They're Here!

Liz & Chuck with the Twins!

They finally arrived!!! Chuck and Liz' Twins, Chase & Reese!!! Between Angelina and Liz it was a great year for twins :-) But Knox and Vivienne have nothing on Chase and Reese! Chris and I along with Sam&Lena (I know it seems like we don't go anywhere without this duo, LOL) stopped at Chuck&Liz' on the way back from Sycamore to visit and meet the new babies. We hung out for a couple hours, we didn't know how long to stay going out there because Liz just had them the previous Monday so they were only 6 days old! But they had Jimmy John's waiting and Liz was really up and adam all smiles of course couldn't be happier! Chris and Sam got to hold the babies which is not really something they've done very much :-) It's nice that there are two babies so everyone can share the wealth of passing them both around to hold them. But they are both the cutest and I'm sure will be a mini Ken & Barbie walking around in a few years just look at their parents. It was a great visit and I can't wait to see them again! Congrats!!! Uncle Smulsk will very much look forward to hanging out with Chase as he gets older and teaching him all the great things Chris and Chuck have done over the years :-) If you know the track record of those two that is quite frightening. Juussst kidding Liz :-)

PumpkinFest 2008

This past Saturday was the annual PumpkinFest in Sycamore! Chris dies over P-Fest and has gone over the last few years, this was my first visit to Sycamore and my first P-Fest. Chris' friend, Cricket is from this small, cute, quaint town and they have even collaborated a pub crawl that has turned up quite a few participants over the years. The Petersen's, Cricket&Cortney, Sam&Lena and Chris and I met at Cricket's parents house and hung out there for a bit and then were off to view the town's decorative pumpkin display and then to the bar for one drink that turned into 2 hours later. The Hulk pumpkin was the first place winner as you can see why from the pic, I can't imagine how long it took someone to put that together....all made out of pumpkins!! The Hoyner's met us up at the bar as well and hung for awhile till they needed to get back to their three-month old, Sydney who was at a family members house. In between drinking during the day and the actual pub crawl (which turned into just about two bars that we went to :) we had gone back to Cricket's parents house to have some snacks...mainly chili that was to DIE for, his dad's special recipe. All in all I very much enjoyed my first P-Fest and will look forward to next years as I have been told that I will be attending for years to come! Thanks also to Mr. & Mrs. Knapp for all the snacks, food and hospitality! Especially the gourmet taffy apples Mrs. Knapp sent us on our way with. We just split one last night and it is soooooooo good! Thanks again!

4th of 4th Tag! Thanks Being Butterfield!

My new blog friend, "Being Butterfield" has tagged me in a lil blog game called "Fourth of Fourth." I don't know Being Butterfield (or Amy) personally but she's very good friends with one of my other blog friends, Mandy (who I have met in real life and love) as well as Nina! She's a fan of Lifetime Fitness and actually just took a job there so knowing we have LTF in common as one of the greatest gyms around (besides East Bank of course :-) I'm sure her and I would hit it off! Let alone the fact that I feel like I know her and her family thru her blog! Ha! She ironically went to SIU but I never knew her but then again I never knew Mandy either.



Anyway back to the game, the jist is I pick the 4th picture in my 4th picture folder, write about it, and then tag 4 people.

4th Picture

This is a pic of Sam, Ryan and Joe at the annual trip up to Monkey's parents cabin. Chris and all of his friends go up to the cabin a couple hours away usually at the beginning and the end of each summer. They have been doing this for a few years now and it always draws about 15-20 of them up there! They drink, reminisce, play cards, drink, golf, eat, reminisce, make fun of eachother, gamble, reminisce, drink, eat, do man things and god only knows what else. But Monkey's mom is usually up there so there is at least one female presence known to keep things under control.

This year they even had golf shirts made with a LOGO, yes that's right people...a logo. Each shirt was also embroidered with each guys' nickname. My lovely bf's nickname is "Fatface," I know what you're all thinking...lucky lady! :-)

I unfortunately don't have four other bloggers to tag so I'm going to break the chain once again.

Thanks for the tag Amy!

