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!

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!

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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

Crawling!

Brady is officially mobile.  We were starting to wonder if he was ever going to crawl but of course he decided to start crawling on his own timeline.  The evening before his 10 month birthday, he started leaning forward and getting into the crawling position from sitting.  It seemed like he had his legs almost tangled up underneath him and slowing just started dragging himself forward.  And now that he figured it out, there is no stopping him.  It is so cute to watch because now if he sees something he wants or as soon as he sees that the baby gate has been left open he starts crawling as fast as he can and then shows his frustration with Mommy and Daddy when he doesn't get what he wants.

The first video is from March (7 months old).  He started pushing up and we thought he was going to crawl any day then, but he took his time to perfect his moves.

This video was his first crawling debut on May 31 (day before his 10 month birthday)

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.

Mother's Day - May 12th

Everyone told me that becoming a mother changes your life, but I never fully understood the depth of that statement until last August 1st when Brayden Stephen Mowry came into our lives.  I remember during those 9 months of pregnancy speculating about how our little baby would look and his personality and how things would change in our lives.  However none of my speculations even came close to true,  he is so much cuter than I ever imagined and Brady definitely wins the best personality, he is the happiest and most easy going baby.  I felt so grateful when he was born a healthy baby boy and every day since have enjoyed every minute of seeing him grow.  I have quickly learned that there seems to be an endless amount of things to do like cleaning bottles and laundry.  My free time has gone from being able to take long trips to the mall for myself any time to carefully selecting and scheduling a brief shopping trip for myself.  But even though there seems to be so much work that goes along with parenting, I never knew how awesome it would feel when he smiles up at you or giggles into your neck and makes the long 9 months of pregnancy, the 17 hours of labor and the endless diapers all worth it.  

For my first Mother's Day, I wanted to spend a relaxing day with my 2 favorite boys, so we decided to go to the Lincoln Park zoo for the first time.  Brady seemed to really enjoy looking around at all the animals and it was really fun for us to watch his reactions.  It is extremely nice to be so close to a zoo and we were surprised to find out that admission is free, you just have to pay for parking.   Brady and Griffey even surprised me by getting me flowers and a nice card (with the help of Daddy of course).

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