Eataly / Icons / A 21st Birthday

We had quite the adventure on Saturday! My sweet sister-in-law Jenna decided to visit for the weekend so she could come to my baby shower on Sunday (more on that later!). Frank said we needed to get in all our partying before Baby, so that's what we did.

Saturday morning we went to Frank's favorite place in the world ... Eataly. I think I've mentioned it before? It's basically a food-themed amusement park for adults. We love going there to sample new foods, pick up special-occasion groceries, and get ideas for future culinary endeavors.

And Jenna got to try gelato for the very first time!!!

I felt like a very negligent sister-in-law that she'd never had gelato before. She loved it, of course.

Next we stopped by Frank's other happy place, the Irish American Heritage Center. Full disclosure: I waited in the car while he showed Jenna around. I think I'm Irish-ed out for a bit. There's only so many times a Cuban girl can work up interest in the Irish gift shop and genealogy research room, you know?

Then it was time for the big event of the afternoon. We were going on an "adult field trip" to tour an iconographer's studio!

We met Joseph Malham last fall when we attended a a talk he gave on icons. Then in February, we heard him speak about his new book on the great film director John Ford (who was Irish-American, go figure). Frank got his email address and they kept in touch. Knowing Frank's love for iconography, Mr. Malham invited us to come see where he works as artist-in-residence at a Chicago parish.

We gathered a few friends who share our love for sacred art, and off we went.

The trip was incredible. Mr. Malham gave us some background information about icons, and then answered our questions. He even let us pick out prints of his beautiful work to take home!

Besides icons, he also does some regular Western-style paintings, like the ones below of John Ford and Pope John XXIII.

After we toured the studio, he also showed us the attached church. That place is gorgeous. We felt like we had walked into an old European cathedral.

After the tour, we walked down the street to the local pub for a few drinks in the sunshine. Mr. Malham joined us and kept us all laughing with his priceless comments and stories.

Next we met my parents for dinner and my little sister's high school play.

Finally we finished the night with our big and exciting surprise... a trip to the top of the John Hancock building to celebrate Jenna turning 21!

Let me tell you, the John Hancock Signature Lounge is where you go when you want to feel like a high roller. Drinks start around $14 (unless you're like me and get a cranberry juice) and everyone except us was dressed to the nines.

A few friends met us up there and we scored a table next to the window. Jenna's 21st was celebrated in the finest of style.

We didn't get home until 2:30 am! I can't remember the last time we were out so late. But like Frank said, we had to get in our partying.

Now Baby is welcome to make an appearance whenever his or her little heart desires. Any day now, I hope!

Nature on Tap + Maternity photo tips?

Have you heard of How About We? I found out about it from Natalie's fun posts about going on 10 curated dates with her husband.

Her blog inspired me to check out their dates for Chicago, but I never scheduled any because Frank wasn't really into the idea ("We don't need someone else to plan our dates") until one day Giedre mentioned that she also wanted to try How About We, and her fiance Vincas was equally uninterested. Ah-ha! An ally!

So the two of us began conspiring to get the menfolk on a curated date. It took forever to find a day that worked with all of our schedules, and even longer to find a date that all of us wanted to go on, but finally the stars aligned and Tuesday night we found ourselves at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum for their fun adults-only event Nature on Tap.

We didn't quite know what to expect, but the evening was a lot of fun. Even Frank, the skeptic, said it was more fun than he expected. We toured the museum exhibits, enjoyed craft beers and hot sandwiches, and competed in an intense game of nature trivia. You know how we love a good trivia night. Frank and Vincas took their trivia very seriously, pausing occasionally to give Giedre and me the stink-eye as we talked through the whole thing. Whoops. Well, we had a lot to catch up on. :)

And we got to visit the butterfly haven!

It was so nice to see a bit of greenery after this long, cold winter. 

This post is definitely not sponsored (I wish!) but if you're looking for some fun date ideas near you, I recommend giving How About We a try. We really liked it, and we hope to use their service again soon!

Also, a quick question for any moms out there. Giedre and I are planning a maternity photo shoot for once the weather gets a bit warmer. I'm extremely excited about it, but also a little nervous! I guess my worry is that I don't want to come across too cheesy, but I still want to capture all the emotions and excitement of this time. If you've done something like that, do you have any tips or recommendations? (I pinned some of my favorite ideas here.)

