November 2013

We are practically a whole year behind on this blog, but we are going to try to get caught up since we have done all these fun things with Brady and our family - and it will be nice to document it.  We'll try to do most of these posts by month.  This one is for November.

On the weekend of November 9th, we went back to Columbus for a wedding with some KPMG Columbus friends.  One of Charlie's old bosses, Mike, was getting married and it was a blast because our entire old KPMG crew was there.   Katie's parents came up to Chicago to stay with Brady and Griffey.  I wish we had some pictures from this night, but unfortunately we couldn't only find this one.

The next weekend - November 16th - Charlie's parents came up and got us all tickets to the Northwestern vs. Michigan football game.  We got a babysitter for Brady and the 4 of us took the "El" up to Evanston for the game.

All I remember is the weather turned very cold and rainy and it was a close but ugly game.  Charlie had to help with the recap - but basically, we basically neither team got close to scoring a touchdown and Michigan kicked a field goal as time expired to tie the game 9-9.  That meant overtime.  Katie (and even Michigan graduate Leslie!) were really just hoping that the game didn't go into overtime so that we could get out of the rain.  But overtime turned out to be very exciting, and Michigan ended up winning 27-19 in triple overtime!  It was an interesting experience - there were as many Michigan fans there as Northwestern fans, which is about what Charlie remembered from the time he went to an Ohio State game in Evanston.

On the way back, there were a lot of people getting on the El and somehow we lost Tom.   He got stuck behind a group of people and didn't make it on the same train as us.   Luckily, he found his way back home, but we were worried about him for a while.

Brady's first day at Great American Ballpark!

Wow - it's been quite a long time since we posted, so we'll say "happy Super Bowl" to everyone.  We're going to a friend's house for a party tonight, and Brady should have quite a few friends to see there.

We'll try to pick back up where we left off on the blog - but we're quite a few months behind!  The last thing we posted about was Brady's birthday, our move to Roscoe Village, and a visit to Chicago from one of Charlie's friends that involved seeing the Bengals loss to the Bears.  And now we're at the Super Bowl :)

Later in September, Charlie took a little over a week off and spent time in a few different places.  First he went on a golf trip with some buddies down in the Orlando area (Kissimmee, FL, actually).  They go every year, and play Ryder Cup style matches.  This year the matches were at Reunion Golf Resort, which has 3 nice courses.  Unfortunately for Charlie, his team did not defend their title this year - losing "the Cup" on the last hole of the last match.

When he came back, he drove to Ohio to drop Brady off with the grandparents.  We had our first "couples only" weekend since Brady was born planned for the next weekend.  Charlie and Brady stayed in Cincinnati for a few days, and Brady went to Great American Ballpark for his first home Reds game!

Tom, Charlie and Brady represented 3 generations of Reds fans.  We sat by the 3rd base line in some pretty good seats.  Brady seemed to like the seats - for about two innings!  This was much different from previous games.  Brady was in full blown crawling mode, and was "walking" on his knees.  He was also very fond of walking on his feet (with adult help) at this point.  So staying in ballpark seats for a long period of time wasn't his idea of a great time.

He was fine through the second inning, but after that it clearly wasn't going to last much longer.  I was able to bribe him with food to enjoy it to come back for a little while a few times, so we probably saw about 4 innings total.  But we did spend a lot of fun time eating ballpark food and practicing walking in the concourse!

We also took Brady to some Cincinnati institutions - La Rosa's and Graeters!  He liked Half-Day Cafe:

He did not like this sign at Graeter's, however :)

Baseball park info:

Park: Great American Ballpark (Brady's 3rd ballpark)

Score: Mets 1, Reds 0

Winning Pitcher:

Brady's Home team record:  1-4
2 of those home losses were Reds victories in Chicago.  This was the first time Brady saw the Reds lose.  He was devastated!

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!

Abby & Leslie visit Chicago - June 7th-9th

My sister Abby graduated from Medical School at Wright State earlier this Spring.  We're all very proud of the new Doctor in the Mowry family!

