A quiet start to 2014

After we got home from Ohio for Christmas, we had a fairly uneventful next few months.  New Year's Eve was even that way!  No parties this year - we went to dinner with just us and Brady.  We ate at an Irish restaurant about a mile from our house in Lincoln Square called the Grafton, which was very good.  We did stay out later than Brady's bedtime - but he is still quite a few years away from seeing the New Year :)

January and February are busy season for us accountants.  We have lots of deadlines at the end of February.  Katie was busy filing the 10-K at her job, and Charlie was busy auditing various mutual funds.  February 27th was an all-nighter for Charlie, which is par for the course.

This was the first year that we both worked and had Brady, so we did need some help.  Charlie's mom came up on two separate weeks, taking Brady to and from daycare and cooking us a number of frozen meals - all this was very helpful and saved time!  Katie's parents came up for two weeks as well, taking Brady to daycare and helping catch up with housework.

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!

Country Fest - June 30th

We went to another festival a few weeks ago.  We've been to quite a few festivals this summer, which we guess is how you should spend some of your summer if you move to Chicago!

Anyways, in the last week of June, Katie was in her last few days as a stay-at-home-mom, so she kept Brady out of daycare for a few days to have some quality time before heading back to "the real world". Brady got a chance to see his buddies Eli and Bobby again (on different days), so he had quite a bit of fun.

Katie & Kalli took Bobby and Brady to a park with swings.  Brady didn't seem in love with the idea of a swing.  We can report that he's gotten better in subsequent visits, however!

Anyways, back to Country Fest.  It's well-known that Katie is a big country music fan, and every now and then she's able to talk Charlie into an event like this.  Country Fest was held in Lincoln Park on the last weekend before Katie went back to work.  So we decided to go down that way to watch a band during the day and then eat dinner at a restaurant with Brady.  We stayed for a little over an hour and had a good time - Mom and son both enjoyed a "cold one" on the lawn watching the band!

After taking in the music scene, we walked over to a nearby restaurant.  Charlie saw the name Four Farthings and thought it sounded interesting, so we went there for what turned out to be an excellent meal!  We still haven't figured out whether the restaurant's name is a tribute to J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (South Farthing is one of four corners of the Shire in his books) or the old British coin (a farthing was worth a quarter-penny) that was U.K. currency from 1707 to 1960.  Charlie prefers to think it's the Tolkien reference, but he's probably wrong!

Baby's first restaurant meal

OK, so this definitely wasn't Brady's first time at a restaurant, but about a month ago we went to a place called Wishbone that is in nearby Roscoe Village.  It's a great place with Southern style cooking and both Charlie and Katie went home full and happy.  But it's notable because it's really the first time Brady also tried the establishment's fare!

We had been brining Brady's own food when we take him to a restaurant, and maybe getting him some bread.  But here we tried the kids portion of mac and cheese - and that kid's portion sure seemed like a lot!  However, nothing is too much for this kid - he is pretty much a black hole when it comes to eating and he finished most of the meal.  Here's a few pictures to commemorate the momentous occasion!

Southport Grocery

We haven't done a restaurant post since we moved to Chicago, and doing Southport Grocery and Cafe seems like a good place to start.  We first went there with Charlie's mom and sister last fall when they visited.  We've gone there a few times since then, and when Abby and Leslie were up again in early June, we went back.

Southport is a North/South street about five blocks west of us.  It's a little more family oriented than where we currently live.  Wrigleyville seems more like dog oriented place, but Southport has dogs and baby strollers :)  D'agostino's, a pizza favorite of ours, is over on Southport, and so is Toon's - Charlie's favorite local watering hole & buffalo wings joint.  Southport Grocery & Cafe was our first dining over in that part of Lakeview.

We always go to Southport Grocery for Sunday brunch.  This usually means a long wait - because the place is good, it also happens to be very popular.  Cupcakes were apparently their first success, but the breakfast / brunch fare is as unique as any place we've been.  Charlie first got their griddled coffee cake, which was made with sour cream and was excellent.  He's also gotten the brisket and gravy, which is a dish with eggs that sounds more like dinner but was a great start to the day.  Leslie has had the chorizo omelet - also excellent.  Abby has gotten various types of pancakes (cupcake and bread pudding).  Katie found our favorite, though.  She got the sweet and savory french toast - which is french toast topped with ham and swiss cheese along with a side of maple-mustard syrup.  If you ever go there - that's our recommendation!