Of course, working with Giedre, I know there is no need to worry. Frank and I were looking at her portfolio the other day, and he kept saying, "Did she take all these?? Man! She's good!" It cracked me up. I was like, "Yes, you know she's been doing this for years!" :)

AG Place + John Hancock with Mary

Last weekend my dear friend Mary came into town and stayed at my apartment Friday night. A lot of my friends have slept over at our place since we got married, and I love it! We get to stay up late talking and Frank always whips up a fabulous breakfast (blueberry pancakes, in this case).

Mary's been to Chicago many times before so we didn't feel the need to visit any of the major attractions. Instead we took the El to Michigan Avenue on Saturday and spent a few hours browsing the stores, in particular the American Girl Place. Have I written before about my love for that place? Besides their great cocktail selection at the restaurant, it's just so much fun to take a little trip down memory lane in their "doll museum" and see all the latest doll accessories.

One of the great things about having a husband who was homeschooled is that Frank read all the American Girl books growing up, and he has absolutely no problem expressing enthusiasm for them. He says they're great historical fiction for either boys or girls, and when we go to the American Girl Place, he points out his favorite of the new dolls—Caroline, because she lived on the Great Lakes during the War of 1812 and one of her accessories is a boat. Every time we see it, Frank and I talk about how awesome that is. What little girl doesn't want a boat for her dolls? We look forward to the day when we can get a Caroline for our someday daughter (who may or may not be growing inside me already—we'll have to wait and see!).

Anyway, after browsing the American Girl place and Macy's, we still had a few hours to kill before our dinner plans, but I was out of ideas. We could go to the Ghirardelli or Hershey's store, but... Lent... Then I remembered that the John Hancock Tower is right across the street from the American Girl Place, and there's no charge to go up to their lounge or restaurant (unlike the pricey Sears Tower).

I asked Mary if she wanted to go up and get a drink in the John Hancock, and she told me the sweetest story. When her parents were dating as twenty-somethings in Chicago, they used to end their dates with a ride up the John Hancock building and enjoying a Bailey's on the rocks at the bar. It was inexpensive enough for her dad, a law student, to afford, but still classy and fun. That story had us sold. Frank went home to start dinner (Mary's sister Rose and Rose's boyfriend were coming over in a few hours) while Mary and I traipsed off to replicate her parents' Bailey's dates.

Well... kind of. A Bailey's for Mary and a tall cranberry juice for the pregnant lady.

The wait was a lot longer than we expected, even for 4:30 pm on a Saturday, but the views were spectacular!

Can you see Navy Pier?

It was awesome. And when we headed home, I was really glad Frank decided to be responsible and go home early, because Mary and I rolled in just 10 minutes before our guests showed up. Whoops. Fortunately he'd already made dinner. That guy is a champ.

Thank you for coming to visit us, Mary! Come back again soon!

Kelly visits!

Gosh, how embarrassing. I haven't posted in a week. I always set these noble goals for myself to post every day, but somehow that never lasts very long!

At least I have a good excuse. :) My dear friend from college Kelly came to visit! She's in medical school in Philly, but she's doing a rotation in Pittsburgh right now, so of course she had to make the trek out to Chicago.

I remember one time in college, Kelly declared that she HATED Chicago. There was nothing good about it! She said it had terrible weather and no culture—in fact, its opera house was right on the street!!

I should add that Kelly has no recollection of ever saying this.

So when I knew she was coming to visit, I had one goal: prove that Chicago does have culture, and is quite a fine city after all.

Kelly arrived Friday night and Frank and I made a fabulous dinner for the occasion. We pulled out the cloth napkins and everything. Then Kelly and I talked and caught up for hours while Frank-the-ever-patient pretended to be invisible.

Saturday morning we woke up early and drove out to the suburbs for a talk on icons.

Frank, Kelly and I do love icons, but the talk was 45 min away, at 9:00 am on a Saturday.

We wouldn't have gone if we didn't have a very special reason: I'm giving a talk at the same church next month, and I wanted to do a little recon first.

On that note, friends, do you have any recommendations for giving a talk to young adults? My topic is "The Church and New Media: How Catholics can engage with social media and use it for New Evangelization without compromising key principles." I have a lot of ideas, but I've never done this before, and I'm not sure where to start!

After the talk we went to my parents' house for brunch. We only intended to stay an hour, but Kelly was having so much fun we stayed for almost three! My dad wanted to talk about medical school, while my mom wanted to hear about Kelly's family. Kelly and I share the unusual distinction of being from families with six girls and one boy—we concluded that our parents have a lot in common.

In the afternoon, I put my show-off-Chicago plan into action. Kelly and I went downtown to the fabulous Art Institute, leaving Frank to get ready for a bachelor party he was going to that night.

