Retro on Roscoe, Roscoe Village, Chicago

Retro on Roscoe was this past weekend and we all attended, of course. It’s hard not to when it’s so close. There’s a stage about 3 houses from ours, so even if we didn’t attend the festival, we’d be listening to the bands anyway.

Stephanie with empty chili samplers, Roscoe Village, Chicago

Steph and I walked around Retro on Roscoe starting at about noon or so. We sampled all of the chilis in the Windy City Chili Cookoff. There were a few unique ones like the pork chili verde, but most of them were red, slightly spicy and very meaty. We tried 9 or 10 different chilis and both agreed that we liked one called “Nikki’s Revenge” the best. We probably could have stopped right there and just had chili samples for lunch, but we decided to go to the polish stand where we ordered one of each flavor of pierogi and a blintze. Steph had never tried either. Funny thing is that neither of us really like sauerkraut, but we both really liked the sauerkraut pierogi. On a side note, Dallas loves the polish stand so much that he had it for dinner two nights in a row and I think he did the same thing last year too.

IRS, Retro on Roscoe, Chicago

IRS + Random Groupie, Retro on Roscoe, Chicago

After lunch Steph and I sat on the grass by the Hamilton stage and watched a cover band called IRS (Independent Rock Society). They played a lot of popular songs and the crowd relaxed and sang along. Jen and Chad hosted their annual Retro on Roscoe party since they also live so close to the festival. After IRS was done playing, Stephanie and I headed over to their house. Dallas and a bunch of friends were already there. Chad and Limey tried to introduce the Pimm’s Cup as the new Summer of Rachelle drink, but it didn’t work because I didn’t like it. We all played ping pong (beer pong for some) in the garage and urban horseshoes (sometimes called washers) in the alley. Trent and I were on fire as an urban horseshoes team. Steph had fun watching the ping pong action, playing with Drake, Cortez, and Quinn and even got in on some urban horseshoes action on a team with Cousin. Inside the house TJ taught Jill and Steph how to make homemade Mexican/Puerto Rican rice like his mom used to make. Oh, and Limey tried many times to convince Steph to be a Cubs fan. He said he would give her tickets for the game the following day and all she had to do was swear off the Brewers, but she refused. When he gave up on baseball and said “well, at least say you’ll like the Bears,” we walked away. Not a chance!

Pimm’s, Rosceo Village, Chicago

For dinner Stephanie was all for trying more new food so we headed back out to the festival and split a gyro, which she was in love with. I wasn’t sure if she’d like the lamb, but she thought it was delicious. It’s fun to have her willing to try anything and even more fun when she likes it! We watched a bit of a band called Dot Dot Dot because Kristin and Cousin’s cousin plays keyboards in the band. At about 10 pm we called it a night and went home. It was about a 3 second walk home. Awesome.

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