How do you get Joe to not drink (so much) at a Bears game?

 It's Sunday night, about 9, and I'm beat. We've been home for more than three hours and have cleaned up (LL is a HUGE help cleaning up). We've both taken nice warm showers and are in our comfy clothes. What a fun weekend. It truly was exhausting though.

Everything started off on Thursday night with my client's 25th anniversary party at the office of Mark Anthony Brand's, the creator of Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Here's some sort of proof that I was actually there. It was a lot of fun as almost all the people with whom I worked to move Morningstar into their first real office space 20 years ago, was at the party! It was a huge reunion for me and LL was very impressed that I knew so many people....most of whom had very nice things to say about me! In addition to the architects who designed the space, was the flooring guy, the contractor, the real estate broker's assistant, the furniture gal and her assistant (who is now repping 5 lines of office furniture herself) and the engineer. Great fun!











And here are the men of the hour: my clients and the current owners of the firm.  Look at those cupcakes on the right! Yum!










Friday, though it rained on and off all day, I was invited to golf with a friend who is a member at nearby country club. Great fun despite the cool temps and a bit of rain.

Here's a picture from the seats we had on Saturday for the Cubs/Cardinals game. It was sunny, but cold so we were happy to have extra seats on either side of us (and a blanket and gloves!).










After a brief respite and a hot shower at home, I headed out to meet Ricardo, Markakis and Ricardo's buddy Mitch at a brewery for their Oktoberfest. Now, the bar sponsoring it, Revolution Brewing, is right next door to Ricardo's house, so I was going to drive over there and just park on the street. Then Markakis called me just before I left to ask for a ride. Unfortunately, he lives on the west side of Wrigley and I leave east of Wrigley, and after a game all the traffic is moving west. But I fought through traffic, picked him up and then headed south to Ricardo's. As I pulled up, there was Ricardo on the street. He was looking for a cab. But why if the festival is next door? Well, it wasn't next door; it was at their actual brewery which was back up north actually at the end of my street, but west. Ugh. So I played cab driver and drove us all up there.  It was fortunate that I DID drive because cabs were tough to find when we left and Markakis would have been stranded had he taken the bus to Ricardo's.



Here's what we were rewarded with when we arrived. Holy smokes is this place huge!










And the beer steins are huge! This is not an optical illusion. It was tough to hold these when they were filled. You can see my cheeks are still a bit red from being out at the Cubs game.

 Another picture where I'm trying to show the size of the beer glass. That's Markakis in the black jacket and Ricardo is in the background to the left with the ball hat on.

Everything ran on tickets, which were 5 for $20. A full stein was two tickets, but you could buy a half for one ticket. A big Bavarian pretzel was one ticket and a brat was one as well. Then a side of German potatoes was also one, which is $4. A little steep. Anyway, it was all delicious. At the end of the night, when Markakis was finally hungry, they actually GAVE us some potatoes and brats because they were out of pretzels and everyone was going home anyway. Nice!

 And then came Sunday morning. Good Lord did it come quickly. Here's a picture of the tailgating crew. The highlight was definitely my guests, George and his girlfriend Dena, though not because they are nice people, which they are. No, it was the massive amounts of food they brought!! A cheese and sausage plate, a bowl of pasta salad and big container of pulled pork. Yum!! Then Blind Mender brought his mom's sausage and cheese roll, which is delicious and Liz and her boyfriend Jim, brought cheddar-bacon biscuits. Again, yum! Then some other people, friends of friends, brought sausages. It was crazy how much food there was. That was all in addition to the food we brought.

With all the food, you'd think I could drink a bunch more, but because of my splurging at Oktoberfest, I was not up for drinking too much booze...unheard of during a Bears game. I did have a bloody Mary (actually bloody Maria as it was made with tequila not vodka) and a few spiked apple ciders (with Captain Morgan) to get me going. Eventually I did have a few beers, but only one during the actually game instead of the usual 3-4. Still, fun was had by all....but I'm happy to be going to bed!!