Pictures from this weekend's fun

Well, as I said on Sunday's post, I had a lot of fun on Saturday night during my pre-birthday all-girls outing. After an afternoon of shopping for the perfect outfit and supplies for the evening, I sat home and relaxed. While I was shopping, Josh and the guys were partying it at the Festival of Barrel-Aged Beer that was taking place at the Wrigleyville Goose Island. Their drinking started at around noon or so. Right as I was about to relax and get ready for my fun night at 6:30 pm, the door to the apartment unlocks and in comes Josh all drunk (DUH!) and visibly worn out. I asked him why he's not out with the guys. He goes on to tell me that he's "taking a siesta" before going out again. I continued to prepare for the night by drinking about 32 oz of water over the next 1 1/2 hours. I was well hydrated!

(FYI - there was NO going back out for him that night, which I knew once his head hit the bed and WAS OUT! I am no dummy!)

My friend, Justyna, picked me up at 8 PM with our friends, Kelly and Erika, already in the car. We headed to bar #1 on Broadway. (Unfortuately, I don't remember the name of the bar we went to first.) I had already eaten before I left and just had a Creamcicle (the drink!) while everyone ate their dinner. It was yummy! After everyone ate dinner and finished their drinks, we headed to bar #2, Hamilton's located near Devon and Broadway. They had some games on the TV - all that I was interested in. I had a couple of drinks along with my birthday shot of my choice - a Raspberry Kamikazes, which was the smallest I have ever had in a long time. I also drank 1/2 of the pitcher of water that they had on the table when I was drinking my alcoholic beverages.

After everyone was finished, we were off to Bar #3, Atmosphere located in Andersonville off of Clark Street for what I thought was seeing strippers (who happened to be gay). Instead of that, we only lasted for only 30 minutes to have one drink and show at this bar. (I am not even going to say anything about the show because it's not worth mentioning at all. Trust me!) I did not want to wait until 1 am to see the strip show. We had other bars to head to.

After our one drink, we head to bar #4 (and last one for the evening), Delilah's off of Diversey and Lincoln. We met with the remaining guys who did not leave (who happened to be staying with me and Josh.) I had my last drink before I said good night and took a taxi home with our out of town guests. I was greeted by Josh, who was tired and still hungover from the afternoon of drinking. I then went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of Urban Detox, which is the greatest hangover preventative EVER. I gave one bottle to each of our house guests and downed my bottle pretty quickly before going to bed at 2 am and sleeping very quickly.

When I woke up at 7 am (which I did not plan to do), Josh and I had a very unique conversation about whether our atomic alarm clocks had changed time or if they were still in DST mode. We ended up not being able to fall asleep and slowly getting ready to go out for brunch with our guests to help elevate our hangover. (Mine - non-existent; Josh - very much existent) We ended up having brunch at Charlie's off of Clark where we drowned our bodies with Bloody Mary's and fattening brunch fare.

After brunch, we headed back to the apartment and watched a movie on the couch before guests left one by one towards their own destinations. After I watched an exciting Vikings games (and we kicked some serious butt using our boy, Adrian Peterson), we headed off to the Loop to do some pre-trip VERY early Christmas shopping for my daughter at the American Girl store (something that someone with a big hangover would cringe, but not Josh!). The trip to the Loop was very short and headed back home to allow Josh to rest before going to bed since he still had to go to work the next morning.

Tomorrow's going to be a very fun day. I will have to get up early enough to get a workout in the morning before packing for our flight that's expected to take off late evening out of Chicago Midway (my favorite of the two airports - I don't care what everyone says!) where we will head off to Minneapolis for my official birthday weekend. Pictures will follow as the weekend progresses.