As you can tell by the name, it's not just a restaurant - it's a grocery.  So you can buy some of their famous cupcake mix or some of that unique maple-mustard syrup.  Or any number of other goodies!

Visit from Katie's parents - May 2013

For the weeks of May 13 and May 20, we had quite a lot of activity going on in the Mowry household. Charlie had back to back week-long trips for work, so Katie's mom decided to come visit and help out with Brady and Griffey for those 2 weeks.  And it was perfect timing to have the extra help because Katie came down with a terrible stomach virus that lasted 4 days.   So Grandma Carico did what she does best and took care of Brady to help prevent the virus from spreading to him.  And good thing because he never caught the virus.  Katie had all these plans of projects that she wanted to get done with the help of her mom, but unfortunately the virus kinda put things on hold.  The weekend in between Charlie's two trips, we got to have 2 nights out while Grandma Carico babysat.  On friday night, we went to our first dinner and a movie since before Brady was born.  We ended up eating at this crappy little restaurant called El's Kitchen across the street from the theater....definitely would not recommend it.  However, we put our bad restaurant experience behind us and walked across the street to the theater to see Iron Man 3.  We both gave it two thumbs up.  On Saturday evening, one of Katie's friend's from college who now lives in London was in town visiting with her boyfriend, so we met them and bunch of her friends at a street festival in Lakeview.  Chicagoans love their street festivals and there are many to choose from.  The one we went to was called May Fest and had a band called Two White Crew....which played some great cover songs from our high school days and it was really fun to see Shannon.

Katie's mom actually shared a ride up to Chicago with one of their family friends who also has a daughter that lives in Chicago so Bob, Katie's dad, drove up by himself during the 2nd week to hang out with Brady and take a very tired and worn out Grandma Carico home.

When Grandpa Bob got here, we all went out to D'Agostino's for pizza over on Southport Ave.

It was so nice having Grandma Carico stay with us for 2 weeks and help take care of Brady while Katie was sick.  We just hope that we didn't wear her out too much.

Christmas in Ohio part 4 - seeing friends in Columbus and Cincy

The day after Christmas, we went to dinner at Buffalo Wings and Rings with our friends Brian and Adrienne and their daughter Charlotte. Brian is Charlie's high school friend; we used to see them quite a bit when we lived in New Jersey.  Charlotte is now over a year old and is more active compared to when we last saw her!

The next day, we met with Pastor David from the Mowry's church in Wyoming, who presided over our wedding.  We are excited that Brady is going to be baptized there in March.

That night, we drove up to Columbus with Brady to do Christmas with Charlie's brother Peter and his family.  We hadn't seen PEM, Becca and the kids in almost two years; a house fire canceled our visit with them last year.  So this was their first time seeing Brady!  We picked up Planks pizza - an old favorite from our Columbus days - and brought that for dinner and present opening with the kids.  It was good to see them - Tommy, Joey, Ricky and Mikey have gotten so much bigger and sure are growing up fast!

After seeing Peter and the kids, Tom and Leslie drove back to watch Griffey for a couple days.  We stayed in Columbus and went to our friends Bryan and Kristen's house.  We saw their son Will, whose 1st birthday party we went to when we were en route for our move to Chicago.  Brady got to play with one of Will's exersaucer - a seat that spins around with toys on each side.  Very fun!

We stayed in a hotel that night and then went to Katzinger's Deli for lunch the next day, which is a well-known deli in German Village.  Surprisingly, in 7 years living in Columbus, we'd never actually been there!  The sandwiches we got were very good!  After that, we went up to Dublin to our friends' Craig and Ashley's house.  A few other couples came over with their kids (Matt, Lisa and 1-year old Zane and Joey, Kathy and 1-year old Lilly).  Craig and Ashley have twins a week younger than Brady.  So it was quite the baby party!  With Zane, we got a glimpse of what might be in store with Brady - he had a lot of energy and takes a lot more watching than a 5-month old!

