Entries Tagged as 'fitz'

Jen and Chad’s Annual New Years Eve Party

January 1st, 2012 · No Comments


Quinn & His honeys, Bridget & Maggie


Jerry, Chad, Brian


Dallas & Rachelle


Jill and Jen’s mom, Nancy/Nana


Quinn modeling the hat he made


Brian & Halle (she was distracted by the kids behind me!)


Cousin & Kristin


Catie with daughters Bridget & Tess


Jen’s parents, Terry/Cappy and Nancy/Nana, with the kids in the play room.


Fitz, Cousin, Kristin


Quinn, all set to ring in the new year!


Jen, Kristin, Loden


Ed, Cousin, Trent, Chad, Brian, Dallas


Jill getting in on the fun!

This was the 7th year in a row that we have gone to Jen and Chad’s house for New Years Eve. As has become the tradition the last few years we went to this party early and then went to a second party later. It was fun to see everyone, visit with friends, eat and drink, and play with the kids. I made Irish Car Bomb cupcakes for the parties and Dallas make ahi poke, which reminded everyone of Hawaii.


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Limey’s Going Away Pub Crawl

November 8th, 2011 · No Comments


Bernie, Vickie, Limey :: Rockwood Place

After 18 years in America, Limey Dave is leaving. His work Visa has expired and without a sponsor he has to go. We have done a few things over the past few weeks as part of Limey’s going away period – cooking class, dinner and football – but this past weekend was the big blowout.


Limey & Kevin :: Bar Celona


Limey & Trent :: Bar Celona


Loden & Limey :: Bar Celona

Limes will still be here for a few more weeks and then he’s off to explore the world. I think he’s still unsure of where he’ll end up. I heard Australia and Asia are in the running, as well as England, of course. All nice places to visit, I hear, so I can’t wait to see where he lands.


Chad & Limey :: John Barleycorn


Limey & Rachelle :: John Barleycorn


Wrigley Field

Limey has lived in Wrigleyville the whole time he’s lived in Chicago, so for his going away party he coordinated a pub crawl around the neighborhood. As well, he’s always loved the Cubs so he chose to make the pub crawl baseball themed. Game time began at 1:20 p.m. with a celebratory shot and then we went to 9 bars around Wrigley Field, one bar for each “inning.”


Ted, Trent, Kevin, Chad, Danny :: Cubby Bear


Natalie, Limey, Annie :: Cubby Bear


Paulie & Limey :: Sports Corner

Dallas and I actually missed the first inning at Mullens, but made it for inning two at Rockwood Place. From there we went to Bar Celona from 3 p.m. – 5 p.m. Bar Celona opened the bar just for Limey, their most loyal customer, so we spent two hours here instead of one. From 5 – 6 p.m. we were at John Barleycorn, from 6 – 7 p.m. we were at Cubby Bear and from 7 – 8 p.m. we were at Sports Corner.


Ted, Dallas, Jen, Loden, Danny :: Yak-Zie’s


Ted, Dallas, Jen, Loden, Danny, Chen-Je :: Yak-Zie’s


Here’s a secret: Limey’s shot only had Monster energy drink in it! :: Yak-Zie’s


Somewhere between Yak-Zie’s and Guthrie’s we saw this snowmobile and Sara and Jess had to get on it.

We were supposed to go to Murphy’s Bleachers next, but it was too packed to get in. Limey’s entourage was about 50 people strong and there was just no way we could fit in there. So, we were going to go to an alternate, Bernie’s Tavern, but we ended up going right to the next inning at Yak-Zie’s. The final inning, beginning at 10 p.m., was at Guthrie’s, of course, and we stayed there til close.


Eric & Kevin :: Guthrie’s Tavern


Sara, Jess, Rachelle :: Guthrie’s Tavern


Limey, Maria, Jill :: Guthrie’s Tavern


Jill, Danny, Jamie, Fitz, Paulie, Kevin, Jen, Chad’s Hands, Dallas :: Guthrie’s Tavern


Dan, Limey, Maria, Jill, Danny :: Guthrie’s Tavern


Limey & Maria :: Guthrie’s Tavern


Chad, Ted, Danny :: Guthrie’s Tavern


Time to go!!!

It was a fun day and great to see all of Limey’s friends come together. He is a great guy, which is reflected in how many people made a point to be there. We were taking over whole entire bars and making them open for business when usually they’re closed. It was such a fun day. Bittersweet. I’ll miss The Limes, but I know this will not be the last we’ve seen of him. Maybe he’ll even move back one day, who knows. Hopefully we can get to see him a time or two more before his actual move date.

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Jeopardy: Chad Edition

May 19th, 2011 · No Comments


Chad’s Birthday Mug


Chad, Cousin, Dallas, Trent


Chen-Je, Jen, Jason


Limey, Ted, Fitz, Paul, Carrie, Trent


Chad & Dallas


Chad & Rachelle

In grand family tradition of playing bar games for 40th birthday parties, we all gathered last weekend to celebrate Chad’s big birthday and played Jeopardy: Chad Edition. Remember, for Brian’s party there was the Pub Crawl Olympics and for Jill’s there was Survivor Wrigleyville.


Brian setting up the Jeopardy board.


Jill explaining the rules.


Jeopardy Team Representatives: Carrie, Limey, Ted

For Chad’s 40th birthday Jen rented out the beer garden at Fizz, but since it was raining, we were in a heated tent. We paid $35 for all the drinks we could drink for 4 hours and Jen arranged for some really delicious food to be served as well. At the appointed time, we all gathered to play Jeopardy. When we arrived Jen had given us each a number: 1, 2 or 3. This was to sort people into 3 teams. I was on Team 2: Team Burrito House. We chose Limey to be our team representative. When the answers were presented, Limey had to yell Burrito House to buzz in with the correct question. The other teams and reps were Ted for Team Guthries, Team 1, and Carrie (and later Danny) for Team Syracuse.


Chad


Getting intense!

These were the categories – For the Jeopardy round there was The Man and His Bans, Potent Potables, and Movies & Music. In Double Jeopardy there was Chad’s Sports Follies, Brushes With Fame, and He’s Had a Job or Two. The Final Jeopardy category was Location, Location, Location and the question was about how many places Chad has lived in Chicago. Jill and Brian constructed the Jeopardy board. Jill played Vannah White, flipping the answers open, while Brian did his best Alex Trebec, reading the answers off. Jen was the scorekeeper.


Chad had to charade out one of the Jeopardy answers.


Jeopardy crowd.


Final Jeopardy


Chen-Je with two winning girls, Caroline & Loden

The game got really heated with everyone screaming to ring in and shouting answers. Before Final Jeopardy my team, Team Burrito House, was in the lead by far! We could not mess this up! Well, leave it to Limey…. he wagered something like $4,000 more than we even had, which seems to be breaking the rules to me, and then we lost everything, and then some, when no one on our team know how many places Chad lived in. Wah wah wahhhh…


Cousin & Todd


Baltimore Bomb


Baltimore Bombs


Jill & Dallas

Chad’s high school friend Todd flew into town from Maryland and introduced us to a new shot called the Ravens Bomb. Well, when he’s tailgating at football games he calls it that, but we were opting to call it the Baltimore Bomb. In Baltimore they drop a grape vodka shot into a cup of Red Bull energy drink. At Fizz they only had Monster energy drink, so we used that. Check out the awesome custom shot glasses Fizz had. Perfect for bombs. As for the Baltimore Bomb? It tasted awesome. The grape vodka tasted just like grape soda. Todd did warn me that they will sneak up on you if you are not careful, but I only had two. They were flowing pretty readily, though. I think they did sneak up on some people. Or… it could have been the other bombs…


Chad’s Birthday Cheesecakes


Dessert: Carbombs or Cheesecake?

Of course a night out with all these guys is not complete without Irish Car Bombs. Right as Trent was ordering a round, Jen was in the other room gathering people for cake! Ed (remember The Baked Escape) made two white chocolate raspberry swirl cheesecakes (with a chocolate cookie crust) for the party. So delicious. I’ve had this one a few times. It never disappoints. Just as the cake was being cut the Irish Car Bombs arrived. So, choose your poison: Cheesecake or booze. Or both. Why not? Actually, I only had a tiny sliver of the cake and passed on the bombs.


