It's a Family Affair

This past weekend, while it may come as a surprise, Scottie and I were on the I-94 speedway again or so it seems to us as I've counted roughly 24 roundtrips to Chicago since moving to Michigan in May 2007 (this is only counting the blog posts with Chicago in them).  That's roughly 8 trips a year.

Anyway, as with most trips to Chicago, the main focus this weekend was football and catching up with the usual gang of Northwestern fans as we celebrated not only Homecoming weekend, but our good friend, James Keeley's, comedy show production.

Since James' show was on Friday, we used that as a convenient excuse to take a half day bolting out of Dodge to arrive in Chicago in time for dinner at Cleo's in Ukranian Village area.  We met up Jess, Patrick, Margaret, Scott, and Amy for a tasty meal as I opted for the creative dish of the Chicken Parmesan Hero (served open-faced with with marinara sauce, sausage, and topped with fresh mozzerella) complimented with a Daisy Cutter Pale Ale from Half Acre (a Chicago beer company)!

We arrived at the Gorilla Tango Theater in time to grab a drink for the show and found our seats in the bleachers.  This was the last showing of Smart Corky Presents: It's a Family Affair, which James produced and acted in.  Read more about the show below.

It's a Family Affair centers on Bill and Tracy, a lovely couple who kinda wish that they were orphans. They're not, so they have to meet each other's families, which is the hardest part of dating besides the herpes talk.

After we were thoroughly entertained by Keeley and gang, we headed over to the Green Eye Lounge for some drinks to celebrate with the cast and crew!

On Saturday morning, we spent a fair amount of time tailgating in anticipation of an exciting Homecoming game for Northwestern against Michigan State.  While the end of the game was disappointing, the 'Cats held their own through most of it.  Post-game, we cleaned up, scarfed down some Cozy's for dinner, and headed back out to the LaSalle Power Company for the Class of '00 Reunion party to hang out with Amy, MKS, Jess as well as Emily, Katie, and Curcio.

The next morning we managed to get up and out to John's Place for a tasty brunch with Jason and Carrie as they were leaving Chicago for London in a few weeks.  We all got a kick that Jason ordered the "Razzle"!  Cheers!