We stayed the night at another friends' house - Gary and Heidi, who have a 4-year old daughter Calla.  Brady also got to play with some old toys there, too!  The next day we drove back to Cincinnati, despite there being a lot of snow, and spent one more day there before driving home to Chicago.  We had a great time going back to Ohio, but were happy to get back to our house in Chicago!

More visits from family, week of Oct 22nd

Toward the end of October, Charlie was in Denver for work on a funds client he has there, and he saw the first snow of the year while there (though it didn't snow back in the midwest).  He didn't get to see much in Denver, except for one night out to dinner with a friend who used to work with him in Columbus.  They went to the Cherry Cricket for dinner - which is now another Man vs. Food restaurant that he's had.  Cherry Cricket is known for a large beer selection and the craziest burger options you can think of - including peanut butter!  Charlie got one with cream cheese and green chili.  He claims it was excellent, so you'll have to take his word for it.

Since Charlie was in Denver for a few days, Bob and Sue made their second visit up to Chicago to help Katie while he was out.  As always, the company and help was very appreciated!  We didn't do much while they were here, but one of the exciting things they did was go to the Lake Shore and take a walk with Griffey and Brady.

The next weekend, Leslie and Abby came up to Chicago as well.  Abby was taking a test in Chicago and Leslie came up with her.  They both stayed for the weekend.  As is the norm with a 3 month old baby, we didn't do a whole lot.  We watched Michigan blow their chance at a Big Ten title against Nebraska.  Abby, Charlie and Katie went out to Moe's Cantina for dinner to watch the first half, while Leslie stayed back with Brady.

On Sunday, we went to brunch and some shopping over on Southport Avenue.  Southport is a cute little area near us that has a number of different shops and restaurants.  And we've seen quite a few baby strollers like our own there!  We put our name in at Southport Grocery & Cafe - which had almost a 2 hour wait.  So we went shopping and then sat down for a great brunch.  The Cafe has plenty of unique and distinct options for brunch - the dishes we ordered ranged from a chorizo omelet to a griddled coffee cake with cream cheese to bread pudding pancakes.

We couldn't try all the options, so we'll have to go back there!  The best thing - Brady was a good baby and slept the whole time!

Brayden's first trip - meeting Great-Grandma over Labor Day weekend 2012

To round out the visit from Charlie's parents, we went down to St. Michael's, Maryland, so Brayden could meet his great-grandmother, Dorothy.

St. Michael's is in the Chesapeake Bay area, and we've been there a few times to visit Charlie's grandmother since we moved to New Jersey.  Charlie's parents could drive down there and then be closer to home, so they could head back to Cincinnati from there.  This was a good test for us - it was the first time bringing Brayden for a longer car ride.  He's been in his car seat quite a few times - on the way home from the hospital and for his and Katie's doctor checkups.  But this is a 4-hour drive if you don't stop at all.  And with a 4-week old baby, let's just say you will stop on a drive of that length.  Add a 4-year old dachshund to the mix, and do the drive on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, and door-to-door time was closer to 7 hours!  Still, the drive was a success, and we made it down to Grandma Dorothy's house in time for dinner!

We weren't there long, but we had fun hanging out at "Sei Han So" (the name of Dorothy's house).  On account of having a baby and a dog in tow, Charlie and Katie got the honor of sleeping in the upstairs bedroom for the first time ever (with Tom and Leslie taking the bed in the attic).  Katie and Leslie even made it into St. Michael's on Saturday morning to do a little shopping!  Tom and Charlie were again fine watching the baby.  We got a few family pictures - first up, 4 generations of Mowry's...

... and a dog!  When Leslie was taking this picture, Griffey decided that it wasn't fair for him to miss out on the excitement, and he jumped right onto Dorothy's lap!  That's OK, we don't want the first baby of the family to feel too left out :)

We also got some Michigan pictures in, as this Saturday was the first chance for Brady to watch Michigan football.  Tom and Leslie were already recruiting him for freshman classes in 2031...

