Fall Into The Weekend

You know how sometimes when you get back from vacation you feel like you need another vacation from the vacation you just took? This weekend was exactly that.

To start my Saturday, I woke up bright and early in anticipation for warrior boot camp...yes...warrior boot camp. As part of a Living Social coupon, my friend and I got five weeks of ass-kicking exercise classes for a steal. However, we needed to pass the intro class in order to go through with the other classes. As we rolled up into the parking lot, we see huge tires...the ones you see in those strong man competitions. We were praying that those weren't for us although we definitely were expecting to either be wheeled out of the gym by the end of the class and/or suffer an untimely death by kettle bell. The primary focus of the class was using the kettle bell for various exercises. After that they whipped out some rope exercises and ab stuff to finish us off. Then we realized...HEY we didn't die AND we passed the intro class to move on to subsequent classes. We rocked it and soon, my abs will hopefully look like you can grill something off of them. In the mean time, I'm sure I will be waking up sore as all hell. The goal is to drag ourselves to these classes three to four times a week. Bring. It. On.

Later on that day my lovely bf, sister, cousin, and myself went to Wrigley Field to see a screening of the classic film, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." It was hosted by Groupon due to the movie's 25th anniversary. Three huge screens were set up in the middle of the

field where Ferris lovers bought either field access or sat on the bleachers. It's not every day where you can lounge picnic style on Wrigley Field, so I bought field tickets and it was definitely worth it. We scoped out our spot, laid out our Cubbie blanket, and noshed on some free popcorn that they were handing out. People were also welcome to bring their own food and non-alcoholic beverages which was nice considering you'd normally spend a small fortune there just for food and such. The only negative was that it was pretty much freezing outside once the sun went down. Although we were prepped with blankets and coats so we were good to go. Chicagoans are used to freezing weather anyway so why not do it while watching an awesome movie at the home of the Cubbies? Before showtime, we even made the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most people singing Wayne Newton's "Danke Schoen" in rounds. For those of you who haven't seen the movie (which if you haven't...stop reading this and watch the movie immediately), Ferris sings the song during the famous parade scene. It was a great experience and I'm pretty much everyone had a great time quoting lines before they were even said. As I write this, I still have "Danke Schoen" stuck in my head. Damnit!

As for Sunday, I went apple picking for the first time! It was quite fabulous. My friend and I went to County Line Orchard where the aroma of apple cider donuts lures you in all the from the parking lot! As soon as we paid our admission and snagged bags for our apples,

we were off to pick from a variety of Gala, Red Delicious, Jonathan, Sweet Crisp, Golden Delicious, and McIntosh apples. I'm sure there were more that we didn't even get to! Adults to tiny little babies dressed in fuzzy animal onesies joined in on this festive, fall experience. After we gathered all of our apples, we made our way through the corn maze, Laura got her mini pumpkin, and then we rode a tractor back to the bakery to sample some pumpkin butter and apple cider. It was so good I couldn't leave without getting a gallon of that, snagged some kettle corn, and some caramel to make caramel apples. Yummm. I'm pretty sure the majority of those items won't be in my meal plan for my crazy boot camp exercise classes. Oh well. What is fall without apple cider and kettle corn?! I'm too old to go trick-or-treating so the pillowcase full of candy has already been taken away from me...I choose to substitute that with these delicious foodstuffs. :D Overall, it was definitely a successful apple-picking trip and a tiring one at that! After the apple-picking extravaganza, I met up with another friend of mine where we shared a bottle of Riesling. YUM. And great Italian food courtesy of Biaggis.

Our waitress was kind of a flake BUT the food and drink was beyond amazing...and of course the portion size was big enough to feed a small family or Apollo.