friends visit

So this past week we had friends from Chicago visit - to escape the heat wave that Chicago had while they were here- LOL... seriously it was in the 60s (finally!) when they were away from Chicago- and down here it was in the mid 80s- which actually was a heat wave of sorts (substantially over the average) but hey- you aren't looking for the weather report---

so here is how we spent the time together-

lunch upon their arrival at the Riverhouse-

then a quick trip over to the South Florida Museum to visit Snooty for his last feeding time of the day- then dinner at Blue Marlin (a favorite of ours)

the crocodile god - the logo of the museum-

Day Two included the historic Anna Maria Island tour of the old homesteads of the past three generations of my family down here- LOL - after a breakfast at the popular Peach's on East Bay Drive.... and also after a stop at the beach on AMI-  then we went home and got Phil for a lunch at Captain Brian's.

The beach was quite crowded by our standards and I laughed when I saw how much my photo resembled the Keith Oehmig painting in our living room- except for the absence of clouds LOL-

Odd how the days get away- because shortly thereafter we were heading south to Fogartyville for a concert of Full Set- and excellent Irish band that we thoroughly enjoyed... afterward we grabbed a burger for a later meal and headed home.

a couple of photos from their website-

Original photo by Conor Ledwith.  Graphic Design by Brian Hanlon

Day Three we went to the Pirates game against the Red Sox and then later to our fave Italian place- Cafe Baci.

our dinner red- was just perfect- showed fabulously- despite its age- 25 years old!

the next morning it was back to the airport to drop them off for what turned out to be a smooth flight home and mild weather for them and an amazing evening out for us (more on that in another post)...

sunny summer sunday

so we had tickets to see the Cubs on this absolutely spectacular Sunday afternoon... they were playing the Pirates -s in reality neither of us had a team to win or lose with the game - but still - the clear blue sky and the 71* temperature made it a perfect day for a baseball game... so off we went-

It was especially nice to see Wrigley before it is ruined by the a**h*le owners, the Ricketts- who plan on putting up all kinds of new TV monitors and electronic scoreboards so they can ruin the historic feel of Wrigley Field baseball- what jerks!

As we were leaving the game (we had a dinner engagement that began at 5 PM) Phil caught a fly ball (his fifth ball caught at games!- four in Chicago and one in St Louis) - so that made his day - the Cards (his team) won and he had beautiful weather at Wrigley and he caught a ball!

Then off we went to the Chicago Riverwalk for dinner at Cyrano's on the River- a Chicago Gourmets event featuring a caviar accented menu- celebrating Monet's Garden...here is the menu-

and here is the food-

and here is the setting-

It was a fabulous night to be outside for dinner... and as evening fell - our dinner lasted four and a half hours- the temperature didn't drop below a comfortable 68* and plenty of folks in boat traffic on the river were enjoying it with us...

so tomorrow - dinner with Mon & Beth at our favorite place for soup dumplings and for me- back to blogging about the Maritimes during the day....