Bill & Tracy’s legendary annual BBQ

Bill and Tracy kindly invited us to their annual (but our first) grill-out — American for BBQ! We had a slightly chilly day for it but that didn’t stop me putting shorts on (stiff upper lip and all that).

Bill & Tracy put on a fantastic spread. The day was fantastic, we met some great new people and generally had a brilliant time. We even played charades in the evening — something I am not too good at however Sap got all the easy ones! That’s my excuse anyway!

The day was fantastic, we met some great new people and generally had a brilliant time. We even played charades in the evening — something I am not too good at however Sap got all the easy ones! That’s my excuse anyway!

All in all, a great day. Thanks Bill & Tracy! See you next year!

Showing Mum & Dad around Chicago

We’ve had a lovely few days showing Ma & Pa Walshie around Chicago. We’ve done a load of touristy stuff and we’ve had really lovely weather.

They brought a load of UK expat rations with them — we now have a dedicated chocolate cupboard — most exciting of which was the Robinsons squash and, of course, the proper chocolate.

And of course they love their new grandcat — Pepper likes to give Gamdad a nice chew now and then!

We went to see the new Star Trek movie at the iMax on it’s last day last Thursday — Nick, we did try and get the sign into mum’s handbag but, despite her carrying ‘the Tardis’ we couldn’t quite fit it in!

Anyway, we have a few more days of fun and hope the weather holds.

Rich & Duncan visit Chicago

Ladies & gentlemen, Sir Richard and Lord Duncan. Visiting Chicago. Doing the Segways. Mega.

Introducing Pepper

This is Pepper, our lovely new cat. She’s a year old and loves sleeping! She’s already found all the hidey holes in our apartment.

More photos up at Flickr.

The Evans Visit Chicago

We’re a bit late posting this one but we had a lovely time when the Evans visited us in Chicago recently. They were here for just about a week and managed to cram a lot in!

Millennium & Grant Park, the zoo, the Culture Center, museums, the architectural boat tour, shopping…hats off to you ladies!
It also meant Sap and I could do some ‘touristy’ stuff — the weather was really nice and it was great having people to share our touristy-ness with!

The photos of their trip are up at Flickr here.

The Day the River Turned Green

The whole of Chicago turned out wearing green on Saturday for the annual St Patrick’s Day parade. We met Bill, Tracy, Ben & Mandy in a bar near the parade at 11am and the fun started — Guinness for breakfast!

Then it was off to the parade to see random floats and people go by. There was, of course, an Irish feel (well, certainly a ‘green’ feel) and it was a great sight. Ben unsuccessfully tried to get Mandy on his shoulders but Tracy got a great view from up on Bill’s. The parade was still going when we decided to move on after about an hour or so.

We then made our merry way up north, wandering around in the lovely spring sunshine. We made a stop at the river which was dyed green especially for the day — luminous green! We were all a bit shocked at how day-glo it actually was…

All of the Irish bars had queues outside them so we headed to an Italian bar for some drinks and food. Yes, it was an Italian restaurant and yes, it was an Irish holiday. But all the Irish bars had these huge queues — we actually timed one girl in a queue for Fado’s — she was in line for almost an hour. We had eaten, drunk and paid before then.

We hit a few more bars and then decided to get some Thai food (again, yeah, it was an Irish day but hey — the Thai was great!) We finally ended the night in a proper Irish bar, much to Mandy’s delight. Unfortunately they were not playing Irish music so Mandy went to the jukebox armed with dollar bills and threw a load of Irish music on. She also got to eat her corned beef and cabbage — something she’d been saving herself for all day!

We had a great day with top friends — roll on next year! We took a few photos — go check them out on Flickr.

We’re compiling a list of things to do this year

We consulted one of our Chicago guide books at the weekend to see what there is to do in the coming months. We have visitations from Dr Sarah, my parents and the family Humm in the coming months and we’re very excited about Chicago coming out of hibernation!

So that we don’t miss anything, we’re trying to make a calendar of events. Here is the list we put together just before Nick, Paul & Nige came out with those that we’ve done crossed off.

• Sears Tower
• Dinner at John Hancock
• Architecture boat ride
• Millennium Park
• John’s Place
• Cubs game
• Lou Malnati’s Pizza
• Shopping on the Magnificent Mile
• The Orange Diner
• Take a boat out onto the lake
• Museums
• Aquarium
• Piece Brewery
• Goose Island
• Jazz Clubs
• Brew & View
• Howl At the Moon
• Select Cut
• Second City
• China town
• Hire Segways in Millennium Park

On that list I’m most excited about hiring a Segway (once the pavements are cleared of snow and ice!). However, there’s lots more we’ve found that we want to do. Once we compile a new list we’ll put it up here to see how many of the things we want to do we get done!

A balmy day

The weather in Chicago has got decidedly warmer this past week — Tuesday (10th) had highs of 17ºC! Needless to say the snow has all melted which is incredibly strange as we’ve never seen Chicago without snow!

It’s made my walk to work a bit more exciting (!) now that there are parts of roads, pavements etc. not covered by inches of snow and ice. It truly felt like spring yesterday, even the wind was warm! After going home for lunch I took the camera for the walk back and got some nice shots of Chicago in spring-like sunshine.

The weather is going to get colder this week, dropping back down to just above freezing by the end of the week (and -8ºC at night) so I’m sure we’ll see some more snow before too long. Still, it was nice to get a ‘sneak preview’ of Chicago in warmer weather!

See more in the Flickr set.

The New President

I’m not normally one for politics or sentiment but today was quite a big day, even for a limey in Chicago.

We gathered in a large meeting room in a corner of the office at about 10.30am to watch the beginnings of the Inauguration Ceremony. Whilst watching it was hard not to get swept up in the occasion of it all and I kept wondering how this sort of ceremonial celebration would go down in the UK. Somehow I can’t imagine Gordon Brown or David Cameron being received as warmly as Barack Obama was today. And how many people have you seen crying when a new Prime Minister is elected?

But there’s a lot to love about the pomp and ceremony. The speech Mr Obama gave was very good — admittedly, it’s the first Presidential Inauguration speech I’ve witnessed — and obviously moved a lot of the crowd to tears. There does seem to be a real sense of change and hope abound.

I wish the new President good luck and know I will look back on today when I’m grey and old!

Shopping on Sap’s birthday

After weeks of planning, Sap finally turned 30 last Thursday. She was pampered (even if I do say so myself!) and there were lots of surprises throughout the day.

One of which was to go shopping, something she’s not done in ages (perhaps years!). This explains why she struggled to spend any money…even with lots of encouragement from her husband!

Plus it was the coldest day Chicago had experienced in around 12 years. Not a good day to wander around the shops!