Abby has moved up to Akron where she's starting her residency.  Now, after spending 4 years post-graduate paying quite a bit of money, she gets to finally start earning a paycheck (though I understand it's fairly minimal until the residency is over).  Abby and my Mom came up to Chicago to visit while she had some time in between graduating and moving to Akron.

On Thursday, we went to Navy Pier downtown to Harry Caray's Tavern for dinner.  The restaurant used to be up near where we now live in Wrigleyville, but moved down to Navy Pier a few years ago.  There's a little sports museum inside the restaurant that has a bunch of things from Chicago sports history, including two famous baseballs from Cubs history:

• the "last out ball" from the 1945 World Series - which was the start of the famous "Billy Goat Curse" and the last time the Cubs made the World Series.  The ball is suspended in a ghostbuster-like case to keep the negative energy away.
• the remains of the "Bartman Ball" from the 2003 NLCS, which the restaurant purchased and exploded a few years ago.

I took Friday off and we all went to the Cubs game during the day.  It was a bit cold, and we'd gotten seats under cover in case of rain.  But Brady seemed fine and enjoyed the game.  Including the part where he took a nap in the middle of the game!

On Saturday I had my usual run with the Team in Training group, and Abby came with me to do part of the run.  We were up to 6 miles, which was a bit more than Abby wanted to do, so she ran the first couple of miles with me and then after I turned around I caught back up and we finished the last mile or so together.

After the tiring run, we went with Mom, Katie and Brady to one of our favorite restaurants - Southport Grocery.  Southport Grocery is just about the best place I've ever had for brunch - and we all left full and happy.

Abby & Mom watched Brady during the day while Katie and I went out with some friends to some bars nearby - and, more importantly, they put up some gates in the house to keep Brady safe!  Now that he's crawling around, our house was not the ideal setup.  Given his druthers, he'd crawl all over the place and probably try to eat Griffey's dog food or throw his water bottle across the room.  But Abby & Mom helped set up gates and make the TV set up more baby friendly!

It was great to see Mom and Abby while Abby had some free time - Brady and Griffey always enjoys all the attention!

*************

Baseball park info:

Park: Wrigley Field (3rd time for Brady)

Friday, June 7, 2013

Score: Pirates 2, Cubs 0

Winning Pitcher: Francisco Liriano

Brady's Home team record: 1-3

Memorial Day Weekend - White Sox game, May 26th

We're falling a bit further behind on the blog - a full holiday behind here - but this is our most recent attempt to catch up!

Over Memorial Day Weekend, we didn't do a whole lot.  Charlie had traveled a bunch for work in May, and we were just happy he got back on Thursday from his most recent trip!  Katie's parents were in town until Saturday morning, and after they left, we spent some quality family time with Brady and Griffey.  This included some time on Lake Shore Drive walking the dog and baby.

And on Sunday, we did make one trip - our first trip to U.S. Cellular Field since living in Chicago.  This is the "New Comiskey Park" (since renamed) that was built in the early 1990's for the White Sox.

We got to our seats in the first inning, and as soon as we'd sat down, Adam Dunn knocked a home run out of the park.  That's the former Red Adam Dunn.  Brady was very excited when everyone else stood up and cheered!

The White Sox' park was much more baby friendly than Wrigley.  I guess that's to be expected - it's 20 years old as opposed to 100+ years!  We had a great time, and the home team won.  The White Sox actually reached the .500 mark at this game, but they have since fallen completely off the map and are one of the worst teams in baseball!

Park: U.S. Cellular Field (2nd park)

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Score: White Sox 5, Marlins 3

Winning Pitcher: Dylan Axelrod

Home Runs: Adam Dunn

Brady's Home team record: 1-2

Reds vs Cubs - Friday, May 3

On Friday May 3rd, Charlie decided to take the day off of work and bring Brady and I to the Reds vs Cubs game at Wrigley Field.  We had a rough start to this week because Brady got sent home from daycare with a stomach virus and then passed it to Katie so by Friday Katie was really ready to get out of the house and enjoy a nice afternoon...however the Windy City had another idea and decided to bring winter back.  Even though it was rainy and 40 degrees, we tried to go to the game anyways and just bundled up.  However, after 2 innings it was too cold to sit there with Brady so we walked home and watched the rest of the game on TV...lucky for us we only have to walk a short 2 blocks to get home.

