Welcome to our Blog

Welcome to our Blog!
We plan to use this Blog to update our friends and families of our new adventures in the Big Apple and New Jersey.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Bears game with Jason and Brian

The weekend after Labor Day my (Charlie) friend Brian came into Chicago.  Brian and Jason are my two best friends from high school, and we try once a year to get together in one of our cities.  It doesn't work out every year, but this year me and Jason are now both living in Chicago - so only Brian has to travel to make it happen these days.  And the Bengals were playing at Soldier Field this year, so it seemed perfect.

Brian came into town the weekend of September 7-8.  I was in the midst of marathon training at this point, so I couldn't do anything Friday night, and Saturday I ran 18 miles (which is the 2nd longest training run I'd do).  Saturday was Wrigley Field for a Cubs game, which was interesting trying to walk around after running so much that morning.  We met at Lucky's Sandwich Company on Clark Street for lunch right before heading to the Wrigley Field Bleachers.

The Bleachers are always fun - seats are first come, first served.  We played the famous "dollar game" where you pass around an empty beer cup and put in a dollar when the player makes an out, take a dollar if your guy gets a hit, and take the whole pot if your player hits a homer.  We also ran into a bunch of my college friends who happened to be sitting right behind us in the bleachers - a bunch of guys a year younger were out for a bachelor party.  We hit up the bar scene around Wrigley after the game (Deuce's and Kirkwood's were the specific bars we went to), but went home at a somewhat decent hour to be ready for Sunday.

We went to my friend Jay's tailgate before the game.  Katie didn't go to the game (tickets were pretty expensive), but did get a baby sitter so she could come down to the tailgate.


Jay and his wife Kali were the couple who got married at the Bears game last year, so we felt like we were kind of hanging out at their altar!  Brady is about the same age as their son Bobby.  Someday they will probably duke it out over a Bengals Bears game!  We were conscious of the fact that we were the visiting fans and didn't talk too much trash about the game.  But I thought the Bengals had a really good shot to win.  It was a great game, but the Bengals turned to the Bungles with too many turnovers.  They were winning most of the game, but lost it in the 4th quarter, 24-21.

Still, it was fun to hang out with Jason and Brian - kind of like old times back in Cincy!

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Labor Day with Aunt Abby & Grandma Leslie

For Labor Day weekend, we were very excited that Doctor Aunt Abby got the entire weekend off from her surgery residency. Her and Grandma Leslie decided to come visit us.  We spent most of the weekend just hanging out around the apartment and getting some more things organized.  Abby went to town and put together 2 shelves for storage for Brady's toys, 1 shelf for Charlie's baseball card closet and a new desk chair.  And Grandma Leslie kept Brady very entertained while we got several things done around the house.  Brady even chipped in where he could!



Saturday evening we all went to dinner at one of the walkable restaurants in Roscoe Village called John's Place.  Charlie's friend from high school, Jason and his girlfriend Sandy came up for dinner and of course Brady was at the head of the table keeping everyone very entertained.  Abby and Leslie put Brady to bed, and we went for a drink with Jason and Sandy to Northdown Taproom - a bar and cafe with a huge craft beer selection.


And then on Sunday, Charlie wanted to take Abby and Leslie to his favorite joint for wings called Toon's. You may remember reading on this blog that is where we went on our first date using a babysitter in Chicago for their Annual Wings Fest last spring.  The restaurant was unusually packed for a Sunday afternoon.  The food was good as always and we were having a great time till the very end when we had a credit card snafu.  Somehow the credit card got misplaced after we'd given it to the waiter.  Leslie ended up having to call to cancel a lost card, but we got a comped meal.  Oh well!

Abby and Leslie drove back to Akron on Monday.  We had such a good time hanging out with them and are so grateful for all the help!

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

A week in Chicago with the Caricos

2 weeks after Brady's 1st Birthday party, Charlie had to go to Orlando for a training for work and we had to be officially out of the Wrigley House by August 15th so Bob and Sue decided to come help us. We hired 2 Men and a Truck to move all the big stuff which actually happened back on Monday July 29th but there was lots of little stuff that the movers left behind.  Life was very hectic for a few weeks, one of us would pick Brady up from daycare after work and then one of us would go over to the Wrigley house and load up the car with the clothes and stuff that was left behind.  However, each time we have moved we always say...we just have way too much stuff.  So when Bob and Sue got up here on Sunday August 11th, we had just 4 days to get the remaining stuff out of the house.  I'm sure they were thinking "oh how bad could it be, the movers already took most of the stuff"...but little did they know how much stuff we really had.  Bob and Sue did such a great job getting all the stuff out and cleaning the place up alittle bit and then even helping organize the new place.  We are so thankful to have such nice parents.