A "Wild" Night Out

Last Friday Chris and I met the good ol' Petersen's and the ever entertaining duo, Mikey & Kimi. I won't give Mikey and Kimi a "team" name as I don't think they'll like that :-)

Earlier in the week we decided we'd all meet for din-din at Wildfire downtown. This was only my third time at Wildfire but everyone always seems to get really excited anticipating a dinner at this fine establishment. Chris and I went a bit early to grab a drink at Martini Park which is directly next door. As we all know M-Park is the home of the infamous 12 mojito evening a lil over a year ago so we always like to stop in there and reminisce on that lovely evening that neither of us really remember.Martini Park

Next stop was Wildfire. After filling up on appetizers I was stuffed to the max by the time dinner was over but the scallops over spinach was delicious and this place really does have the BEST food.

After dinner we mosey'd over to Krater's dad's bar, I can't remember what it's called right now...something irish though. The boys played a lil golf on Golden Tee and Jill, Kimi and I chatted. Kimi was running in the Urbanathalon the next day so her and Mikey didn't stay out too late although later than I'd stay if I was in a race and had to get up at 5.30am! But she's a veteran runner/racer so it's no big thing for her. :-)

The highlight of the evening is always reminiscing on Chris and his friends stories and all the whack things they used to do back in the day. On this night we were treated to the story of when Mikey was dehydrated in Florida. You'd really have to be there to hear the story to get the full effect but it was SUPER funny although I'm sure scary at the time. I think he very well could have died from what happened to him. But here are some pics of him reinacting what it was like when he was dehydrated and all his muscles were cramping up like solid bricks and sucking all the water out of his body, tooooooo funny! Thanks for the great reinactment Mikey, as always...entertaining!

Country Bumpkin!

On Saturday afternoon it took us a while to get movin' after having too many drinks the night before at Celtic Crown, although worth it because it was super fun! This day we didn't even make it to the gym, our usual Saturday morning ritual. But finally managed to get out the door and on our way making a looooong trek to what I like to call the "country" also known as Edwards Apple Orchard! Chris has been to this cute place a few times over the years as it is not too far from Rockford but it was my first visit.

I have to admit I wasn't that into trekking so far for a pumpkin patch, after all good ol' Sunny Acres is minutes from my parents house and frankly I think pumpkin patches are for kids. But Edwards Apple Orchard puts Sunny Acres to shame! This place has it all! And everyone else seems to be aware of this as well because there were TONS of people, the lines were RIDIC! I stood in line three times while we were there!? Once to get a pulled pork sandwich that we split + a cider. Then we stood in another long line for an apple cider donut, apple pie with ice cream and a milk. Then we stood in yet another long line to get in the "store" to get donuts to-go among some other items. Safe to say it would have been smart to hit the gym after this trip with all the crap we ate. Very cute place though and I'd definately go back next year. On top of a pumpkin patch you can pick your own raspberries, there's a small petting farm, huge playground and a covered wagon thing you can take to go to the apple orchards! The main reason we took the trek out was to get the infamous cider donuts! We had one there and bought a dozen to go! Very tasty at home too if you pop it in the micro for 15 seconds!

This pic is a shout out to those of you (and I think that's everyone) who is familiar with Chris' "Gruffy the tap dancing goat" story :-)

This was a Gruffy look-alike we found in the petting farm, brought Chris back to his childhood, lol

To top off this LONG busy weekend of running around, on Sunday we met up with the Petersen's again along with Bob, Sam and Chubz at Fifty/50 on Division for a couple beers (literally 2), food and the Bears game. What a crazy depressing game!? Sad....

But Fifty/50 has the best food!!! And is a great place to meet up with your friends and watch the game, they have three levels as well as great outdoor seating (not sure how much longer we'll be using that though!) Be sure to get the turkey burger with grilled onions and mushrooms and sweet potatoe fries! Sooooo GOOD.

Did I hear somebody say BINGO??

BINGO!

Friday night this past weekend we hung out with the Petersen's, Sam and Lena (aka "Slena") and Matt Whitmer, an ol' SIU peep met up with us as well.

We all headed up to Celtic Crown, no idea what street it was on? Ashland maybe? But I love this bar! You can play BINGO and win free drinks, we got din-din and had a few until about 1am. It was nice to just have some food, drink and hang out in a casual setting. I had my flip flops on so I as happy! Long gone are the days of a "crazy" going out night and your feet killing you in heels - thank god for that. Although Smalls and I managed to feel pretty hungover on Saturday!