On Saturday Charlie went to the game with one of his high school friends and a college buddy and the weather cooperated much better for them.  And I believe the Reds swept the Cubs that series so that made Charlie (and Brady) very happy.

Park: Wrigley Field (2nd time)
Friday, May 3, 2013

Score: Reds 6, Cubs 5

Winning Pitcher: Mike Leake

Brady's Reds record: 2-0

Brady's Home team record: 0-2

Michigan plays at Northwestern - January 3rd

We are a month behind again but right after New Year's on Thursday January 3rd, Brady went to his first big ten basketball game.  Michigan was playing right up the road from us at Northwestern, so Charlie couldn't resist and wanted to take Brady to his first basketball game.  Luckily Brady got a warm snow suit for Christmas from Grandma Leslie because he definitely needed it that evening.  Once Charlie got home from work, we drove up to Evanston which was quite the debacle because we learned 3 things:  (1) there is no easy way to get to Evanston from Lakeview, only small side streets (2) an 8 mile drive takes way longer than you think at 5:30 on a Thursday in Chicago and (3) there is very little or at least hard to find parking at Northwestern's basketball arena.

After all this, we finally got parked at 6:20 (the game started at 6pm).  Northwestern's basketball arena is quite small compared to what we were used to at OSU.  It seemed closer in size to a big high school arena than a Big 10 arena - but it has a lot of character.  And, it felt like we were at a Michigan home game rather than a Northwestern home game.  Michigan has a lot of alumni and fans in Chicagoland because it was probably 80% filled with Michigan fans.  And I guess Michigan being ranked #2 in the Nation at the time probably helped their numbers.

Once we got to our seats, it was pretty much standing room only, and our seats were at the very top.  So we just squeezed in at the back of the stands.  Brady was mesmerized by all the people and sounds and Charlie was equally mesmerized by being amongst so many Michigan fans.

Living in Columbus for so long, he had forgotten what it was like to go to a game not in enemy territory.  Keep in mind that Katie is writing this post...so the specifics on the game might be a little lacking.  I'm not quite sure if Michigan proved their #2 ranking or if Northwestern was just not that good, but the Wolverines won 94-66.  Charlie seemed happy with the victory though and introducing his son to the Maize and Blue.  And of course all the Michigan gear that Grandma and Grandpa Mowry have gotten him got put to really good use.

New Year's in Chicago

After spending Christmas and the week after in Ohio, we traveled back to Chicago in time for New Year's Eve and the last few days before Charlie's busy season at work starts.  New Year's always gives us a chance to look back on the year - and 2012 was a good year for the Mowry household - as we now have one more member!  This was Brady's first New Year's Eve - though we didn't expect him to see the ball drop - bed time is around 8:30 :)

We went to the suburbs.  Brady's friend Tessa was there (our friend Kris and Tina's parents' house), and some other friends of theirs were doing the New Years thing out there - kids included.  Charlie's old roommate Jay and his wife and son were out there as well.  This was our first time meeting baby Bob - so they had a stare down!

Then each decided the other baby was all right!

Kris and Tina ordered food from Maggiano's and Jay made some very potent jungle juice and Charlie made root beer floats with a vodka twist for some of the adults and virgin for the older kids.  Baby Tessa went to bed around 7:30pm, Brady went to bed around 9pm and Baby Bob I think held the record and stayed up till 10 or so (after taking a nap of course).

After all the babies went to bed, we played some good old fashioned drinking games.  Back in college, the two games of choice were usually Flip Cup or Beer Pong.....ironically enough it was not until we were all in our 30's that we discovered "Flong", which somebody at the party had played before.    We were all wondering why we never thought of this while in college, because it might possibly be the perfect drinking game....a combination of Beer Pong and Flip Cup.  Here is a quick tutorial, basically we divided into teams similar to flip cup with everyone on each side of the table next to a flip cup, then there are 2 people (one on each side) that go head to head in the beer pong.  Once a ping pong ball is made into one of the cups, it starts the flip cup competition.  And if the team who scored the ball into the cup also wins the flip cup competition, then they get the point for the round, but if the other team wins the flip cup competition then the point is deflected.  Quite a fun game that pretty much can go on for a long time.

