Weekend Recap:Children of the Iowa Corn

This past weekend started slightly early, due to a team bonding celebration at a local fave:

The Lucky Monk!

We were there to have a Good-bye celebration for a beloved team member who's moving back home to Nebraska. During the course of the night, my boss told the team that that morning I accepted a promotion! Yes, I am OFFICIALLY a MANAGER! I'm super super excited and feel so blessed and honored to be asked. I'm not sure when my official duties start, but I have so many ideas.

A couple of co-workers and myself at the Lounge.

The boys all got beer flights, some for the first time. It was a fun little bonding session

 This past weekend I had been planning to go visit my good friend and sorority sister J.M. out in Iowa. She's in law school at Drake, and about to enter her final year (I think in lawyer-y terms it's called 'second year', but that just seems too Hogwarts for me).

I haven't gotten to go on any long trips lately. Ever since I've moved to Chicago, and post-college, I've never really had a need to drive more than an hour & a half any where (but obvi that doesn't include midwest traffic). When I used to drive to and from Atlanta & Purdue (all 9 hours) I used to survive on Romantic Audio Books from Cracker Barrel. For those of you who are unaware of this amazingness, basically you can go buy an audio book from any Cracker Barrel for full price, listen to it and return it to another Cracker Barrel for only $3-$5 in cost. It pretty much rocked. Especially because my mom kind of scared me into thinking that the only acceptable bathrooms to stop at were cracker barrel, I'd just pick up new books at each and return them once i got to my destination. Well, with the traffic in Chicago being what it is, I've revisited using these as a time-waster tool. Buying audio books on itunes tends to be somewhat pricey, so I've been getting them from my local library. This is what I did for this 10 hour round trip!

It made things go by so quickly! 

PS: You would never know our country was going through a drought with all the corn and soybeans I saw driving on 80/88...

I was able to take advantage of my company's amazing summer hours and get to J.M's by 5pm. Just in time for our other sorority sister C.B. (formerly C.S.) to pick us up to head down town for some fun & dinner!

C.B. has been living in the Des Moines area for about 3-4 years working for John Deere and has a BEAUTIFUL new baby. A friend of hers was having a shop party, so we all headed down.

Her friend's shop is Eden.

This was a lovely French soaps and scents store with tons of awesome goodies. One of my faves that I found was from The Laundress. I purchased their Wash & Stain bar because it so much reminds me of what my bathroom smelled like at the Farm. I had to get it! I also got a few other things that just smelled fabu, but I tried not to go too crazy. C.B. was trying to introduce me to this shaving soap she had gotten her husband from there. I love the idea of guys using shaving bar soaps and a brush and she apparently just got that for her husband! I managed to refrain only because I know how particular BF is about his beauty products ;)

Afterward, for dinner we walked just down the street to Lucca's. It was a wonderful new Italian restaurant that provided a prix fix menu with great portioned, tasty items! I purposefully didn't take pictures because I'm actively trying to move away from focusing on food (sorry). But suffice it to say it was REALLY good!

The next day, we all made our way down to the Farmers Market.

Largest Zucchini I've EVER SEEN!

Awesome coffee table made out of an old door! And it worked! And it was only $325!!

After the Farmers Market & Breakfast at one of the local booths, we walked around the lovely city of Des Moines. It's really a quaint town that is reminiscent of an older Indianapolis. There are quite a few major insurance corporations based out of Des Moines and some major agricultural companies. It has a lot of art work, parks, pedestrian walk ways, and just beautiful architecture. We had a nice time just walking around and shopping.

After a morning in the city, we made our way back to C.B.'s to assist in Corn preparation for the winter (basically 'canning', except it was getting frozen in zip-locks after blanching and shucking). After mucho cooking and glasses of Limonchello (a new recipe I will DEFINITELY be making and posting about!), we had a lovely dinner of Steaks and Corn.
 Sunday morning J.M. & me got up to meet C.B. for Brunch at a local restaurant: Radish
They had a wonderful buffet that was quite enjoyable.
I was able to help C.B. with a bit of a company discount on some recent purchases then headed back East (that sounds so much like a western... 'I'm heading back East').
After some much needed work on Junior League projects, I got organized for the week and here we are!

What'd y'all do this weekend? Anything fun?

West Coast Edition

This past weekend, I flew out to Los Angeles to meet up with the BF. His company is based out there and generously hosted significant others for the weekend's celebration of this year's performance.

BF and I took the opportunity to explore; he had been out there before, but it was my first time on the ground (with the exception of an hour lay-over from Hawaii a few years back).

