3 F's

Saturday, September 11

Food

It should come as no surprise that we live to eat, more than we eat to live. But unfortunately the capacity of our stomachs puts limits on our intake (unlike that guy from Strictly Dumpling who can pack away absurd amounts of food!) Every time we come back to Illinois, we hit up our most favorite places but seem to run out of meals before we can get to them all. It has been way too long since I've had wings from Buffalo Joe's, so I was determined not to miss out this time around. Knowing that we were going to have Lou Malnati's with family for dinner, we headed up to Evanston for an early lunch. Careful planning maximizes opportunity, people!

We had never taken the boys here since they wouldn't have found much to their liking on the menu when they were younger. But now that they both have broadened their culinary horizons, they were game to try. Not being fans of anything hot/spicy, they got a double order of BBQ to share, while R got a single order of mild - such lightweights! I had a single order of spicy wings all to myself.

So good! (Except celery, a waste of stomach real estate!)

Did you know that a good way to quench the fire from spicy food is with milk? In this case, we opted for ice cream from Oberweis in Skokie afterwards, since we wanted to be out of Evanston before the Northwestern football game ended.

After dinner with R's cousins, we drove out to check into our hotel in Naperville. We decided to come out a day before the wedding so that we could have more time to spend with our...

Friends

Sunday, September 12

Some of our dearest friends from college live nearby, so we made plans to meet them for church in the morning. An added bonus was getting to see another couple that we have known for nearly as long who were heading out from the early service as we were coming in! 

We went back to their house for lunch after and enjoyed hanging out together and catching up. It's kind of hard to believe that we were about the same age as the boys are now when the four of us were together at the U of I! I hope that M and J are blessed with the same caliber of friendships as we have been!

Family

Then it was back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding of R's cousin's youngest daughter. The ceremony was held outside at Danada House, which was a really lovely venue. Congrats, L and E!

At the reception the boys were seated with their second cousins instead of with us old people. Needless to say, they had a really good time - haha! 

We're flying home late tomorrow afternoon. And we still have time to squeeze in a visit to Portillo's for lunch! Yay!