Saturday was a busy day. Since we were celebrating Teddy's birthday with his family on Sunday, I thought I'd surprise him with some activities on Saturday. So, Saturday morning I gave him his gift of a Cannon Power Shot camera. He was busy snapping away trying it out.
Then I told him I had one more surprise and we had to leave by 10 am to make it in time. He spent the car ride asking me questions trying to figure out where it was I was taking him.
He was excited to find out. When we were about 10 minutes away, he said all the answers to my questions and where we were made him think we were headed to Wrigley Field, but that didn't make sense because they were away that day. Well, at that point I gave it away that we were going on a tour of Wrigley. So, he was right!
Our tour started in the bleachers where we heard all sorts of history about the park.
We then got to go into the visitors club house. Boy was it tiny. Apparently they expanded it slightly in the 1990's, but before then it was about 2/3rd's its current size. We couldn't imagine a baseball team squeezing in here, let alone a football team for when the Bears played there.
From there we went up to the press box, to see what it's like from that view point. We were sitting in Patrick Mooney's spot.
After that we were able to head down to the Cub's club house. It was larger than the visitors team, but still pretty tiny. We also found out that the batting cage they use is in there locker room. They drop a net, flip down this piece of plywood to cover a plasma screen tv, and then let it rip in there. It is crazy. Teddy said after seeing that he understands why the Cub's hitting is what it is. :)
See that net at the very top of the picture, that's what is dropped for the batting cage
We then walked through the tunnel to the cubs dug out. Teddy was very excited.
We ended the tour on the field. I thought it was a great tour (seeing that I'm a Sox fan - that says a lot), and Teddy really seemed to enjoy it. I thought it was completely worth it and it was fun surprising him on his birthday.
I then took him to lunch at our favorite place when I lived in Lakeview, Wilde. We loved this place and came here almost every Friday before we moved to the burbs. It was fun reliving memories at our place. They have the best blackened shrimp appetizer around. It is our favorite.
Ok, so that covered dancing and Cubs, but what about Crawfish? Every year Chris and John throw a crawfish boil at their house for John's birthday. So, Teddy and I headed from Wilde to their house to take part in the mudbug celebration (well, I took part - Teddy wouldn't touch those things with a 10 ft pole). We were excited to see everyone as it has been a while since we had been able to get together.
Since it was the 5th year for the boil, Chris was making t-shirts for everyone.
Kris and Erica where there with Emily and Carson. Teddy and I spent some time kicking the ball around with Emily.
As they were preparing the first batch, and about to dump them in the boiling water, someone noticed an odd hitchhiker to the crawfish. It was a turtle. Somehow a turtle got mixed up in with the crawfish. Thank goodness we didn't dump him in. I don't think I could have eaten the crawfish if that happened.
This is Mark realzing that there is a turtle in the bunch.
After the excitement with the turtle, the crawfish went in. Soon after, we then got to sample the first round of the crawfish. It's sort of a feeding frenzy. John dumps the cooked little guys on a newspaper covered table and everyone stands around to feast. It's a little graphic if you've never seen as you have to pull off the heads, and pinch the tails to get the meat out. Sounds gross maybe, but they are delicious.
Mary and Shawn brought their sweet little guy Evan all the way from Denver for the boil.
Jennifer hanging out with her nephew Carson and talking to Kirstyn
Jennifer and Super catching up (hmm, Jennifer with no drinks, Super with two, something's not quite right here.)
Heather cutting her from scratch birthday cake she made for John
John working away on the next batch of crawfish
John, Jon., Mark and Shawn trying the latest batch
More people jumping in to try it
Ending the night with Jon, Shawn and Mark doiing their best Zoolander. You guys are crazy! :)
It was a busy day, but we had a ton of fun hanging out with every one. Thanks to John and Chris for hosting another awesome crawfish boil.
Nice work Arla! I'm glad you guys could make it. The mudbugs were great this year and I am soooo glad we did not boil the little turtle, That would have put a severe damper on the rest of the batches!
ReplyDeleteLooks super yummy.
ReplyDeleteWent to a crawfish boil in Monroe, LA, good stuff.
Cuz Pat.