... Unfortunately, Michigan did not impress Brady very much with the beat-down they got at the hands of Alabama!

We also got some pictures outside by the dock.  Griffey loved running around with Charlie in the expansive backyard - after that, he decided the 7-hour car ride was totally worth it!  And we took a picture by the tree Charlie used to climb (and once unexpectedly sang the Star Spangled Banner as a 5-year old).

And, the dock out back where Charlie, Peter, Abby and cousins used to catch crabs for Grandma's crab cakes...

We couldn't stay long - with the upcoming move to Chicago, we had a lot to do.  We left a little after lunch and again faced a drive that seemed longer than you'd expect, but was fun to do with our little family of 4.  It was good to see Grandma Dorothy with the newest addition to the family.

P.S. - Charlie also got to cross another restaurant from the Man vs. Food TV show off his list - we stopped on the campus of Rutgers University for dinner.  Rutgers is famous for their "Grease Trucks" - and if you think that sounds unhealthy, well, you'd be right.  These trucks are famous for crazy combinations and including the sides (i.e., french fries) inside the sandwich - R U Hungry being the most well-known.  They aren't very expensive either, which is a necessity for college fare.  We just split one sandwich - the #11, which was titled the "Fat Vastardi".  It has Gyro meat, chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, french fries, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber sauce.  It was yummy, but probably wouldn't be a good idea to keep on your regular diet!

Our last few trips to Manhattan - week of August 27th

My (Charlie's) parents came in town as Brady was a little bit older - 3 weeks by this time :).  He isn't sleeping through the night yet, but he was starting to sleep 4 or 5 hours, so getting out to do things was a little bit easier than it was in the first week or so.  So Katie and I got to have separate side trips to Manhattan while Mom and Dad were here.

On Tuesday, Dad and I went down for a brief trip to grab lunch at Carnegie Deli.  Katie and I went there for lunch during our first Thanksgiving in New Jersey, after going to the Macy's Parade. Dad and I had also been there a few years before on a trip to New York.  Carnegie Deli is famous for having huge Deli Sandwiches:

That's just one sandwich!  Basically, we probably should have just split one sandwich (though we made the same mistake the first trip).  Dad got pastrami, while I got corned beef.  We each ate half, and brought the rest home for a future meal.  We also walked through Times Square on the way back and stopped by Junior's, which is a famous New York cheesecake restaurant.  I got a full cheesecake to go so we could have some dessert later in the week.

We also stopped by the Empire State Building (before lunch) and went to the top there, which was something my Dad hadn't done yet.

Maybe more importantly, Katie and Leslie got the chance to get out of the house.  This was really Katie's first chance to do something away from the baby since Brayden was born.  So as scary as it may have been leaving Dad and Grandpa in charge! (we did fine)  The 2 ladies did lunch and a play in Manhattan.  Lunch was at Ruby Foo's, an asian cuisine restaurant that we'd had a year or so earlier.  The show was a new Matthew Broderick musical called "Nice Work if You Can Get It", a musical comedy based in the prohibition era.  Katie is still recuperating a bit - so she was tired after a fairly full day away.  But it was good for her to get down to the city and have a day of fun!

2 weeks till Baby Mowry (July 9th)

The week of July 9th, just 2 weeks before Katie's due date, Charlie had a training for work to go to in Boston so Charlie's mom, Leslie, came to keep Katie company and just in case she went into labor early.  Leslie flew in on Monday evening and the three of us went to dinner at our favorite barbeque place in Mahwah, NJ called The Mason Jar.  After dinner, Charlie drove to Boston so that he would be there for the training that started Tuesday morning.

Katie went into work on Tuesday but started having quite a bit of pregnancy discomfort so she came home early.  Katie was suppose to work up till July 20th, but it was proving to be too uncomfortable to sit at work and her doctor agreed that she could start maternity leave a week early to relax.  Luckily we haven't had nearly the hot weather as the mid-west this summer, but even still her biggest complaint are the swollen feet.  Leslie decided that to help us out that she would cook several meals that we could freeze and later warm up when the Baby is taking up all of our time and energy.  Leslie is quite a good cook and seems to enjoy it, so we picked out 4 meals - Asian Flank Steak with vegetables, Chicken with Spinach Casserole, Ravioli Lasagna and Baked Ziti with Italian Sausage.  Aside from keeping busy in the kitchen, it was very nice to have Leslie here to keep Katie company and calm while waiting on the baby.

