Weekend Recap: A Family Affair

This weekend we had my in-laws in town for our nephew's baptism.  We spent plenty of quality (and delicious) time together.  Friday night Ben suggested, on a whim, that we go to Las Tablas for dinner.  It's a Colombian restaurant we'd been to once before for a company party. Remembering how much food is served with a meal, my mother in law split a steak/chicken combo with me, but my SIL/BIL went big with the meat combo you see below. Another memory that didn't serve me wrong was the mojitos. A must!

 

Heritage General Bicycle is across the street and was having another movie night.  We contemplated staying to watch Three Amigos, but instead Ben and I went back to our apartment (my ILs stay with my SIL/BIL) and enjoyed the perfect weather and bulldogs on the deck with wine and Yahtzee. By the way, who gets a Yahtzee three games in a row?! Apparently Ben because he smoked me every game!

   

Some how Ben and I both managed to sleep in until 9:30 on Saturday morning, which is a rarity for us!  We ended up skipping our typical morning runs to meet the fam at Bakin and Eggs for breakfast.  After ordering the same thing the past two years, bacon, egg, gruyere croissant, I finally tried something new, chorizo fritatta, and it was delicious!

 

Saturday was spent trying to coordinate the incoming three families of SIL's husband, which was a bit wonky.  We ended up relaxing at their house for much of the day, followed by a scenic drive up Lake Shore Drive and the gorgeous homes along the lake in Evanston and Wilmette before heading to Glenview for dinner at Yardhouse.

 

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that my necklace I ordered last week arrived and I've already worn it twice. Well worth ordering!

   

Sunday morning we redeemed ourselves. I woke up at 7am to take the dogs out. At that time it was still cool and breezy so I figured I might as well stay awake and put in a healthy seven mile run.  While out on Lake Michigan path, I decided that it was so nice that we needed to take advantage! We took Oscar to the dog beach since we had plenty of time before we needed to be back at my sister in law's that afternoon.

 

Oscar was in Heaven! If there's one happy place for him, it's Montrose Dog Beach (we often joke that when he passes, we'll need to spread his ashes there). 40 minutes was enough to wear him out for the day, which was just what we wanted.  We came home and bathed everyone, dogs and ourselves. before dropping Huey off at his "play date" (a rescue event hosted by Paws) and we were off for the baptism.

   

Baby J turned six months earlier last week and now is bubbly little boy.  We had so much fun entertaining and passing him around at lunch at my SIL's house prior to the baptism.

Being that we've never really attended a baptism before, let alone been named a godparent like Ben is to J, we decided to forgo the traditional gift of money and have a little fun with our gifts... 

This little onsie was so cute and funny, we could not resist. Especially since Ben has continually referenced The Godfather, the movie throughout these past couple weeks (even though neither of us has even seen the movie...yipes!)

The other gift we gave was a personalized baptism book. We provided a picture as well as the baptism information and name of all of the guests so that Baby J can have a nice keepsake of his special day.  The book wasn't quite the quality we'd expected, but I still think it was a unique gift that can be saved for years.

The baptism took place at St. Alphonsus Church, which is absolutely beautiful. We'd been to the church before, but that was for their Oktoberfest, which is not actually inside the church. I'm not Catholic, but I'm tempted to come to mass here just to sit in it's beauty. 

There wasn't a full service, rather a few babies being baptised, which was good given that the church was not air conditioned and it was a 90 degree day.  Baby J fussed on and off throughout the ceremony, but what actually got him to stop crying was the pouring of the water.

Note his godfather photobombing

How sweet at those eyes of admiration at his dad?

After the ceremony we went back to SILs and Baby J tried on his onesie for a picture before we headed off to pick up Huey and call it a night. We upheld our tradition of Sunday Night Pizza Sunday and watched the movie Trance, which is action filled with twists and turns. It was really good for randomly selecting it from Red Box.

Hope you had a great weekend!

 Linking up with Sami