What a year!

What better to bring back the blog than a 2011 Year In Review? This was a special year, as it was quite possibly our last full calendar year in the great city of Chicago, that is until our mid-life crisis when we pull our school-age children away from all their friends in Texas and move them to the Windy City. "It's okay kids, Kevin McCallister lives there." At any rate, I'm gonna do my best to review one of the best years I can ever remember having.


The year started off right, with NYE 2011 at the home of our good friends, Tim and Fran Caprio. We had a great time, in spite of the fact that I had to cover at the VA the next day and fell victim to the iPhone alarm glitch. People don't believe me, but it's real. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/apple-iphone-alarms-broken-until-january-3rd/. January was kinda slow for me since I was on service at the hospital, but the silence was broken at a great Super Bowl Party at Casa de Nelson (our friends Courtney and Jeff) when Christina Aguilera brought home the national anthem with a 15 second "braaaaaave", and I lost 20 bucks to Bruno taking the 8 second 'under'...good times. Snowpocalypse took over Chicago on Februrary 2, dumping in excess of 20 inches of snow in 24 hrs. I was enjoying a rare day off that day watching quite literally a shit storm, while Wendy was off galavanting around Dallas for Super Bowl.



March brought a couple of big birthdays (at least). Our good friend Courtney turned 30, and celebrated by taking us all around town on a trolley, definitely a Chicago bucket list item. I enjoyed a healthy amount of "summer beer", a few pulls from a honey badger-sized vodka bottle, and lasted all of an hour and 45 minutes on the ol' trolley. It was a strong showing. Wendy had her 29th birthday which she spent with some of her girlfriends getting dolled up at Benefit Cosmetics. We did also get to celebrate, just the two of us, over a super nice dinner at Joe's Seafood & Crab, one of the many new Chicago restaurants we got to try this year.


The first part of the year was also taken over by interview season for GI fellowships. I ended up interviewing at eight programs, six of which were in Texas and Chicago. I also interviewed in Portland at Oregon Health and Science University, during which Wendy and I made a long weekend experiencing, without a doubt, one of the best cities in the lower 48. I also had the pleasure of making my second trip ever to NYC for an interview at NYU. I stayed with our wonderrful friend Ali and got to hang with the other third of Wendy's old roommate trio, Amber, during a couple of great nights in the Big Apple. Interview season culminated with me matching at UT Southwestern (HOME!) where I'll be spending the next three years of my training. Yes, folks, the journey continues.


April brought another month on service, riding out the winter, whereas May brought less work and more fun times. Bob Seger hit Chicago the second week in May. A group of our friends decided to rent a limo to take out to the concert and work on our night moves. We held strong the whole night, like a rock, and then turned the page for a night cap at our buddy Jason's place before rolling away to the house. Later on in May, I took a trip back to Texas for Mark Bullitt's bachelor party. Bullitt is one of my great high school friends, with whom I played football and baseball. The whole crew (minus my cousin Timmy) was in town for it, and we had an awesome weekend at the lake talking about old times, pitching horse shoes, and enjoying the warm Texas sun (and wind).


Summertime in Chicago was its typical self, just awesome. I blogged quite a bit about the events of the summer, so see prior posts. Highlights included a host of street festivals (Burger fest, Sausage fest, Summer fest, May fest, Taste of River North, Wells Street Art Festival, Food Trucks at Mars Gallery, among others), Movies in the Park (Ferris Bueller's Day Off at the Chicago History Museum), The Chicago Challenge (a scavenger hunt around the city), Dave Matthews Band Caravan, Jazzin' at the Shedd Aquarium, lots of grilling on our new outdoor grill. And who could forget the Ken Cluley family storming Chicago for my dirty 30 in August. What a weekend!


Wendy spent much of the summer in training for the Chicago Marathon which she rocked on October 9. Wendy's parents, Ludy and Chet, and her Uncle Charlie Ortega made the trip up to Chicago and Wendy's good friend Christen Terry provided signage (and drinkage) and we all cheered Wendy on as she accomplished this amazing feat in a stunning time of 4 hours and 4 minutes, not bad at all for a first timer. After the marathon, Wendy and I both made a little investment in our personal fitness, joining David Barton Gym, an awesome but slightly over-the-top gym in our neighborhood. In spite of me not having a faux-hawk and a tribal tattoo, I've enjoyed getting into a little better shape during the latter part of this year. SPEAKING OF TATTOOS, Wendy made her love of Chicago official when she got her first ever tattoo, a rendition of the Chicago flag, permanently placed on her left flank. Ask her to show you next time you see her.