While he was there, he did get to do a little bit of sightseeing.  Not much - but dinner with some past and future co-workers was a good thing, for sure.  Dinner Tuesday was part of the program (at the hotel), but Charlie did get to go out for drinks around Faneuil Hall, which we'd been when we went there a few months back.  Not too many drinks!  There was potential for him to drive home at any moment - he was on call!  The second night, a group went to Tia's on the waterfront, also near the hotel we stayed at in March.  After dinner, they all walked to Mike's Pastries, but the next door cigar bar, Stanza dei Sigari, caught the eyes of some of the men.  So Charlie chose to have his "it's a boy" cigar instead of a canoli!

He also stopped at Eagle's Deli, which was another restaurant featured on Man vs. Food - they're known for their specialty burgers.  Charlie got the spicy one with jalapenos, buffalo sauce.  Charlie tried to convince Katie he was doing the 5 pound burger challenge, but she wasn't buying it!

We were all relieved when Charlie got home safely from Boston on Thursday and didn't miss the birth of our son.

Charlie in Dallas and Katie's mom Visit

The week of June 25th, Charlie had to go Dallas for work.  He and a few others had a nice dinner to celebrate the 2 years on rotation he's had with the group he currently works with.  The Texas heat was pretty incredible - the 100+ degree temperatures gave him a glimpse of what was coming our direction soon after.  He also got to try Sonny Bryan's smokehouse, which is a Dallas barbecue establishment that was featured on our favorite Travel Channel show, Man vs. Food.  He got it for lunch in the restaurant they've got at the airport, which probably isn't the same as eating at one of the regular smokehouse restaurants.  But he claims it was still some great Texas barbecue!

Since Charlie was out in the middle of the week, Katie's mom, Sue, came to stay at our place to keep Katie company and give us piece of mind just in case she went into labor really early.  At this time Katie was around 36 weeks, so only 4 more weeks till her due date.  Katie's mom flew into the White Plains airport Monday evening and we took her to our new favorite pizza place in Mahwah called "Roxanne's Brick Oven Pizza"...it's not quite like the typical big New York style pies but still thin crust.  Tuesday morning Charlie left for Dallas and Katie went to work, so Sue hung out with Griffey during the day and helped us out by doing some spring cleaning around our house.  She also got all of the baby's clothes washed and ready for when he gets here!  Katie enjoyed having the company in the evening and the home-cooked meals.  Sue even got to hear Baby Mowry's heartbeat when she came to the now-weekly doctor's visits.  Everything is going well right now

In case you weren't sure - Griffey points out where the baby is!

Libby's Lunch & Passaic Falls - weekend of June 23, 2012

One of our favorite books to bring with us when traveling is called "1,000 Things to do Before you Die".  The Northeast (New Jersey, New York, Connecticut) has more than it's fare share of entries.  One of them was a hot dog place about 40 minutes south of us called Rutt's Hut.  We looked it up and did a little internet searching, and found that there are a couple of hot dog joints in the area.  One of the places called Libby's Lunch seemed to have a lot more than hot dogs, which was good since pregnant Katie isn't supposed to eat hot dogs.

The notable thing about the hot dogs in this area is that they are fried as opposed to grilled of boiled.  Libby's calls their hot dogs Texas Weiners (Rutt's calls theirs "rippers"), but the coolest thing we noticed was they were founded by a Greek family and had a special kind of chili.  Sounds very familiar... So we got some chili cheese fries, and it did taste a bit like our beloved Cincinnati chili.  Charlie got a couple of those fried hot dogs, while Katie stayed with the greek theme and got a chicken gyro.  It was very good, and worth the drive.

There is a New Jersey State park right across the street, so we also took a little time to walk around the Great Falls of the Passaic River.  Nothing like Niagara Falls, but still pretty impressive nonetheless.

A visit from London and a Hall of Fame basketball player

On Tuesday June 19th, Katie's good friend and college roommate, Shannon, was in town visiting from London.  She lived in Chicago right after college and then moved to London a couple of years ago, so we don't get to see her as much as we use to and we jumped at the chance to see here while she was in NYC.  We met her for dinner at place called Clyde Frazier's Wine and Dine near Penn Station at 10th and 37th Ave.  Clyde Frazier played basketball for the Knicks back in the 1970's and now he is an announcer for the Knicks.  They always play advertisements for his restaurant on TV during the Knicks games, so we thought it would be a good spot to meet Shannon.
It was great catching up with Shannon especially since we had not seen her since Katie has been pregnant.
The food was really good and the restaurant had a nice posh yet sportsy vibe to it and to top it all off, Clyde the man himself was there.  The NBA finals were on TV that night, so he seemed to be enjoying himself by the bar watching the game and greeting fans.  So of course, we had to go get a picture with him.  He was very nice and didn't seem bothered at all with people taking pictures with him.  

Baby Furniture & Stromboli - weekend of June 16th

We have been prepping for the baby, which includes Katie doing some of the typical "nesting" while Charlie put together some of the baby furniture we picked up over Memorial Day.  Charlie put together the majority of it downstairs so he could watch the the US Open (golf).  After going to the tournament last year in Washington DC, we just watched the Open on TV this year, so maybe he just missed watching some golf.  It must have been a bit distracting, because at one point he put the wrong screws into the back of the combination changing table / dresser.  But ultimately, it got completed and now sits upstairs.

Griffey was not too sure about this whole endeavor.  He got even a bit more nervous when the furniture made its way upstairs, encroaching his "sun room".

To celebrate, we made a drive down to New Brunswick, NJ - the home of Rutgers University.  One of our favorite show's is called Man vs. Food, which we've talked about before on this blog.  Aside from finding some of the craziest eating challenges, the host finds our kind of restaurants - he finds all different kinds of chow-down joints.  The New Brunswick episode caught our eye since it was so close, particularly a restaurant called...

Stuff Yer Face has a huge menu, with sandwiches and some really good appetizers (of course Charlie tried the wings).  But it's best known for stromboli, and it has the largest stromboli menu I've ever seen. With around 30 different stuffings, a bunch of cheeses and 3 different sizes, there are over 1 billion combinations!  Plus they have over 100 beers from around the world including Banana Bread beer, which Charlie had a couple of.  Needless to say, pregnant Katie was the designated driver :)

Memorial Day Weekend 2012 - Wedding in Cincinnati for Charlie

We mentioned in the last post that I (Charlie) came back from Cincinnati before we went to get our baby furniture.  I had a quick trip to Cincy for the first part of Memorial Day weekend - probably my last trip back to Ohio before I'm a dad :).

This trip was by myself, since Katie was now 32 weeks along and travel isn't very comfortable any more.  The trip back was for the wedding of my college friend Travis and his wife Cynthia.  I flew in to Dayton on Friday night, though Memorial Day is some tough travel - and I was delayed about 2 hours.  I was a little nervous I'd make it at all, as quite a few flights were getting cancelled.  But I got into Dayton, picked up my rental car, and met my sister Abby and parents for dinner just a little later than expected.

We went to the Pine Club, which is right near the University of Dayton campus.  My parents had wanted to go there as it was supposed to be the best steak house in Dayton.  It's been around since 1947, so this was their 75th anniversary.  The steak house didn't disappoint - I got the "Bone-In" Ribeye and it was one of the best steaks I've ever had.  They also had a great caesar salad and we all got a side of their signature stewed tomatoes.  It was good to see my family, and also good to eat a great steak!

Saturday morning my friends Greg and Ryan went out to nearby Mimi's Cafe for Travis' "final meal".  We were staying up in Mason, and apparently Mimi's is a local chain.  They do have excellent breakfast - everyone walked away stuffed and happy.  The wedding was in Sharonville, and it was great to see my friend get married - he's also the first friend I can remember seeing introduced as "Dr. and Mrs." (Travis is a dentist).

The reception was at Manor House in Mason, just a little ways away from the hotel.  Paul Otten band, which was a staple in a couple of bars (notably, CJ's) back from our time in Miami.  I had a great time and made my way back to the Dayton airport with a bit of a hangover.  Katie and I prepped for the day of getting the furniture Sunday night by watching Johnny Depp's newest movie, Dark Shadows - which was different to say the least, but a very good movie nonetheless!

New Haven - weekend of April 21st

There are some things that we've wanted to do since we moved to New Jersey.  Some of them are the more obvious - the Statue of Liberty, a Broadway show, Boston, etc.  Some of them are more obscure, but still things we knew we wanted to do.  One of those was go to New Haven, CT.

New Haven is most notable for being the home of Yale University of the Ivy League.  It's known to be a beautiful campus, and the city is supposed to be pretty neat, too.  We left in the morning on Saturday, April 21 to spend the day there.

Our first stop was nothing unique to an Ivy League schools - like all colleges, Yale has some interesting restaurants around campus.  We got to Louis' Lunch for... lunch!  Legend has it that this is place gave birth to an American favorite - the hamburger.  Back in 1900, Louis Lassen was in his 5th year of operating a lunch wagon.  A customer needed to eat his meal to go, so Louis put his ground beef mix in between two slices of bread - and the burger was born.  We heard about the local favorite on Man vs. Food - a great show on the Travel Channel.

We got there right at noon when the tiny restaurant opened, and there was already a line.  Louis' Lunch has a very limited menu - basically you get a burger that comes between two pieces of bread (not a bun - toasted white bread), and can order it with cheese, tomato and onions.  But no ketchup or mustard - that would ruin the burger :)  You can get an order of potato salad (we got some), and aside from the beverages, that's it.  We both got the burgers and split an order of potato salad, and we thought they were a great start to our day!

We figured we should walk off some of that lunch, so we next headed to East Rock Park - which is a preserved park area just East of Yale and downtown New Haven.

East Rock is basically a cliff where you can look down on New Haven and see the city below, and Long Island from across the water.

There's a pretty cool monument at the top - this honors all the soldiers from New Haven who have died in various American battles.

You drive up to the top of East Rock, but we also did a little walking on the trails around there - we wondered what our dog Griffey would do if he got this close to a deer?!?

After enjoying the park, we grabbed some ice cream from the local ice cream place - called Ashley's Ice Cream - and walked around Yale's campus.  It's a pretty campus, with unique architecture.  

The Old College at Yale was the one that got our attention the most.  Old College is a block of dormitories where the first building of Yale College was built in 1718.  It's not there any more, but Bingham Hall is where that first building was located.  Connecticut Hall is the oldest building still standing - it was built in 1752.  Connecticut Hall used to be a dorm - and Nathan Hale who died in the Revolution uttering the famous words "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country".  He has a statue in the quad.

All of the different dormitories on the campus are called "colleges" - Katie was excited to see the "college" that Gilmore Girls was based on - Calhoun College:

Charlie, however, was most excited to see that Yale students are about the same as all other college students.  We saw some pledges being hazed - they had to crawl across the quad of the Old College while dressed in slacks and a shirt and tie.  Most importantly to Charlie - it is clear that Yale students, like all college students, still drink cheap watered down beer like Keystone Light!

After looking at some of the shops in New Haven, we ended the day going to a local pizza restaurant called Frank Pepe's.  Pepe's was founded in 1925 and was the first of the New Haven style pizza - known as "Apizza".  According to the always correct Wikipedia, what sets Apizza apart is the thin crust.  The pizzas are cooked in brick ovens and bakes the crust to a crispy shell on the outside while leaving the inside soft.  Also, at Pepe's, the mozzarella was originally - and still is - considered a topping.  So if you just ordered a plain pizza, you would get dough, tomato sauce and some parmesan sprinkled on.  They are also famous for their "clam pie" - which, yes, has clams on it.  We got the Mozzarella pizza with some pepperoni - it was delicious.

We stopped by the Yale Bowl, which is a famous venue that hosts the famed Harvard-Yale game every other year.  After a long day, we headed home to our lonely dog Griffey, tired but happy we'd seen another part of the Northeast!