Let the Eating Begin

We haven't made any plans for our time here in Chicago, which is just fine by me. We'll just have to play it by ear (*gasp!* Yes, you read that right! LOL!) Since we got in so late last night, we told the boys that they could sleep as late as they wanted to. Somehow that message didn't get passed on to the alarm on their iTouch. Why they are setting the alarm in the first place is beyond me -- it has gone off every single morning on our trip and they never EVER wake up, even after I put it right next to their ears. Grrrrr!  

So anyway, after that rude awakening, we just lounged around my absent brother-in-law's place (he's suffering in Vegas, poor guy!) My husband's aunties live upstairs on the 1st and 2nd floors of the two-flat, so it's nice to be able just to run upstairs to visit them whenever. And to bore you even further, I will tell you that only other thing we did this morning was laundry. Woohoo! How's that for excitement in the Windy City?!

My in-laws came over a bit later and we all went out for lunch at Portillo's... Italian beef and their famous chocolate cake. Delish!

Italian beef with sweet peppers, dipped in gravy


After lunch, we headed back to watch the Cubs game on WGN. And being the Cubs, of course, they lost to the dreaded Sox. What a welcome back.

Later that afternoon, the cousins (the boys' 2nd cousins, actually) came to visit (the youngest is sleeping over upstairs at his grandma's tonight). They all had a great time together playing sardines and with their DS's.

We had dinner at Graziano's in Niles. Back when we lived here and before we had M, we would come here pretty often - it's nice to see that they're still doing good business. I made a reservation online thru OpenTable, and we were seated right away when we arrived. They even comped us an order of bruschetta for using the website! That was a nice surprise when it came to the table. A very tasty dinner all around! The only drawback was that it was a lot of food, which was going to cut into our available stomach real estate for later eating opportunities.

The kids (my boys + the sleep-over cousin) were eager to go play basketball after dinner, so my good husband took the 3 of them over to a nearby park to shoot hoops. Grandpa went with them to watch, while Grandma and I stayed behind in the air conditioning. They were out for quite awhile, so I figured that they must have gone to get ice cream. Sure enough, they went to Oberweis!

I think the "no-schedule" route is the perfect thing for now. The boys had a lot of fun just playing with their cousins. And we can all re-charge for a few days before hitting the road for our trip back.