Here's a pic from Friday night of the cutest couple in Chicago :-)

Our #1 FAV: YoBerri

No weekend is complete for Cogski without one...two...sometimes THREE trips to YoBerri or Starfruit! I am fully obsessed with this frozen yogurt place and so is Chris, both of us just die over it. If you have never been or even heard of it, it is sometimes called "fro-yo yogurt" I think it's more like yogurt "couture" - all I know is, it is heaven sent. The concept is based off "Pinkberry" found in LA and throughout California. Thank goodness it made its way to Chicago. We don't have Pinkberry but we do have YoBerri, Starfruit and Berry Chill.

Our absolute favorite is YoBerri but it is somewhat of a hike for us living in the more west part of the city and their sole Chicago location is at Diversey and Halsted...but believe me we take the trek every chance we get. And if per chance we are slightly in the vacinity of YoBerri we make it a necessity to stop and get some!

We have slowly started to become accustomed to Starfruit located on Division but it tastes a tad different due to the Kefir base and is just not the same as YoBerri but it'll do when you're feelin' a craving coming and is much closer to where we live.

My signature favorite concoction is mango, raspberry and mochi! (pic below) SO GOOD! I want some right now that I'm typing about it. The fruit is SO fresh and is literally a burst of flavor in your mouth. I think they go to Mexico themselves to get this fruit it's so ripe, fresh and tasty. And the yogurt is too hard to explain unless you have some yourself, it's not vanilla flavor but more like a plain yogurt taste with a small hint of sour. Trust me it's awesome, I would never have taken the time to write a post about this unless I didn't think it was the greatest snack treat around! Enjoy!

* we would never have known about this yogurt concept had it not been for Sam and Lena telling us about it, so I feel I should give a lil shout to them for introducing us to the best frozen yogurt around - thanks! :-)

Me - Kreativ? wow, what an honor! Thx Nina!

My friend and fellow blogger, Nina. You have read about her in previous posts well she tagged me with a "Kreativ Blogger" award. A lot of people out there are "professional bloggers," but I just haven't hit that point yet, I'm striving though :-) When you are tagged with this honorable award you are supposed to tag 6 other bloggers but I don't know that many bloggers so I'm going to be breaking the chain from this end - sorry....
Oh and the whole point of the award is to list 6 things that make you HAPPY, so here goes:
1. Working out. I have fallen off the wagon a bit since I left ebc and my routine lifestyle was thrown for a loop when Rokas went out of biz. I hardly spin anymore, which those who know me are shocked to say the least. BUT I am slowly getting back into it, my new thing is pilates, I LOVE IT.
2. YoBerri. Chris and I go to YoBerri alllllllll the time. It is similar to PinkBerry on the westcoast, or Berry Chill and Starfruit here in Chicago but Chris and I are here to tell you it is NOT the same. YoBerri is soooo much better. I could eat it everyday. A small with mango, kiwi and raspberry is my absolute favorite.
3. Eating. I, like Nina love a good meal and just love to eat in general, case in point why I have to workout or I'd be so obese.
4. Friends & Fam. As everyone knows I'm always in Wheaton w/ my parents. They're funny, yet get on your nerves type of people - but who's parents aren't after a couple hours :-). But I do enjoy being around them especially the Skip, he's always good for a few laughs. I love hanging out w/ my friends as well and Chris' friends. That is one thing I really love about him is his group of friends and their girlfriends.
5. Vacationing. Not weekend away trips that require you to go in a car and drive somewhere but more so the vacationing that requires a couple hours on a plane preferably where they serve alcoholic fun drinks. I think of a vacation as going to Vegas or somewhere with a beach and ocean, anything else to me is just "taking a trip."
6. Chris. Well I wouldn't be a good gf w/o listing my favorite buddy! LOL. He's just the best thing ever, I thought I'd be single for life b/c I never like anybody, am really picky and I really think all guys are crabby until I met Mr. Smulsk! Someday soon he will post a blog, if anything I'll make him do it.