Celebrating Joe

Since the drive-in movie parties of my childhood, summer has always meant birthday to me. With our birthdays just one month apart, Joe and I really get to make a season out of celebrating. I had to work on his birthday this year, so we celebrated together the day before. I got up early to run up to El Norte in Edgewater for chilaquiles and surprised him with breakfast in bed. Though they serve it all day, it's the morning cook that has the dish perfected. A single order is enough for two, plus leftovers. We had planned a long bike ride by the lake, but Joe decided we should blow it off, instead napping and relaxing until we left for a late lunch at Maggiano's. After a heavy breakfast, a chopped salad really hit the spot. We snapped photos downtown until it was time to head towards Navy Pier to see the Dark Knight Rises at Imax. Navy Pier is pretty much tourist hell on earth, but there's no better way to see a big budget action flick. It was basically a day of Joe's favorites.


But his birthday didn't end there. The following evening, we met friends at Pizza Rustica for some delicious buttery crust pizza and a blueberry gin fizz or two. In true italian form, the meal took ages, but no one seemed to mind much as the drinks kept flowing. The pizza was spectacular. We followed dinner with wine and a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity at our place. Joe was more than happy to debut his homemade set. The night was topped off with delicious cupcakes provided by Becky and Cheryl. If there's a better way to enjoy a birthday than with good friends and great food, we have yet to discover it.

Making Cards Against Humanity

Our friends Lillie and Scott recently introduced us to Cards Against Humanity, a fun party game that requires little skill and a lot of perversion. We played a few rounds the other night at Guthrie's Tavern. It's the perfect spot to mix drinking with board games as God intended.

Joe and I decided that we needed a set of our very own. The game was funded through Kickstarter, which is cool, except now it's sold out and hard to get unless you want to pay at least twice as much to scalpers on Amazon. We are not those people. 

Guthrie's extensive board game collection

Luckily the game makers are so cool they've included instructions at the bottom of their website so you can make your own set. Seriously!

Joe enthusiastically took the reigns on the fairly easy diy project, printing and cutting the heavy card stock at Kinkos the same afternoon we discovered the instructions. We now have an awesome homemade set that set us back about $10. Just in time for our upcoming lakefront vacation with the family.

Our set of Cards Against Humanity. Every bit as good.