I got in late Friday night, but Saturday morning we got up early to try to find a fun breakfast place. The concierge recommended we google 'side walk cafe' in Venice Beach. Funny enough, that happened to be the exact name of the local. This place we PERFECT! It was sunny and 70, we were on the patio overlooking the beach front path. Below is a picture of our view:

This place had amazing food!
We started out with their Mimosa, splitting a bottle of champagne over  a mix of orange, grapefruit, and pomegranate juice. It was incredible!

I had the Georgia O'Keefe omelet, which was HUGE! It consisted of avocado, bacon, mushrooms and Jack cheese. Delicious! BF had the Fiasco omelet: mushrooms, onions, jack cheese, guacamole, and their special Spanish sauce. The overall menu looked incredible and the portions were huge at a very reasonable price.

You can check out their full menu here: www.thesidewalkcafe.com

We even got entertainment while we dined! The boardwalk at Venice beach is filled with pan-handlers and 'artists' requesting 'donations' for their works. We got to experience a guitar and piano player as we ate, which was just right for our total experience.


After breakfast, we walked a bit up and down the boardwalk, as BF was determined to see the muscles of Muscle beach (only some-what creepy ;)  xoxo). Sadly there was only one somewhat muscle-y character using the weights, and the Governator was no where in sight.

As we walked, there was plenty of beautiful art an shops along the way. The really weird part about the experience was the amount of 'medicinal' marijuana that was offered... it appears that just about anyone can prescribe the stuff in CA... neither BF nor I have ever done drugs, so it wasn't an issue, so much as weird as it was so 'out in the open'.

After our jaunt on the boardwalk, we made our way to Hollywood. We drove down Rodeo drive: BF very kindly refused to park the car anywhere near this area... I think he was afraid of the stores... like the lovely shop keepers might bight off his hand to get to his wallet or something. ANY WAY, I've now 'been there, done that'. We drove through all the beautiful neighborhoods, and made our way to the not-so-beautiful Hollywood Blvd. Talk about SKETCHY!

I insisted we park in order to view Man Grauman's Chinese Theater. I have ALWAYS wanted to place my hand near Shirley Temple and the like. I even got to fist bump John Wayne! (pictures below). I was not, however, impressed with the fact that police allow street performers to run rampant in the area. I'm sorry, but I don't care how much you feel that that is part of the 'atmosphere' and 'experience'... it's sketchy.




 We also had the fun experience of the McDonald's protesters: BF is strongly opposed to McD's, due to an incident over a year ago when the one in Lincoln Park booted his car for leaving the parking lot... Needless to say, he insisted on getting a supportive flier and taking a picture with them. By the time we returned from Grauman's, they had been dispersed, and replaced by 'friendly' McDonald's employees handing out 'organic' samples.

BF and I then  made our way up to Griffin park, the best to view the Hollywood sign from. We drove all the way to the top, near the observatory. It's pretty neat only because of how iconic the sign is, otherwise, it's just a pretty park.

We then began to make our way back to Manhattan beach (that's where we were staying). I hate to be a spoil-sport at any time, but my shoulder was doing weird cramping/pain and I was overall getting cabin fever in the car. Dan was nice enough to drop me off at the hotel to rest, and he went and got us In & Out Burger as a late lunch dinner; I guess last year, there weren't many hors d'oeuvres at the event, and we wanted to be prepared...

After a relaxing afternoon, we met up with his fellow co-workers down stairs and made our way to club. (I preface this with, I forgot my camera for the evening, so these are stock pictures from the venues' websites)
BF's company rented out the club, Eden. Apparently it's a new up-coming place (LA Times review: www.latimes.com )

It was definitely a beautiful facility. All dark woods and low lighting. The company had the entire place to themselves, complete with open bar and buffets (mashed-potato :) ) and serving staff with hors d'oeuvres. They had a DJ who was just 'alright', but it got fun later in the evening when they started launching confetti! Overall, it was a gorgeous night, but it didn't end when we shut down the club at 2am... No No No....














Instead, we made our way over to the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd, where the owners had rented out the Penthouse suite and rooftop terrace! How they managed to do this the weekend of the Golden Globes is beyond me!

 

Although I didn't see any celebrities, it was so nice to get away from the cold of winter, if even for a weekend. LA was definitely an experience, and I have though of a ton more things I'd like to go back and see, however I DEFINITELY wouldn't want to live in LA (the traffic was AWFUL!).

I hope all of you enjoyed your weekends and are staying warm in this next impending snow storm.

Xoxo.

Post-Script: I meant to describe my In & Out Burger experience... I don't see what the big deal is... it's a giant Crystal's (White Castle) Slider with Italian dressing. Definitely not the best burger I've ever had, and the fries.... Five Guys is way better.... End of Story...