It has been almost two weeks since I left for the trip of a life time to celebrate 52 years of fabulousness of my mom. Every year, the NHRA drag races fall on the same weekend as my moms birthday. Well this year, my dad insisted that we take my mom on a girls trip so he could go to the races with his dad and brother. So that is exactly what we did. We booked flights and a house with his credit card and the countdown was on. We also invited my moms good friend Debbie and her daughter Lindsey and my good friend Maggie. So there was 6 of us total and boy were we excited! We booked a house through AirBnB and boy was it perfect for the 6 of us. We could not wait to get our trip started.
Our flight left on Thursday night at 9:55 pm. That left us plenty of time after work to grab dinner at Pappasitos and head to the Continental Club to see my moms favorite band, Beetle, play a set before we had to head to the airport. On the way, we all received our ‘checklist’ for the weekend. It was a list of things for us to do, eat, and drink during our weekend in Chi-Town.

Our checklist that my AMAZING sister designed for us.
We arrived in Chicago after midnight, Ubered to the house and hit the hay. It was after 2 before we finally all got settled. The next day we got our start around 11 am and hit the ground running. Our first stop was the Water Tower. But I was on a mission. I needed a bar. So right around the corner, we found one. And we had our first drink before noon. And that was the beginning of the end for us. We made the mistake of NOT eating. And drinking alcohol all day on an empty stomach is such a rookie mistake. However, we pressed on. We did some light shopping and headed off the Wrigley Field to take in a Cubs game! Again, more drinking. We had to split up when finding seats so Maggie and I sat about 15 rows behind the Cubs dugout and the other 4 gals sat in the Bleacher Seats, which is apparently where the party is at. We stayed through Warren G butchering Take me to the Ball Game and headed to the next bar.
Now, this was no ordinary bar. This was a dueling piano bar. After a Cubs game that the Cubbies came back and won the game in the 8th inning with a grand slam. So people. were. WILD! We had so much fun singing and dancing and drinking and dancing and singing. We would have never left if it weren’t for having to get items checked off our list. We head out and realized that we needed to find a ride. Well guess what is waiting right outside the bar? A white stretch limo. That’s right, we all piled into a limo to bring us to our next stop, which we didn’t even get to check off because it was so foggy we couldn’t see anything. But y’all, 6 tipsy adult women in a limo on a Friday afternoon, come on. How could we not have the best time?!

My sister and I somehow ended up with the margarita my mother snuck out of the bar.
After our failed trip to the John Hancock Tower, we jumped on the El and headed back to our house. We had a 9pm dinner reservation so we had a few hours to nap and pull ourselves together. We managed to make it to dinner on time and enjoyed eating because it was the first time we had done so all day. After dinner, we tried our best to head out for a night on the town, but we could not get it together. We were all so exhausted and hungover from the day drinking we decided to call it an early night.
Saturday morning we got up and walked to brunch in the rain. It rain pretty much all day Saturday but everyone was such a trooper. We checked off more items on the list including visiting the Bean and did some more shopping. And more eating. We stopped at Billy Goat Tavern at the suggestion of my friend Cris and enjoyed a burger and grilled cheese. Next up was dinner so we headed back to the house to get ready for the night.
Fruity Pebble French Toast at Flo
Dinner was at a popular Italian restaurant and we followed that up with drinks, and lots of them! Cris met us for dinner and showed us around Chicago like a pro. We bar hopped all night long. We made it until 3 am and decided to call it a night.
Sunday was another late start but we had a fabulous brunch, followed up by coffee at a super trendy cafe and then a river tour. Sunday night the girls decided to take it easy and watch a movie after deep dish pizza, but Maggie and I put on our party panties and headed out to a spot Cris recommended. We rapped karaoke and partied until 4 in the morning with some new friends. Monday morning was rough to say the least.
We spent our last few hours in Chicago eating and shopping, which was exactly what we wanted to do. It was honestly one of the best trips I have even been on and am so glad we were able to make it a special birthday for my very deserving mother.

My mom text us at 3 am making sure we were okay. We sent her this.

Chicago Chickens

Our mustaches became unibrows.


We laughed the entire trip.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza