspected he was homeless; what if the contents of those two small plastic bags were the only things he owned?

Soon, we were ready to head back out to the North End. As we looked around the room, Megan noticed two crumpled plastic bags tucked underneath the night stand. Brandi had grabbed them assuming they were Julie's. They were not.

We debated on how we could reunite them to their owner, but decided we should find out first if they were worth returning. We cautiously opened the bags: two open but relatively full bottles of Viaka. As Julie poured the bottles down the bathroom sink, we laughed that we probably did the man a favor, getting rid of incriminating evidence.

We also realized that it created the perfect introduction to the story of our afternoon: the time we stole a homeless man's vodka. We reviewed the story details on our extremely well-earned trip to Mike's for cannoli, which we consumed in front of the Paul Revere statue before wandering through more of the North End.

The next day after [REUNION] and brunch, we knocked out the remaining sights on their list: the Make Way for Ducklings statue and Harvard, before a final dinner together at Artu.

Megan & Company, thanks so much for making us your destination. It was so good to see/meet you. Come back soon!

the Warby Parker Class Trip's stop in Boston

I discovered Warby Parker over a year ago, which prompted me to finally replace the frames I'd had since high school. I wear contacts most of the time, because with one eye near-sighted and the other far-sighted, I get headaches if I wear glasses for extended periods of time. Since I only wear glasses once a month when I change out my contacts, I had a hard time justifying expensive frames. But with $95 pairs of sweet prescription glasses, Warby Parker solved my dilemma. And like TOMS, WP follows a buy a pair, give a pair business model, which is right up my alley. I picked out my five frames for free home try-ons, solicited input from everyone I know, and pulled the trigger on a pair of Webbs in amber tortoise.

Ian also loved Warby Parker's style and values, so last Christmas he requested and received Everett sunglasses in gimlet tortoise. He gets almost as many complements as I do on my (cheap) turquoise mirrored sunglasses. Which are dying. I knew I wanted to include a pair of Warby Parker sunglasses on my Christmas list to replace them. I just needed to find the right ones.

We headed to the hipster store on Newbury that housed a WP showroom so I could explore the full collection, only to discover the shop had closed. But in a fortuitous turn of events, just a few days later I learned via email that the Warby Parker Class Trip would be arriving shortly in Boston—an old yellow school bus retrofitted as a Warby Parker show room and taking a six-month cross-country road trip to nine cities.

We stopped by on the bus's last day in Boston. Yes, it was about as crazy as in it's heyday of transporting elementary school children, but I got some personalized assistance (thanks Sam!) trying on selections from their giant wall of glasses and sunglasses, and we walked off the bus with a shortlist for my wishlist (fingers crossed these show up under the tree!).

And we couldn't pass up the photobooth before biking home. (Maybe we are turning into hipsters, but we always wear our helmets and never drink and ride with multiple cigarettes clinging to our lips.)

"Ian, hurry up, I think it's..." *flash* | duckface Ian meets healthy Anna | Ian on caffeine, Anna being... pensive?

Feel free to comment with your own captions for our photobooth photos!