Fortunately Kelly loved the Art Institute. Neither of us wanted to leave. We especially enjoyed the miniature rooms in the basement, showcasing different regional and historical styles.

I loved that the New England room below had a blue and white plate collection. Kindred spirits!

I also decided that my new life dream is to have a bed just like the one below. Isn't it cool? And just think of the eavesdropping possibilities... just kidding. ;)

Kelly and I discovered a new favorite painting—this image of St. Andrew:


You can really see how he struggles to embrace his cross. Isn't that what all of us are trying to do in our lives? It gave us a lot to think about.

I put up some pictures on Instagram from the Art Institute and found out that sweet Kate almost got engaged there! Isn't that neat?

After all our artistic education, we decided it was time to relax. We went to a cool, philosophical cafe down the street for coffee and then walked a few blocks more to an Italian restaurant for dinner.

When Frank and I go to Italian restaurants, especially when we were in Rome, he often wants to order margherita pizza. I always get annoyed—"Don't you want to branch out and try new things??" So what did I do at the Italian restaurant Saturday night, with no Frank around? I ordered the margherita pizza! I tell you, marriage does funny things to you.

After dinner we did some extensive window shopping, including looking for a $28,000 handbag at Burberry. I saw the same bag last week when I was downtown with Frank's parents, and I couldn't resist showing Kelly—I mean, isn't that outrageous?! They'd moved the bag, though, and we walked all over the three-story Burberry before we finally stumbled upon it. I'm pretty sure the dude working the second floor thought we were shoplifters. But I recognized the first-floor employee from last week and we had a nice chat. He asked if we had seen the $90,000 jacket upstairs. No, we did not. I can't believe we missed it!

Next stop was Macy's, where we talked ourselves out of buying various dresses and shoes and gave each other makeovers at the makeup counter. We tried to visit American Girl Place, but sadly it had just closed when we got there! No matter. It was time to visit Ghirardelli's.

As we sat and talked, Kelly agreed that she did like Chicago after all. And I realized that, in convincing her, I had convinced myself too. I might not be fond of this place quite yet, but I think it's safe to say I'm getting there.


P.S. If you're wondering when I'm going to publish the next part of the love story—I've been working away on it—talk to Frank. I send him each part for editing before I publish, mostly so he can tell me if I got any facts wrong, and he hasn't gotten back to me about this last part yet. I'll keep bugging him about it, I promise.

What a weekend!

Frank was officially sworn in as a licensed Illinois attorney on Thursday. His parents flew in from New Jersey for the occasion.

They and I spent the whole weekend making obnoxious lawyer jokes. Frank looooved it. ;)

When they first asked if they could stay with us, I wasn't sure how it would go—our place is tiny, after all. Four people in a 1BR, 1Bath apartment?!

But it couldn't have gone better. My in-laws are amazing house guests—much tidier than my little siblings, haha—and we had so much fun with them.

Here are a few highlights from the weekend!

They arrived on Wednesday night and the first thing we did was head to my parents' house for a full Cuban dinner. Frank's parents had never experienced Cuban food before, and we just had to remedy that situation. I'm happy to report they liked everything!

We all woke up bright and early Thursday morning to head into town for the swearing-in (I took the day off from work). It was at the Arie Crown Theater in the city.

^^Frank's parents thought this sign was a little tacky, but I loved it. Especially the little justice symbols!

The ceremony was a session of the Illinois Supreme Court. Three justices administered the oaths, and there were representatives from all Illinois bar associations. I noticed one of the representatives was visibly pregnant, and I thought, "Good for her!"

Several bar-association representatives gave speeches. The cool thing was that two of them had children getting sworn in that day—in fact, one of them had twins becoming lawyers!

My favorite speech was from one of the lawyer dads, who said earning a law license grants a measure of authority and respect. "Always live in a way that honors that authority," he said. "Practice humility, civility, and compassion."

Frank's mom and I kept quoting that bit about "humility, civility, and compassion" the rest of the day. We loved it!

After the ceremony, Frank and I proudly introduced his parents to our new favorite restaurant. Great food, fantastic service, and reasonable prices. We will be back!

Friday night, Frank and I decided to host a real, fancy little "dinner party" for his parents.

He made his famous pasta alla carbonara (a dish we discovered, and learned to love, on our honeymoon in Rome) and I made Caesar salad and set out fancy cheeses and bruschetta for appetizers.

Frank and his dad make fun of his mom and me for taking pictures of our food, but I still had to snap a picture of our table with the food on it ... I loved how it turned out!

