Good Food, Good Friends

Went to church with the Chans this morning. 'Twas great! Their church actually meets at a local high school. Tons of little kids there. Haven't seen that many young ones in a while.

After lunch, we went to Portillo's, a local joint/chain that has awesome hot dogs and Italian beef (among other goodies). It was hoppin'!

I went with what Ray recommended—the beef. I had mine with hot peppers and dipped (like, literally soaked in whatever the dip is). Check it out. It was so good!

Would've tried a hot dog too, but I was already stuffed. After a bit of a scenic drive around the area, we headed home, and we just relaxed for the rest of the day. Real nice. Even their dog, Lily, spent the afternoon just chillin' too.

There were two NCAA games on today too, so we watched those. After getting hammered by Missouri's terrible defeat in the second round, my bracket has recovered nicely (at least the one in which I hadn't chosen Missouri to win it all). In one pool, I'm in 4th place but with a shot at winning it all if Kentucky beats Kansas in the Championship Game. 

In the evening, we skewered some veggies and steak to grill. Ray marinated the steak with some good stuff, and we all helped out with assembling the food. So colorful!

We also had some stir-fried string beans with rice. Yummmmmm.

It's been a while since I've grilled anything, but today reminded me of grilling in Berlin and how much I miss little "wegwerfgrille."

Dinner was incredibly delicious, as you might expect. I was so stuffed!

After dinner, Joshua, Serena, and I played some P-I-G. I lost...

We switched to board games, and Joshua promptly beat me at Stratego. I could blame it on the futuristic look of the game throwing me off, but no, he really did have a good strategy and the one I've been using for years just failed. 

After Stratego, we played chess. Joshua's very good at chess, having won trophies and playing—and beating—kids a number of years older than him. Apparently, those years of playing chess at school and beating many of my fellow fifth graders paid off. I finally won something tonight. Haha. I hate losing.

But, it was fun to just hang out and relax with them. Now that they're on spring break, they have lots of time to play and enjoy being kids. I'm excited to play catch with Joshua tomorrow and have some deep dish pizza (gotta try it if I'm in Chicago, right?)!

Sam