While we have been in the central time zone before for New Year's Eve, we had forgotten about how the Times Square ball being dropped doesn't really mean a lot because it happens at 11pm in Central time zone.   But no matter where you are, it is still fun to count down at Midnight and celebrate the New Year with a kiss.

Here's to a very happy and healthy 2013 to all of our friends and family.

 Even Griffey had a date for the night, his new best buddy Kirby.  They were quite the team, chasing each other around all night.  

Christmas in Ohio part 1 - visiting Eaton

We spent over a week in Ohio for the holiday season, and it was a lot of fun!  We were there so long, that we can't really fit everything into one post, so we'll start with our first stop, staying at Katie's parents' house in Eaton.

Before heading to Ohio, we went to Charlie's KPMG holiday party on Friday the 21st.  It was held in Union Station, the biggest train station in downtown Chicago, and was very nicely done.  Katie's friend  Dorianne was nice enough to babysit Brady for us Friday night so we could go, and Katie got to meet some of Charlie's co-workers.

The next day we got packed and drove down to Eaton.  We got in pretty late, and Brady was already asleep, so we went to bed and woke up excited to watch the big Bengals game!  Brady was happy to see the Bengals beat the Steelers and qualify for the playoffs.  Since he was born, both Cincinnati professional teams have qualified for the playoffs, so Brady is good luck, and he probably thinks it's always like this!

(Griffey looks interested, too!)

On Sunday we also opened up presents - these were Brady's first Christmas presents!  He loved looking at the boxes, and he enjoyed the wrapping paper so much that he decided to see how it tasted :)

His favorite gift came from Santa - it's a Mickey Mouse doll that sings!  He seems enthralled by Mickey's song (which is titled "Hot Diggety Dog"), and likes to cuddle with Mickey.  And sometimes see how he tastes, too - basically, he is curious how just about everything tastes!

The Carico's old neighbor, Michael, stopped by to say hello.  Katie used to babysit him when he was quite a bit younger.  Now, Michael is a teacher and a wrestling coach at a nearby school, and just got engaged.  He hadn't met Brayden yet, so it was good the timing worked out.

We stayed in Eaton through the afternoon of Christmas Eve, then it was on to Cincinnati for Christmas Eve service and visits to the Mowry house.

Charlie's golf trip to Michigan

We've been busy, so we're a bit behind on posts!  The last post, Katie went home to Eaton shortly after our move to Chicago to hang out with her parents.  The reason Katie went home was to get Griffey, who stayed there so he didn't interfere with the movers, and because I had a golf trip the next weekend (September 21-22) with his friends.

After going with Brady on Tuesday, I went to another Reds game Thursday of that week with my friend Bryan, then we drove up to the golf resort.  The group went to a place in western Michigan called Gull Lake View.  The golf was near Kalamazoo, and we play 36 holes both Friday and Saturday - four different courses in all.  Considering I'd played exactly 29 holes of golf this summer, I had a bit of trial by fire.

We split up into two teams of 6, and do a bit of a Ryder Cup style competition with two man scrambles and points for each round.  It rained for a couple of hours on Saturday and we barely got all 36 holes in, but it did make for some nice scenery on the last round.

My team pulled off the win, so I got to take home the "Cup"!

(Eat your heart out, Becker!!!)

Brady's first baseball game

Tuesday September 18th was Brady's first ever baseball game at 7 weeks old (which beat a record of one of our friends sons :) ).  The day after we moved into the house in Lake View, we decided unpacking boxes didn't sound nearly as fun as walking to Wrigley Field!  And to make it even more perfect, the Cubs were playing the Reds.

We bundled Brady up in his Cincinnati Reds gear and Charlie carried him in the Baby Bjorn carrier. This was our first time using the Baby Bjorn carrier and it will definitely become a favorite baby item to use.

Brady with a Cubby Bear

Next to the statue of new Hall of Famer Ron Santo

We originally planned to only stay a couple of innings but Brady seemed to like it so much, that he lasted the whole game.  Wrigley Field even has a First Aid room that mothers can use to feed babies, so Katie took advantage of that.

Brady seemed to love the baseball game, so much that he fell asleep.  Everyone around us congratulated us on having such a cute baby and we even met one guy who didn't have his son with him but told us he has brought his 11 month old son already to 5 ballparks.

It was so much fun bringing Brady to his first baseball game and even though he will not remember it, we will always cherish these "firsts".

Park: Wrigley Field

Score: Reds 3, Cubs 1

Winning Pitcher: Homer Bailey

Brady's Reds record: 1-0

Brady's Home team record: 0-1

Moving into the Chicago house

Saturday was the middle day of our drive, and was the longest day.  But the drive from Chicago again took about 7 or 8 hours (for what's normally about 5).  Just the standard deal with the baby :)

We stayed in a hotel downtown Sunday night, then on Monday the movers came to move all of our stuff into the house.  Charlie went into work for a half day Monday - he had an orientation for the office to attend.  KPMG is in a new building in Chicago - the Aon Building, and it is certainly state of the art. After all the boxes came out, the inside of our house mostly looked like this.

Tom and Charlie - Trip to Cooperstown

Today's my Dad's birthday, so Happy Birthday, Dad!  It's also appropriate I do a post about the other trip Dad and I took while my parents were in town.  Thursday, after Katie and my Mom had gone down to the city for a play and lunch, Dad and I made the 3-hour drive up to Cooperstown, New York, to see the baseball Hall of Fame.  Katie and I had been there once before for the HOF induction ceremony in in 2009, when we lived in Columbus.  I'd really wanted to go back when we got to New Jersey, since it's so close.  But for various reasons, we never had the chance to make it to any of the 3 induction ceremonies since we've been out here - including hometown favorite Barry Larkin's induction this year.

The drive is about 3 hours from where we live in Ramsey, and 2 of those 3 hours are on rural roads.  Cooperstown is a beautiful little town, though it was surprisingly busy the day we went.  It seemed like there was a little league tournament going on - we saw a bunch of kids in baseball uniforms.  Makes sense, as there is a field in the middle of town.  We had lunch at the Double Day Cafe, which is somewhere I remembered that Katie and I had really liked.  From there, we walked to the Hall of Fame & Museum, first checking out the Museum part.  There is an incredible amount of baseball history there.  Starting on the 2nd floor, the exhibits go chronologically, starting with the teams from the Northeast that played baseball in Hoboken, NJ and various parts of Manhattan.  There is a ball used by 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings - baseball's first professional team - and a trophy given to the team for their undefeated 1869 season.

There was a Babe Ruth exhibit that had many things, including the bat from Ruth's famous called shot against the Cubs in the 1932 World Series.

There's that bat Bobby Thompson used to hit the "Shot Heard Round the World".  He homered off Ralph Branca in 1951 to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers send the New York Giants to the World Series.  This is considered in many sources to be the most memorable moment in baseball history.  My Grandmother Dorothy, who was from Brooklyn, was at this game.  They never found the ball that Thompson hit.

There was a good display with a bunch of mementos from the Big Red Machine.  The bat above Rose's jersey was the one he used to notch his 4,000th hit.

A full locker that Hank Aaron used to have had been placed in an exhibit to honor him; I took a picture of Dad in the locker.

I got my picture in front of the plaques for two new Hall of Fame inductees - hometown hero Barry Larkin, and Ron Santo.  Santo was my mom's favorite player growing up, while Larkin was of course a Cincinnati Red for his entire career.  Larkin was the first native-born Cincinnatian to be inducted into the Hall - and he's an answer to an interesting trivia question.  He's the 4th Hall of Fame players played their entire career for a team from the city they were born.  Larkin is the only player not from New York - the other 3 (Lou Gehrig, Whitey Ford, Phil Rizzuto) all played for the Yankees.

Below is a closer-up look at Larkin's plaque.