(And please ignore the beautiful cardboard boxes in the background. Frank's been selling all his old law books on Amazon, so the house is a bit overrun with piles of books and mailing supplies.)

Saturday was our big "day out in the city."

We decided to have lunch on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building, and what a great decision that was! It was awesome and surprisingly affordable.

We will definitely be bringing out-of-town visitors there again in the future.

The view was spectacular, even with a little fog hanging over the city.

It was the nicest little double date. We took turns taking pictures of each other from opposite sides of the table:

And I just have to include this picture, even though Frank's not looking, because I think he looks so very Gilbert-Blythe-y in it:

Do you see it? Or is it just me?

After our fabulous lunch, we met up with the rest of my family and walked down Michigan Avenue all the way to Millenium Park.

My favorite stop was the Tribune Building. Have you ever seen it? It's really beautiful inside:

And the outside is just the coolest. The walls are embedded with bricks and stones from famous places around the world—everywhere from the beaches of Normandy to the hills of Jerusalem.

Each one is labeled so you can enjoy a bit of history. We got a picture of Frank's parents in front of a stone from their hometown of Princeton, NJ, and my little brother insisted on a photo with a brick from the church where Patrick Henry gave his "Give me liberty or give me death!" speech. He's doing a report on it for class and plans to include the photo. :)

After that, he and my little sister were cold, so my dad gave them his coat. They wrapped themselves up in it and declared they were "a two-headed monster!" It was so darn cute I had to get a picture:

We finished our trek at the Bean and took the requisite montage of silly Bean photos.

My little shadow trailed us and asked to join, so we pulled her in for a few more.

After that I headed off to my dear friend Anna's bachelorette party, of which I have very little photographic evidence, and what I do have isn't bloggable. ;) Let's just say it was a great, great night.

Sunday morning we went to church and then had a fabulous brunch with Frank's parents. We did a little more strolling and window-shopping in the suburbs before finally taking them to the airport.

Then Frank and I came home, ordered Chinese take-out, and zoned out in front of our new favorite show after our action-packed weekend.

Chicago church tour ... on a trolley!

On Sunday, Frank's and my new parish hosted a trolley tour of three Chicago churches.

We are so excited about our parish, by the way. We really loved going to St. John Cantius when we first moved here—what an incredible parish it is!—but it was a 20–25 minute drive from our house.

So we began exploring churches close to us, and it didn't take long before we fell in love with St. Mary of Perpetual Help. From beautiful liturgies to inspired preaching to a vibrant community, this church has it all. The church building is spectacular—Frank thinks it's the most beautiful church in Chicago—and it's only a 5 minute drive from our house! We were quickly convinced.

Anyway, so the church tour. Our friends Tommy and Catherine and Frank's co-worker/friend Steve joined us for the outing.

First we went to St. Michael's in Old Town, a historic church that survived the Chicago fire just two years after it was built.

Check out that altar. Isn't it dreamy?

The next stop was St. Mary of the Angels ... which you may remember as the church where my sister got married.

Even though I've been to that church many times, it was amazing seeing it on a tour. As the tour guide explained the significance of the carved stone reliefs in the front porch, I muttered to Frank, "I never even noticed those were there before." So I learned a lot at St. Mary's too.

Our final stop was St. Alphonsus. They conveniently had their Oktoberfest the same day, so after the last tour we hung out at the festival for a while. My dear friend Theresa joined us there, since she lives just a few blocks from "St. Al's."

I couldn't get enough of the ceiling at St. Alphonsus.

It actually reminds me a lot of the Sacred Heart Basilica at Notre Dame (if you've seen that church, do you see what I mean?).

This altar has an incredible back-story. Construction on it began in Germany, and it was half-finished when World War II broke out. The sculptors feared for its safety so they lowered the altar into the ocean, where it remained unharmed since it's made of marble. After the war, they pulled it out again, finished it, and sent it to the United States.

St. Al's had so many beautiful little details—this baptismal font is one example. The stained glass there was my favorite of all the churches we saw.

 

The tour was so much fun. It was coordinated through Catholic Church Tours—I would highly recommend them if you're looking for a fun excursion. 

Frank is a bit of a church architecture buff, and he took many more pictures than I did. I'm trying to convince him to start a blog with photo tours of different Chicago churches. There are so many beautiful ones here. I'll let you know how that goes.

p.s. Sorry if the watermarks are a little annoying. I normally never use them, figuring nobody would want to steal my photos, but these pictures turned out pretty enough that I decided to play it safe. If you're a blogger, do you use watermarks?