Weekend Recap x2

Wow, where has October gone.  I have really fallen off the blogging bandwagon these past two weeks.  Oops!  What can I say, it's been a little busy around Ridgeview these days.  So, I thought I'd do a brief recap of some highlights from the last two weekends.

So, 2 weekends ago Teddy had a guys day planned of golf.  I was happy since he hasn't seen them all really since the wedding, so it was good that he finally dusted off the golf clubs and got some man time.  It was long over due.  He even took some pictures of the day.

Teddy's cart partner for the day

Mark and Jon - Don't they look pumped

Teddy getting in the pictures

While he was out on the course I was able to get some much needed errands done.  It was a productive day. 

On Sunday morning Teddy and I had our first 5K run together.  We were running in the Downers Grove run to support The Family Shelter Service.  We were excited because it was our first 5K after completing the Couch to 5K program the last 9 weeks.  We had been running outside and thought that this would be a good test of our training.  Well, I think we should have taken a look at the course before we signed up because the entire thing was hills, and we trained predominantly on flat roads.  Oops!  It was a pretty tough race and there were times that I wanted to throw in the towel, but Teddy kept me going and we finished the race in about 39:29.  Teddy was excited because he set a goal to finish in less than 40 minutes.  I was excited just to have finished it with the difficulty of the course.  We especially want to thank those that donated to The Family Shelter Service in support of our run.  So, thanks to Mom E, Mom L, Aunt Penny, Jennifer and Sara!  We were so glad that we did it and have been continuing on with the running a few times a week, although since fall is officially here we've moved our training indoors to treadmills at the gym.  Now we need to find a race to run in the spring so we keep motivated all winter.

After the race we headed over to my sister's place to have our family birthday celebration for Michael, Sara and me!  Sara had the idea to head to Goebbert's farm by here to check out the attractions and maybe pick up some pumpkins for Halloween.  We were game and so was the rest of NW Chicago!  It was a perfect day:  sunny and 70 degrees.  So, we grabbed some lunch and headed around the crowd to see what we could. 

What a nice family shot...nice rabbit ears dad!

After the farm we headed over to do some shopping near our dinner location of Cooper's Hawk.  We had an awesome dinner there.  It's one of my favorite places.

Sara and Michael trying to figure out what to order

Mom and Dad looking excited

Teddy and me

After dinner we headed back to Sara and Michael's place for some cake and gifts! 

Getting ready to blow out some candles

Sara made a scrumptious cake for us.  It had the most delish frosting that she made from scratch.  I have to get that recipe from her.  For my birthday Sara and Michael got me some rice bowls and Mom and Dad got me a pizza stone, both from the wedding registry list of unpurchased items.  I'm excited to make some homemade pizza on my new stone and I love those bowls. 

And that wraps up two weekends ago.

This past weekend started off a little bit sad.  Some friends of ours had a death in their family so Friday night and Saturday morning we headed to services to support them.  While it was great to see them, I wish it was under better circumstances.  At times like that it is so hard to know what to say, and I know neither of them knew what to say either.  So, it's this difficult interaction of everyone trying to tiptoe around and say the right thing, do the right thing.  In the end, I think the most important thing is to just be there.  Really be there to listen, give hugs and follow their lead.  I'm sure they have had and will continue to have difficult moments as they grieve, but I hope they know that we are here to help - even if it is just to come over to play games or talk about nonsense to get their minds onto something else.  We love you both and are thinking of you every day. 

Saturday night Teddy had made plans to take me out to dinner for my birthday.  Woot! Woot!  He made reservations months ago at Moto.  Moto is this molecular gastronomy place that creates art out of food.  It's hard to explain, but they take familiar flavors and create a whole different look and use of them.  We did the 10 course tasting menu.  Here are a few shots of a couple of the courses.

This course was a play on baseball food.  It was Quail coated in peanuts with a carmel apple puree, coke a cola reduction, popcorn powder and edible paper that looked like a cracker jack prize and tasted like cherries.  It was absolutely amazing. 

This course was supposed to look like a cannolli, you know, the Italian dessert.  But it was a Mexican taco with duck, jalapeno powder, corn powder and a mole sauce.  I've never really liked mole sauce, but this mole was delicious.  I must have never had the right mole before.

This was one of the dessert courses.  It was chocolate mousse with cookie crumbs on top, merange chips with raspberry dust and some sort of ice cream, I can't remember the flavor.  The textures in this dish were so wonderful and the flavor combinations so terrific. 

We really enjoyed trying all the courses.

Excited to be at Moto and on course number 5

Teddy awaiting our next course

OK, so there was one course I didn't love.  Here I am wondering, what the heck is this?  This was a dessert course with pineapple, chai ice cream, coconut crunchy things.  It wasn't my favorite.  Teddy liked it a lot, but it was a little soapy tasting to me. 