We attended several weddings this year. Cindi (Wendy's Cousin) and Adam tied the knot in El Paso/Las Cruces in June. I was unfortunately unable to attend secondary to questionable career choices but Wendy reported back that it was an amazing party. Jami and Jud Kinnucan got hitched in September. This is one of the more unique weddings I've been to considering that the ceremony and reception were both held at Carnivale, an enormous restaurant here in Chicago that they rented out exclusively for the event. Quite a party! Jenny Derita (a work friend of Wendy) and her fiance Jeff got married at the Harold Washington Library on Halloween, also unique and fun.

We had some fun nights out on the town- too many to remember- that are worth mentioning. Wendy and I had our first Korean Karaoke experience as we celebrated Rene Ramos' birthday in Koreatown. An epic evening at the Map Room was had with the Northwestern/MICU crew in late October. Some Emergency and Internal Medicine people joined forces to take down Wicker Park - Salud Lounge and later Cans- on a crisp November evening. You can never have enough happy hours at Timmy O'Toole's during Northwestern Medicine interview season. A tradition was started to follow up Timmy's happy hour with dance party at the Kerryman with DJ Ruki. Jason Biehl had us all over for a good old-fashioned housewarming at his new home in Lincoln Park followed by beers and Jukebox-takeover at Flounder's, his neighborhood watering hole, and late-late pizza at Pequod's. Wendy and I were able to catch a few Texas Football games at both Brownstone (with Rosh in town) and Stanley's (with Cassie, Dan Sarles, and Erika Grim). When Mandy and Erin were in town for my birthday, we hit up The Violet Hour for the first time. I've never been happier to pay $12 for a drink. Thanks to Bruno, I lost my pants (think Risky Business) and got pelted with Cap'n Crunch Berries at TBOX (Twelve Bars of Xmas) 2011, a huge pub crawl in Wrigleyville. We had a fun night celebrating Christen Terry's birthday at Cafe BabaReeba and reunited with McClurg crew for Frances Caprio's birthday at Quartino. We were also lucky enough to be entertained dinner party-style at the homes of Jeff and Jovina Young, Chris and Ashley Therasse, and Amy Packard and her boyfriend Jon.


While we did have some wonderful times in Chicago, we did do a little bit of traveling, but it was all domestic this year. Wendy and I traveled to Portland for a long weekend when I had my fellowship interview there. Highlights included The Pearl (awesome neighborhood where we stayed), amazing food truck dining, really nice homeless people, and a scenic drive along the Columbia River checking out some breathtaking scenery and several waterfalls including Multnomah Falls. In July, we made a weekend trip back to Texas for a lake weekend at my parent's. We also roadtripped back to Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin for a lake weekend at the Nelson's place. We took the opportunity of being in Texas for Thanksgiving to head out to the Texas Hill Country for relaxation and wine-tasting. We had an amazing experience at The Lakehouse Inn Bed and Breakfast, ate some amazing food, and tasted some outstanding Texas Wine. Wendy, as usual, showed me up in the travel department going to Super Bowl in Dallas, Miami for Cindi's Bachelorette, Vegas for Amber's Birthday, Vegas again for Rock'n'Roll half marathon and Rodeo, NYC for Ali's marathon, LA for a Coors Light commercial shoot.


Being Chicagoans, you can always count on a good number of visitors, and we had some awesome ones this year (knowing me I forgot someone, but here goes a few shoutouts):
Joe and Kristen Williams
Cassie Mulanax (x2)
Clark and Tommy Turner (x2)
Jon Wheless (x2)
Wes Wheless
Roshan Gummatira
David Hanss and Sara Mulkey
Sara Litton
Ken, Mary Ann, Mandy, and Erin Cluley
Chet and Ludy Wheless
Charlie Ortega
Dickie Lawson (x2)
Tim Taliaferro
Will Bulsiewicz
Clarisse Bucag
Stephen Santellana
Tim Cluley
Jerry Gutierrez
Chris and Jenna Sobey
Jeremy Jones
Steven Tyler

Though my recall doesn't even come close to doing 2011 proper justice, it's not hard to see that this was a great year. We feel blessed to have wonderful family and countless, amazing friends that get us going every day. May 2012 bring many more adventures and may we all squeeze a whole year of fun into the next six months in Chicago.

Cheers everyone!