Todd & Brian


Dancing around the birthday boy.

After this, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel very drunk, but there was a lot of dancing. And Ed sent me photos of things this week that I only vaguely remember happening. So yeh. Kind of proud that us old people can still have a good time!

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Jen & Chad’s Annual Retro on Roscoe Party

August 8th, 2010 · 1 Comment

Every year Jen and Chad have a party the weekend of Retro on Roscoe. Because they live so close to Roscoe Street, people come and go from the party to the fest and back all day long. Here’s what was different about this year’s party compared to parties of years past:

In years past the party has gotten rowdy at night and Jen’s had to kick people out in the early morning hours. This year there was a huge abundance of babies and most people left when 1) their baby had a meltdown or 2) it was their baby’s bed time. I think I counted 10 or 11 strollers in the garage at one point! I guess everyone is getting older!

Quinn got his face painted at Retro on Roscoe.

Somehow the paint stayed on all day even when he was running around like crazy playing with all the kids.

Lila is Quinn’s buddy. They see each other every day and yet, they were still excited to see each other on a Saturday!

Conor and Liam are Jamie and Fitz’s kids.

Ava and Lila are Eric and Caryn’s kids. Eric was our realtor when we bought our condo.

All the kids loved climbing in the climbing tower.

I felt kind of bad for Halle. A lot of the kids at the party were between 2 and 4 years old (I’m guessing) and were running around everywhere and Halle was left on her mom’s lap to just watch. She seemed like she really wanted to get in on the action.

Dallas had Ava and Grace really thinking he was going to drink all of the juice boxes. All 20 of them. They were really upset (not really in a bad way) and were yelling “NOOOOOO, you can’t!” and, of course, that just made Dallas tease them more. Ava warned Dallas that if he drank all the juice boxes he’d get a tumm yache but he said he was still going to. As soon as Dallas walked away all the kids were drinking juice boxes. I guess they thought they better get them while they could, just in case Dallas did drink them all.

As for the adults, our games stayed mostly the same. We drank a ton of beers, and played a lot of beer pong and urban horseshoes, a.k.a. washers.

It wasn’t just kids making special appearances this year. Ed’s dad was visiting from Detroit and Chad’s aunt and cousin were in from Pennsylvania. It was nice to see so much of everyone’s family. We hung out all afternoon and then later on Dallas and I walked through the fest. We went too late. It was so packed. Usually earlier in the day it’s less busy. But Dallas got his annual Polish plate that he loves and I got a chicken pita. Fun day, fun party. I’m sure we’ll do it again next year!

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Summer of Rachelle Kickoff Party

May 31st, 2008 · 5 Comments


Katrina, Jessie, Alden, Dallas, Rachelle, Jessica, Ed, Tall Paul, Paul Baker, Killian, Tyrone :: Rock Bottom, River North, Chicago


Rachelle, Alden, Paul :: Riverview, Roscoe Village, Chicago


Rachelle, Jessica, Alden, Paul :: Riverview, Roscoe Village, Chicago


Caroline, Danny, Chad, Dallas :: Riverview, Roscoe Village, Chicago


Rachelle, Paul, Jessica, Alden :: Riverview, Roscoe Village, Chicago


Rachelle & Jessica :: Riverview, Roscoe Village, Chicago


Rachelle & Jessica :: Riverview, Roscoe Village, Chicago


Shouldn’t have waited so long to eat. I was starving!


Chad & Rachelle :: Riverview, Roscoe Village, Chicago


Chad, Paul, Fitz :: Riverview, Roscoe Village, Chicago


Tramp Stamp! :: Riverview, Roscoe Village, Chicago

Friday was the last day of my contract with Google. I’m planning on taking some time off to enjoy the summer in Chicago, before starting the job hunt. Thus, Friday night we kicked off The Summer of Rachelle by going to happy hour at the Rock Bottom Brewery‘s roof deck then heading up to Riverview for more drinks closer to home.

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