What We Did: Our Weekend

I'm going back to Thursday to start off this post.  Yes, I went out on a Thursday (gasp!) Although I probably should have spend a few hours studying, after being away from Ben for four days, I decided a quality night was more important.

Last Thursday, Whole Foods in Lincoln Park had a special event for the release of a beer called Dayman.  It's a coffee IPA, which is an unusual combo, but what's even cooler about this beer is that is a collaboration of Stone Brewing (national brewery from CA), Two Brothers Brewing (located in Chicago suburbs) and Aleman, which is a group of homebrewers!  Aleman entered and won a homebrew contest last year.  The prize? Working with national breweries to mass produce your beer. How cool is that?!

We arrived promptly at 5:45 for 6:00pm keg tapping.  The beer is good. It's different, but it's good.  It has the coffee smell and taste, but it also has the hops smell and taste. Plus it's 8% alcohol and supposedly the equivalent of a few shots of espresso.

 

Being at Whole Foods, I took full advantage of getting sushi for dinner since it is the only place were Ben can also find something to else that serves sushi.  Although I have to admit, his orange chicken was pretty damn good too.

Friday night was class catch up night because I am an idiot.  I have online review courses Monday and Wednesday nights for my PE Exam.  Monday night I missed class due to a conference dinner.  All class sessions are recorded, so I figured I'd watch it Tuesday morning. The class for 3/18 wasn't posted yet so I looked back at the Fall 12 video and found the class following the topic I'd seen last.

I watched the three hour video at Starbucks. Afterwards, I looked at my syllabus and realized the schedule had changed.  I watched the topic for this week (3/25)'s class instead. Are you kidding me?!

Wednesday I drove back after the conference and stopped in Joliet at Starbucks to log on for Wednesday's class.  Guess what? The work laptop I borrowed wouldn't allow the GoTo Meeting Software to work! Oh Lordy!  To make use of time, I watched Monday's class that I'd missed (3/18, the "true" Monday class) instead.

Which meant that this past Friday, I needed to watch Wednesday's class. That was a lot to follow. Are you with me?

We also enjoyed a homecooked meal of Parmesan tilapia and sauteed zucchini.  I know, you're surprised picky Ben would eat this fish, right?  He agreed to it the night before while we were at Whole Foods, although I think the fact that he said some beers made him adventurous to agreeing to it because he was not pleased Friday night.  Too bad for him, feast or famine buddy.

Friday night I also painted my nails, for the first time in 33 DAYS.  Goodness! I know this is lame, but honestly, it is probably the one thing that proves how little free time I have had recently. Typically my nails are always polished and that polish is changed every 5-7 days. Although I realized Saturday that I can't completely finished my nails because apparently I only put one coat on my left hand. Whoops. Still struggling!

Saturday was our been-together-have-of-my-life day.  I gave Ben a card first thing in the morning to let him know that I had two surprises planned.  The first was a couple's massage at Pure Nirvana.  Basically, we left the house and on the way there I say, oh by the way, we're getting massages. 

Now, we got a couple's massage during our honeymoon.  I thought we had both enjoyed it; apparently I was wrong because Ben was not happy about this surprise.  I mean, he went and all, but the bottom line was it was a nice gesture, but never do that to me again.  On the way home, he literally said "Thanks but that was a waste of money.  You basically just paid someone to torture me for an hour".  My rebuttal:  "It's a good thing that one of your qualities I like best is your humor".

The rest of Saturday I studied at Starbucks until it was time for surprise #2.  I gave the pre-cursor that he would definitely enjoy this more than the first surprise and it involved food.

For what seems like a few years now, we've talked about going to one of the all-you-can-eat Brazilian meat restaurants: Texas de Brazil, Fogo de Chao or Brazzaz.  I searched online and found the best overall reviews for Texas. When I called to make the reservation, I was disheartened to learn that the downtown location is temporarily closed.  Thus, I made a reservation for Fogo de Chao (be sure to make a reservation as we heard the hostess telling people it was a two hour wait).

First up was caipirinha, which can be equated to a Brazilian mojito. Delicious and strong.

The premise of these restaurants is two things.  The first being the salad bar; where they are hoping you'll fill up.  Being Ben, he took meat and cheese and that was it.  I took a few vegetables and a mixed salad, but there wasn't anything to write home about.  I was irritated that the broccoli and asparagus were both raw.

The fun part of the meal is the meat.  They have over ten types of meat with servers constantly roaming the dining floor.  Each patron is given a flip card; green signals the "meat man" to come to you and red indicates you need a break.  It seemed like whenever we were on green, we were bombarded with meat, so it was a fun kind of stop-and-go service.

While the meats were good and the service was great, overall it was an expensive meal that quite frankly neither of us thought was worth it.  Our meal at the Signature Room atop John Hancock the day we got engaged was similarly priced (and that include a bottle of wine plus dessert.  We were too full for dessert at Fogo). We're glad to have gone and tried it, but we don't plan on returning.

I will admit I have not been big into basketball this season given my priorities (this is the first time in years that I didn't make a NCAA bracket); but Saturday night I did root on Marquette and was pretty estatic for their win!

Sunday was a heavy hit-the-books day, although I did have some visitors stop by to give me a brief break.

Sunday night we went over to Ben's sisters' to visit with them and our nephew.  It's amazing to see how much he has changed in just a few weeks! They seem so much more at ease now than they were when we last visited. It's fun to see SIL in the mother-role since I'm (obviously) not used to seeing that side of her!

I couldn't resist this little onsie for him during Gap's Friends and Family sale last week. 

That wraps up our weekend! How was yours?