Brady quickly found the stairs in the new place and tried to climb them.


On Friday, Katie got to take a day off of work to unpack and get organized but before she could do anything around the house, she needed some Brady time, so her and Grandma Carico went to the zoo in morning.  On Friday mornings in the summer, the Lincoln Park Zoo has a "Story-time" where they have a guy with a guitar play funny kids songs and Brady just loves the music.  After story-time, they dropped Brady off at daycare and got a lot of organizing/unpacking done back at the house.





Even though it was very hectic and stressful, we are very happy in the new place.  We have much more space (3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms) and we can walk to several baby friendly restaurants.



Sunday, November 17, 2013

Brady's Birthday Party Weekend

In late July we were preparing to move from Lakeview to Roscoe Village, but we had a special day to prepare for on the first day of August!  Our little baby...



...turned 1 year old!

We had his birthday party down in Cincinnati at Charlie's parents house.  We left Chicago late on Friday, August 2nd and got down to Cincy late that night.  We were tired when we woke up, but also very excited for the big day.  There was quite a bit of preparation to do.  We had to get the cake:


And Charlie and Tom had to head to Party City to get the decorations:


And then we had to do some setting up (or, from this picture, it looks like at least Leslie did some setting up):


There were a lot of people coming to the party.  Charlie's Uncle Jim and Aunt Nancy (now Great Aunt and Uncle!) were in all the way from Oregon.  Brady seemed excited!


Katie's parents Bob and Sue came over for the part as well, and so did Brady's Great Grandpa Chuck.  We had the party out on the front porch, and the weather was very cooperative!


Some of our college friends who live in Cincy came as well.  Katie's friend Lisa came, and Charlie's friends Travis, Craig, and Denny also came.  


Denny's wife Tracy had just had their baby Hank a few months earlier, so it was neat to see their little one.  


And of course Griffey came with us.  He didn't know what to do about all this commotion, but he behaved very well.  Of course the star of the day was Brady!  And he was decked out in party gear.


He enjoyed getting presents, and the most interesting one for us was the action figure of "The Miz", which was given by Travis.  The Miz was a former fraternity brother of Charlie's who is now a WWE wrestler - and has done well enough to have his own action figure!




After opening presents, the next thing was, naturally, the cake!  We sat the cake down in front of him, and at first, Brady was bit unsure.


But by the end, he had made quite a mess of himself and consumed a little too much sugar!


After the party, our family watched Brady while we went with Tracy, Denny, and Lisa to a small local brewery near Charlie's parents house - Rivertown Brewery.  It's a very new brewer that had some good tasting beers.  All in all, it was a great day and we were happy to celebrate it with so many family and friends!

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Charlie's trip to Philadelphia

We are way behind, but maybe someday we'll catch up :)

After we had a trip all over Ohio for July 4th weekend, we added one person to the fold on the way back to Chicago.  In Eaton, we picked up Katie's mom and the 5 of us (Charlie, Katie, Sue, Brady and Griffey) headed home.

Charlie had a trip to Philadelphia for training for work.  He had a pretty good time - a group of his co-workers went to the Kid Rock concert across the river in Camden, New Jersey.  Kool & the Gang opened up - and sang some of their famous songs like "Celebrate" - so Charlie thought that was kind of neat.


But the main show was Kid Rock - and it was really good.  Though as a group of accountants, we kind of stuck out as different from the crowd!



Back in Chicago, Grandma Sue stayed and helped Katie out as we prepared to move from Lakeview to Roscoe Village.  Katie had just started work, and Sue helped with Brady and helped pack up our house.  We had a month of overlap - so we could start moving things over on July 15th but didn't have to move out of the Lakeview house until August 15th.  Still, moving was going to be tough, so getting things boxed up a little early was helpful!

Sue flew back on Saturday, and we had another visit that night from Bryan, Kristen and their son Will - they were in from Columbus for a wedding and stayed the night with us.  We were amazed at how "advanced" Will had become!  He was walking and talking - so much happens in between a baby's first and second birthday!  It was so good to see them - and hopefully the L train didn't keep Will up too much that night!