We really enjoyed the meal.  It was unlike anything we had ever tasted before.  I wish we had taken pictures of all the courses.  They were each a piece of art and each course had a unique blend of texture and flavor that made it so good (except for the one soapy course).  ;)

On Sunday I had a spa day planned with my girls, Stacy and Nilam.  We spent nearly all day at the Kohler Spa in Burr Ridge.  We all got massages and then hung out in the hot tub, sauna, steam room for an hour or so and then had pedicures.  It was heaven.  We had a great day catching up and spent a lot of time laughing.  One thing I learned on this day was to go shopping with Stacy, that girl will remember discounts and find discounts no one knew existed!  It was like a money saving extravaganza with her.  After the spa we headed over to Cooper's Hawk (who would have predicted) to get some linner (it was 3:00 by the time we got out of the spa).  And after that hit a few of the shops nearby before calling it a day.  It was so great to spend the day with them.  It has been far too long since we have been able to have a day like that together.  I love those girls!

So, despite the delay in my blogging there has been a lot going on.  I'm now another year older *sigh* but looking forward to things to come.  Hopefully I'll be a little more current on my blog the rest of the month. 

Weekend Recap: Movie and Birthday

This weekend wraps up a week of vacation for me, so I wanted to keep it low key before heading back to work. On Friday, Teddy and I decided to do an impromptu date night. We headed to Adoke for some sushi and then out to see a movie. We went to see Life as we Know it.

It's with Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel who are both best friends with a couple, but hate each other.  That couple dies in a car crash and left their baby girl in the custody of their two best friends.  It was predictable, but entertaining with some funny and heart warming moments.  I really liked it.

On Saturday Teddy and I went for a run, and worked on some errands before heading over to his parents house to celebrate Beth's birthday!  Beth was in town for the weekend, and it was so great to see her.  Mom made a yummy dinner of beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes, and corn & peas.  We followed that up with a pumpkin cheese cake for dessert with candles and birthday song.  It was good fun catching up with the family.  Here are some pictures from the birthday festivities.

Everyone's ready to have some dinner

Dad, Teddy and Jennifer

The birthday girl ready for a song and some candles

Attack of the smiliest guy around, Carson

Teddy & me - wanting some cake!

We need to light the candles already!

One of the funniest moments of the night was when we were all singing happy birthday to Beth.  Dad had some issues trying to get a recording of it.  But luckily Teddy captured that take.  Check it out on facebook.  It was great to see Beth, she hadn't been in town since our wedding.  Hopefully she'll be able to come home again soon.

Today Teddy and I are hanging out, doing some stuff around the house before heading to my parents for dinner.  I'm looking forward to hearing about their recent trip to Naples, Florida and seeing all the pictures.

Travel Log: Stockholm

It has been quite a while since I blogged about anything.  I have been out of the country for a week and a half, which is my story for why it's been so long.  This trip took me to Stockholm, Sweden.  The main purpose for my trip was to attend a global training through work.  We had a week long session with people from 25 different countries.  It was the second session for us, with our last one in Shanghai in April, so I have that to look forward to.  It is a great group and I had fun getting to know them all a little better on this trip.  Thanks a bunch to Erik who took everyone in the group around all week showing them his home city.  He went above and beyond to make everyone welcome and have fun! 

Here's a picture of most of the group on game night, which turned into a dance party, then stage diving, people diving, and then on to further antics. 

Teddy arrived in Stockholm late afternoon on Friday.  Luckily he had slept most of the way there, so he freshened up and we headed out for a walk around Old Town and to have some dinner.  That first night we went to an Italian place called Michelangelo's.  It was quite good.  It was so great to have Teddy there and catch up on our week. 

My training was at the Grand Hotel, and Teddy and I decided to just stay there for our long weekend as well.  It was a beautiful hotel in a perfect location to see Stockholm.  Here's a night view.

On Saturday, Teddy and I had tickets to Stockholm's Beer and Whiskey festival.  This was held a little bit out of the main city in Nacka Strand.  It was similar to a trade show, but for beer, whiskey, wine, etc.  Teddy and I had some fun trying all the different beers, and sampling some local food from some vendors there.  In particular we had a reindeer kabob, which was really delicious.  Here are a couple of shots from the festival.

In line to get in

Tasting some beer

One big beer barrel of fun!

Crowd shot

After checking out the festival and having a few beers, we decided to head back to the hotel to do some more exploring of Old Town.  Teddy and I enjoyed exploring the palace, narrow streets, squares, shops and cafes as we walked through this area of Stockholm.  I could imagine that this part of the city is very similar to what is was like centuries ago.  It's almost like going back in time, and was just fantastic.  We also noticed that there were pictures all over the place of the royal family.  In particular of one of the daughters on her wedding day.  They were EVERYWHERE.  Well, we found out that she had just gotten married, and her wedding day was June 19, 2010 - the same day as Teddy and my wedding.  :) 

Palace on the right with the obelisk and church in the background of the square

Palace

Palace guard

One of the main squares in Old Town

Other side of the square

Trying out some Swedish hats

View across from Old Town 

Front of the palace

We went back to the hotel to clean up for dinner and see if the concierge could recommend a place and get us reservations.  So, Teddy goes up to the concierge and this is how this conversation goes:

Teddy:  Hi, can you recommend a place for us for dinner?  I really want some traditional Swedish food, like Swedish meatballs.

Concierge:  (while rolling his eyes - and thinking this stupid American thinks all we eat is meatballs here) No problem, I recommend Den Gyldene Freden.  Its (sigh) meatballs are quite good. 

Teddy:  Great!  Thank you.  (then he turns to me and says) This is that place we saw when we were walking around Old Town, and were calling it the Den of Golden Freedom.

Concierge:  (rolling his eyes again) What time would you like to make reservations...

So, we went to the Den of Golden Freedom for dinner, like two idiots laughing about the name thinking that it can't be close to right and we're just trying to decipher Swedish in our own stupid way.  When we got to the restaurant, we found out that it actually means The Gilded Peace - so we weren't too far off.  Surprisingly enough.  Teddy did, in fact, get the Swedish meatballs, which were delicious and I got the venison, which was equally good.

Here we are in the Den of Golden Freedom enjoying our traditional Swedish food

On Sunday we decided to head out to Djurgarden.  Djurgarden used to be the King's hunting grounds, but it is now a very large park where there are many museums.  I had found a 90 minute walk around the park in our travel book that we had planned to do.  It was supposed to be around 3 miles.  We did make various stops at the Vasa museum and Skansen the outdoor museum, but this "short" walk took us over 4 hours and was no where near 3 miles.  After we were nearly done we saw a map that had the trail marked, and we walked about 10 miles that day.  We were a little bit tired.  But it was a beautiful place.  The trees were starting to change color for the fall with bright reds, yellows and oranges. 

View from the bridge on the way to Djurgarden

At the Vasa museum which houses a ship from the 16th century that was underwater for over 300 years before it was salvaged and restored at this museum.  This ship capsized and sunk after sailing for less than a nautical mile on its maiden voyage.  It was incredible to see it in  person at the museum. 

An exhibit at the museum discussing preservation with a demonstration of that by having bread from 2000 sealed in an air tight bag.  It was a little gross.

Nordic Museum

Skansen the outdoor museum/zoo

This is where we decided this path had to be longer than 3 miles, the Manilla school

And we're still walking... 

Skansen from across the river

That night we decided to explore the city central area to find a place for dinner.  After walking around for a while we settled on the Restauran Prinsen.  We had a delicious meal.  Teddy had the cod and I had veal.  We decided after to head back to the hotel for some dessert and a drink before bed.  The hotel bar was just gorgeous, and they had a delicious chocolate creme brulee with fresh berries. 

The hotel bar

Enjoying a drink and some dessert

Mmmmmm.  Chocolate creme brulee

On Monday we decided to explore more of the city center, and tour guide Teddy mapped out a route to check out various parts of the city.  He cracked me up with his commentary on the various stops on the tour. 

An outdoor market selling fruits, vegatables, hats, purses, etc.

Konserthuset the location of the Nobel prize presentations

The GT office - look at all that signage

Church built by King Adolf Frederik a murdered Prime Minister is buried in the cemetery in the church yard

The old planetarium

View of the city from the park the planetarium was in

Leaves starting to change for fall

Stockholm Public Library

Stockholm School of Economics

19th Century church

After this walk we decided to do a short boat tour of the city.  This was quite nice and took us around the various islands we had been walking around on. 

That night for dinner we headed back to Old Town and went to Glenfiddich Warehouse No. 68 for dinner.  It had a great selection of Swedish beers.  We started with a reindeer appetizer and Teddy had Elk for dinner and I had the Cod.  It was delicious.  We enjoyed a few beers and then went back to the hotel to pack up for an early morning to head to the airport for our flight home. 

Sunset walking between Old Town and Riddar-Holmen

Sunset walking back to the hotel

Teddy and I enjoying sunset

We just loved Stockholm.  It was such a beautiful city with friendly people and I'm so glad that I got to see it with Teddy.  Since my heritage is German and Swedish I always wanted to visit the countries that my family came from.  I went to Germany after college, but never Sweden.  I was so happy to have the opportunity to see where my grandparents families came from.  It was a great trip. 

We're headed home!