Friday Fun

Happy Friday! This week seemed very long to me. Maybe cuz I had a sick hubby at home, or maybe because the constant monotony of work seems to be never ending. Whatever the case, it's the first day of spring, so time for celebration! Yay! Hello, Mother Nature? Care to catch up to your season?

I was thinking about vacation because I desperately need one. And since I was up since 5am this morning for no apparent reason, I've been playing on the computer. Came across our Santa Barbara photos from last September that I kind of forgot about. This sign makes me smile.

Have a great weekend, and a big glass of wine if you feel so inclined!

Wine, Wine and More Wine

Mondays are apparently my days for talking about how much wine I drank over the weekend. I can't help it, I love wine, and my husband might just love it more. So when I first learned about Chicago Gourmet that was happening this past weekend, I was excited, but also hoping I secretly wouldn't be able to go because I'd be pregnant. That's what us "infertiles" do. We plan things, fun things, like vacations, nights out with friends, things that involve alcohol or doing back flips, secretly hoping that we won't be able to join in the fun. Secretly hoping we will have to cancel, or just have to sit on the sidelines and watch everyone else have fun. When you've been trying to have a baby for 2+ years, more times than not, you have no reason to cancel. Kevin and I made a pact...if this past IVF cycle didn't work, we'd go to Chicago Gourmet. Tickets were a bit expensive, so this was a treat of sorts for us. But oh so much fun.

Chicago Gourmet was held in Chicago's Millennium Park, starting on Friday, ending on Sunday. We decided that we were just going to go on Saturday. We arrived at noon to endless booths of wine. We were like Bailey at the dog beach, unable to contain our excitement, and overwhelmed with all the fun ahead of us. We went straight for the closest booth to the door, sidling up, trying to act cool, like we go to wine tastings every weekend. I don’t think we were fooling anyone, because we just stared at all the bottles of wine they had, and then said kind of loudly, “this is our first booth!!” The "sommelier" nodded his head and grinned at us, and we had found a new best friend. He poured us at least 3 full glasses. We started with a sparkling Prosecco, and ended with some red I will never remember. 15 minutes later, our cheeks were hurting from the huge grins on our faces. This might be what a little piece of our heaven would be like.

Not only was there wine, but plenty of food from the top chefs in the Chicago area. We walked around, tried some wine, ate a crab cake, and repeated this for over 3 hours. The weather was a perfect sunny 80 degrees, the wine was delicious, the food scrumptious, the accommodations outstanding, and Kevin and I? Well, we were drunkity drunk drunk. Yes, a baby in the belly is always the goal, but sometimes, being able to join in the fun is just what the doctor ordered.

Back in Town

It's time to clean the sand out of my suitcase. Sort the clothes for the wash, and put away mini shampoo bottles. We've picked the dog up from the kennel and she is settling back into her routine. Our vacation is officially over.

As I am usually the "planner" for vacations, I sometimes get a little nervous if everything is going to turn out as I want it to. Is the hotel going to be nice? Are we staying in a nice area? Is there going to be enough to do? Fortunately I would answer "yes" to all those questions for this vacation. Thankfully everything turned out great. We went to Santa Barbara and LA because we were at a Charity Black Tie for a great non-profit back in May, and in all my drunkeness I bid on this vacation and we won it!

We started in Santa Barbara, and we fell in love with the small city. We hit up about 18-20 wineries (just little sips for me) while we were there. I think we've been to Napa Valley about 4 times, so I didn't really think Santa Barbara would compare to Napa. I'm not a fan of being wrong, but was happy to be so this time around. The wineries there are gorgeous and give Napa wineries a good run for there money. We decided before we left we didn't want to be Sideways "groupies," (we are too cool, obviously) but it turned out we pretty much went to every place the movie was filmed. It's one of my favorite movies so it was fun to go to the wineries that they hit.

After Santa Barbara we headed to LA. As part of our winnings, Jimmy Kimmel Live tickets with "VIP access" were included. We grabbed a couple friends living in the LA area and went on Wednesday night. We saw Russell Brand and Christina Hendricks. Probably not the best show in the world, but it was pretty fun nonetheless. I am even on tv for about 10 seconds at the end of the show. I think the best part was getting to sit in the green room before the show playing pool, having some drinks and playing Ms. Pacman for free. And Russell Brand and the Jimmy Kimmel band were hanging out there also. I felt pretty cool I must admit.

That pretty much rounded out our trip. Happy to be back, but sad to face our every day realities again. Not sure if this IVF worked or not, but will be finding out more this weekend. In the meantime, I'll keep busy sorting out our wine purchases, doing laundry and putting the suitcases away. We are officially back to reality.