Photos: Burnham Harbor Walk

Photos from a walk around Burnham Habor early this morning. 

In good news: my confidence in my love for this city is officially restored after the last three insanely beautiful weeks.

In bad news: my confidence in lake swimming is officially shaken after the fish/toddler that I saw swimming in the harbor when I took that duck photo. 

Cheers to summer!

Chicago Timelapse and Freezing Water in Slow Motion

Go fast! No go slow! I can't decide. Either way, today was a fun day for videos. It was not a fun day for exposed skin of any kind.

My weekend in 11 photos

 

Every photography tutorial/blog/etc that I read says that you MUST SHOOT IN MANUAL, at all times, to really learn how to use your camera.

That... is difficult. The pictures turn out so nicely in any of the helper modes! (Aperture priority, I'm looking at you.)

BUT! Those photographers, those tutorial-writers, they know their stuff... because it's true. The more I practice and play in manual, the more I learn and the easier it gets. Also, some really fun stuff is starting to happen.

I had no. earthly. idea. my camera could take a photo like the one I took above of the lake at night! And I'm pretty sure that never would have happened in automatic.

So, I pretty much snapped away all weekend.

1 // Fact: cloudy days make better sunrises

2 // Tortellini, mozzarella and tomato skewers with balsamic glaze for game night 

3 // New print from a small boutique just outside Chicago (read: Ikea) -- a series of animal sketches by Picasso

4 // Saturday nights in + practice practice practice 

5 // Officially fall

6 // The Chicago skyline from Olive Park

7 // Loving the (city-sanctioned) street art at Illinois + LSD

8 // Olive Park walking West

9 // Old and new: animal-print Turkish jewelry dish + a landscape from my grandfather

10 // Pumpkin seeds with S&P, garlic powder + smoked paprika (the trick is not to wash them first!)

11 // Jack-o-lanterns! 

Unpictured: Cards Against Humanity (yikes), strawberry + balsamic pastries by my sister, multiple trips to Dollop, Portillo salads, Ikea madness, Uncle Julio's carry-out, my first Divvy ride ever. 

I hope your weekends were great, too :) 

Photography: Chicago Sunday

There's few things more enjoyable than a Sunday afternoon walk. Something about a nice long walk makes me feel healthy, productive, adult! Even when the reality is that I'm mildly hungover from Octoberfest celebrations the night before and the most productive thing I've accomplished is refilling the water tank in the Keurig.

On just one such beautiful Sunday, I headed out for a long walk and on the way out, grabbed my camera to work on my 10,000 photographs... here's a few of my favorite shots. 

Fireworks Over Lake Michigan

I took roughly seven thousand pictures of fireworks this weekend. This one was my favorite because it captures all of the things that I remember most: the sparks from the fireworks trailing into the water, the smoky sky, the insanity and the lights of Navy Pier against the inky calm lake dotted with hundreds and hundreds of boats. 

Too beautiful!

Bottle & Bottega

My birthday was last Friday and while I like to think I'm not one of those girls -- you know the type, birthday crazed, celebrations for a month? -- I do tend to seize the opportunity to do something a little different and drag friends along for the ride. Oh and day drinking. That's a theme too.

I've had some doozies -- rooftop BBQ's, beach parties at Castaways, a trip to Arlington Race track, etc. etc. So when another girlfriend who happens to be a fellow Gemini suggested one of Bottle & Bottega's BYOB painting classes to celebrate our respective birthdays, I knew it was just the ticket. Painting? Perfect. That's classy. I'm 29 now, you know.

We grabbed a few more girlfriends for manis and then stopped by Angelina's legendary champagne brunch, which solidified itself in my mind as hands-down the best service in Chicago. They brought over cotton candy for our birthdays, new bellinis and mimosas showed up before ours were even halfway gone, and are truly just the sweetest, most welcoming staff.

Fortified by champagne and cotton candy, we were ready to get our Monet on and headed over to Bottle & Bottega's Lakeview studio. It was cuter than we even could have imagined and they made us right at home with four easels by the window. We set up our spread of cheese and crackers and popped open our wine, chatting and patiently awaiting our impending masterpieces' beginnings.

In all seriousness though, while we're all creative in our own way, no one was expecting all of the paintings (ahem... any of the paintings?) to turn out so, so well. The instructor was really talented at helping everyone feel comfortable and breaking the painting down into very manageable steps... but somehow, it all felt more like a fun time with girlfriends instead of an art class in high school. I'd guess there were between 30-40 people there altogether, mostly groups of women, and I'd wager that every single person left happy, buzzed, and feeling creative.

Two (painted) thumbs way up -- I can't wait to go back and their classes will definitely be making their way into many future girls' outings! I also saw an advertisement that they do "Bump Parties"... private painting showers for mamas to be where everyone hand paints bibs as gifts. I need a pregnant friend pronto, because I'm pretty sure nothing could be cuter.

A very happy birthday to me.

+ iPhone-only pictures ahead! 

  

SWEET HOME

I spent the weekend with family out of state and had (as always!) a great time losing at cards and eating pie and cheese dip. Trips away, especially those that treat me to a rare vantage point of our skyline via northbound Lakeshore Drive from the south, remind me juuuust how much I love my own home. 

I silhouetted the city and then spun it and added a gradient to create this little circular cityscape.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend!

-ll

The Langham Chicago

The word "slack" does not even approach the piles of neglect we've heaped on our poor little blog here. But I've been a travelling machine lately (not complaining! Just, you know, making excuses...) and here we are, a week later again.

On a flight recently, I saw a mention of The Langham, a new hotel slated to open in Chicago in summer of 2013. You may remember my love of luxury hotels from this post on Public Hotel, and it's looking like The Langham is certainly going to hold its own here (even with it's next-door location to the Trump!). They're moving into the  first 13 floors of the IBM building, which sounds, well, less than appealing -- but the building is actually a Chicago landmark thanks to its design by famed architect Mies van der Rohe.

With it's River North location off of Wacker, I'm guessing there's going to be a cocktail lounge or restaurant with some pretty serious river views and (fingers crossed!) patio seating.

But, to the important part -- the design, by Richmond International. The muted grey, the Greek key patterns, the soft golds... too beautiful for words. Can I just move in now? Can I be the 28 year old Chicago-based Eloise here, please? Or even the Nanny?

Did that get weird? Sorry. Enjoy!

// All photos from The Langham's Website

More on The Langham:

• PopSugar Hotel Watch


• HauteLiving.com


• Dexigner