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| Lookin' good! Loyola has several graduations so this one was the sciences section of Arts and Science. The grads found their seats and only the staff processed in. |
Last Thursday night we hitched a UHaul trailer to the back of the car and headed to Chicago for Mitch's graduation. We got a late start but felt wide awake, so drove til 2:30 before reaching our hotel in Skokie, just on the north side of Chicago. We met Mitch in the am and had a quick bite to eat before graduation.
Entering the hall with the band playing brought the reality slamming in on me--my baby is definitely graduating today!
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| Bad pic but I found the President endearing genuine and welcoming--and he has to go to each of these! |
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| After the ceremony-Congrats! |
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| One of 3 other roomies, Brandon |
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| We're proud of this guy! |
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| Very cute pic of Kevin and Mitch |
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| Although welcome, that sun was blinding us as we kept smiling for the camera with the lake as a backdrop :D |
Joe and Christin joined us at 8 pm for dinner, but we didn't snap any of them I guess !
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| On to his choice of restaurant ING , the baby sister of Moto, next door |
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| We did the 10 course (small tasting courses) tasting menu with beer or wine pairings because the 6 courser cut out all the stuff we wanted! This is a cheese and fruit dessert |
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All of the serving ware was as creative as the food, but we must have gotten a kick out of this one :D
It is delightful from this angle and it tasted great! |
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The restaurant has an award winning chef and is a sister restaurant to Moto next door, but focuses on molecular gastronomy and also experiments a lot with mberry. If you haven't heard of mberry, or magic berry, you suck on them and they reverse many flavors, so for example a lemon tastes sweet. Two of our courses had us stop mid-way, suck on the mberry and then keep eating to see the differences. All of the titles of foods in the courses are purely "nicknames" when it says "sugar cookie" you do not get a sugar cookie..! You get magic and chemistry and smells and tastes, and maybe a liquid over freezing ice that you spoon onto something--with a sugar cookie flavor profile, but thats as close as you'll get! It was a lot of FUN and very very good :D
Press about ING
On Saturday we packed Mitch's boxes and furniture into the UHaul and had the afternoon free. We took a 90 minute architectural tour on the Chicago River-which was really informative and we all felt it gave us a unique perspective of both beauty, architecture, economy and history of Chicago. Unfortunately, we had made a mad dash to the river and Kevin was still parking the car , so missed getting on the boat. He had urged us to run ahead because frankly I think he needed a little "down time" with his paperback book.
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| A little fishing boat held up on the crane |
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| My favorite shot |
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| Mitchell's farewell cruise! |
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| The tour guide included a lot of history--did you know 100,000 people were homeless following the Chicago fire? Did you know it spread so far because it followed the river's fumes of methane gas and jumped to the other side? |
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| On the bridge centered between the two flags in an orange shirt?-thats Kevin! |
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| 3rd favorite shot (except those with people of course!) |
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I knew they were here!
After the boat cruise we walked through Grant Park, Millennium Park, past a wedding at the opera house, past a wedding at the museum and past all of the people taking selfies at the "Bean" before we headed to Goose Island Brewery.
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After missing the boat tour, Mitchell insisted we get Kevin to his favorite brewery ----Goose Island--home of the brews Sofie and Matilda, among other things…………..many other things! We all ordered independently but got such a selection it looked and tasted more like beer tasting.
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| Joe and Christin sure made the weekend fun for Mitch :D I am glad they could celebrate with us! |
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| Quite the diverse crowd! |
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| Nice! |
After the brewery, Mitch took us to a Peruvian neighborhood restaurant-gosh I wish we had the places Chicago does!
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| Mother's Day flowers! |
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| Roomie Sean on Sundaymorning |
As we drove we heard from Kathy (also driving) that the weather was getting crazy over Omaha and headed our way. Mitch was learning to drive pulling the UHaul and we all began to get worried. Finally we pulled over in Atlantic IA rather than be stranded during the eye of the storm passing over Missouri Valley or on I-80. We grabbed some drinks at a little Mexican restaurant and waited an hour. Unfortunately, the place closed and the storm was just arriving so we hunkered down in the car and watched it. Pretty intense!!
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| When the going gets tough….the tough get drinking |
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| C'mon--this looks like a movie! |
We made it home safe and sound around midnight, unloaded everything into the garage and prepared mentally to do it all again in 2 weeks! (the packing that is!)
CONGRATS MITCHIE BABE!!
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