Category Archives: Daily Musings

Work Hard, Play Hard

Posted in Daily Musings, Liz's Life by

Phew! What a week.

The past seven days have been filled with some long hours at work preparing for a presentation that took place yesterday. It was one of those projects that really tested my ability to multi-task, keep track of details and maintain composure under stressful situations.

I’m happy to report that the presentation went off without a hitch and I learned A TON throughout the process. It’s pretty cool to have a job where you’re constantly being pushed to do new things and test your capabilities.

Although the past week has been stressful, it really couldn’t have come at a better time since we have a wonderful vacation coming up next week!

We’re jetting off to San Francisco to visit my sister and her husband for a week. We’re planning to spend some time in the city by biking over the Golden Gate bridge

Exploring the cute beach town of Sausalito.

Driving up to the nearby Redwoods.

and of course eating at the awesome restaurants they have.

That weekend, we’re driving down to central Cali to Pasa Robles for some hiking, winery visiting and just some general relaxing.

Finally, Luke and I are taking a day to ourselves to visit Napa Valley.

We found a great driver to be our chauffeur and wine guide for the day.

I cannot tell you how excited I am for this vacation. I haven’t taken a day off since our honeymoon and am looking forward to disconnecting from the daily grind and going into full relaxation mode.

I promise to take a lot of pictures and report back on our trip here. I’m also trying to round up a few guest posters while we’re gone. If you’re interested in contributing a post, shoot me an email! [email protected]

I hope you’re all having a great week!

Up and Away We Go

Posted in Daily Musings, Liz's Life by

Beyond all the awesome food we sampled last weekend, we also had the opportunity to ride in a hot air balloon! I had never been on one before, so I was pretty excited to hop on board.

We had to get up bright and early (6:00 am) to catch our sunrise ride. When we got to the field I was surprised to see that there wasn’t just one balloon, but a ton! They came from all over to attend the Blueberry festival.

We (meaning I, while Luke watched) got to work helping spread out our balloon so it could get blown up with air.

The propane tank is terrifyingly loud! I jumped out of my skin the first time they used it.

Pretty soon we were in the basket making our way up into the sky.

If you ever get the chance to ride in a balloon, definitely try to do at sunset. The light was amazing.

How many balloons do you see?

A huge house I felt compelled to take a shot of…

Riding in a hot air balloon isn’t scary at all. It really feels like you’re just floating along with no bumbs or sudden drops in altitude.

Landing is the hardest part because if you don’t have it mapped out, then you need to find an open space to land that isn’t near power lines.

There’s a “chase van” that follows your flight and helps direct you on where to land. They also help deflate and pack away the balloon.

After our safe landing, Luke decided to finally pitch in and help his Dad put the balloon away. ;)

We celebrated our first flight with a champagne toast with our Cheri, our pilot.

It was an awesome way to start the day! I highly reccomend you ride in a balloon sometime soon. It was so fun and the views are amazing.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I have EIGHT college girlfriends staying with me for the weekend. Luke is on a boys camping trip, so it worked out perfectly with have the ladies in town.

I’m sure there will be some funny posts/pictures from the shenanigans this weekend.

A Lovely Chicago Weekend

Posted in Daily Musings, Married Life by

Hey guys- how is your week going? It’s been a hectic one here already…so many meetings at work!

This past weekend Luke and I had a really nice time in Chicago. It was one of those perfect summer weekends with the right mix of relaxing time and fun with friends.

On Friday, we stayed in and made rack of lamb with a Merlot fig sauce. I was trying to channel the rack of lamp recipe inspired from the movie How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days, but was disappointed in the amount of time it took to cook everything.

Luckily it all tasted yummy once I got over having spent 2 hours cooking! Not quite Sunday Supper Series worthy though.

Saturday morning I awoke to a missing husband and a note explaining that he’d gone rock climbing with his brother. So I decided to join my friend Kaycie who was lounging at the East Bank Club pool (an exclusive club here in Chicago).

We had a great time basking in the sun, talking about the new love in her life and gawking at the number of surgically altered women in high heels that surrounded us. It was definitely a scene!

After taking a glorious three-hour nap post-pool, I got my dancing shoes ready for a going away party for a dear friend of ours. He’s moving to Nigeria of all places to do some great work for the Clinton Foundation. Isn’t that cool, or what?

I wanted to make sure he remembered his last night out in Chicago, so I busted out some of the most ridiculous dance-moves in my repertoire in his honor at The Crocodile. Don’t worry, I didn’t embarrass myself too much because everyone else in our crew was participating in the dance-off as well. It was so fun!

On Sunday, we went to a new brunch place nearby called Yolk, which we were really impressed by. We got the Hey Ricky! omelet that consisted of egg (duh), chorizo, avocado, jalapeno, sour cream, cheese and salsa. It was YUMMY!

After brunch, we went for a walk by the lake and discovered a new walking path that had an amazing view of the city. This isn’t exactly the view (we forgot the camera) but it’s close.

Pretty right? It’s sunny days with views like this that remind me why I love Chicago so much.

What did you guys do this weekend? Hope it was a good one for you!