Wheaton Theater

I had a picture of the Wheaton Theater published in Chicagoist this week, and I am impressed with how many people have shown an interest in the theater. It seems like there was a lot going on there back in the day and I hope they do wind up restoring it.

Here is the link to the picture if interested. The picture in turn has a link to the theater website.

http://chicagoist.com/2009/02/20/around_town_65.php?gallery0Pic=6#gallery

Proof of Wheaton's greatness!!!

Ok, admittedly we are unabashed Wheaton supporters, but now we have statistical proof that we are not crazy! Money magazine has produced its 2008 best places to live and Wheaton came in at 54 nationwide. Sure, Naperville is ranked number 3, but I still think we are better than Naperville. But that's just me.

Now accepting reservations!

OK. So it's still a little cold (water temp = 50 degrees) and a little dirty (there was a mishap with the removal of the cover ... lots of leaves at the bottom), but those are temporary problems. 

Ahh. Finally.

As I read this story, I'm sort of blown away to think that it was snowing here 10 days ago. It seems so long ago and far away.

 

Also, pool opens in two weeks, yo. Start blowing up your water wings now.

Two Brothers Brewing Company

I hesitate to post this since it will only seem to confirm thoughts that we drink too much. But it was just too good not to give it a mention. Earlier this week, Ashley and I went to Two Brothers Brewery for dinner. We had been meaning to go for a while now. It is just a few minutes from our house so there are really no excuses not to go. Especially since we are all about the local beer. As it turns out, we have been missing some good stuff! It's a fairly new brewery (they have been around for 10 years but as a very small operation until recently) so you never know. They only recently opened the new brewery down the road from us. It was some of the best micro brew we had ever tried! Ashley had the Cane and Abel, and I had the sampler flight. Combine that with the fact that the restaurant had a cool pub vibe, the people were friendly, and the food was excellent and you have a winner. I'm pretty sure the guy who came to talk to us for a few minutes made up 50% of the two brothers. I think it's safe to say we will be going back from time to time. So if anyone is looking for some good micro brew, you know where we live...

I can't believe I'm blogging about the weather.

The weather folk were using their excited voice when they talked about a warming trend this week. All the way into the twenties!!

Although I guess that is pretty exciting given that this is what our thermometer looked like on January 1:


Yes. That says 3 degrees. Farenheit. The next day it said 1!

(Also take note of the indoor temperature. If D ever leaves me, it will be for a woman that lets him turn up the thermostat. Sorry, D. That's why the baby Jesus and Leon Leonwood Bean brought slippers to us.)

This cold snap though, really brought home the fact that we need some new damn windows. Witness:


That, my friends, is frost on the inside of our kitchen window.

The good news is, it really is supposed to warm up more this weekend, so maybe we can get the Christmas lights down.

Two Enthusiastic Thumbs Up

Maybe we haven't mentioned this, but we really like living here. The little things* are so much easier.

Like seeing a movie

When we lived in Waldorf, our choices were a giant mega-movieplex in Alexandria or the local theater. Now, the mega-movieplex was supernice, don't misunderstand me. Brand new, stadium seating, ticket purchasing kiosks so you never have to talk to a person ... the trouble was getting to that point. First, to get to the theater, you had to cross a bridge. Not just any bridge, the Wilson Bridge. Looks nice, right? Yeah, well, it doesn't exist yet. It's been under construction for the last decade or so. But sometimes we were able to successfully navigate lane closures, accidents, and random traffic backups to make it to the Great(ish) state of Virginia. Challenge #2 is parking. The mega-movieplex had the most oddly shaped parking lot with spaces about the width of a SmartCar. I couldn't even squeeze my Civic into those spots. Especially with all of the suburban, um, Suburbans taking up 3-4 spaces each. But let's pretend that we made it across the bridge and were able to find and successfully maneuver ourselves into a parking spot. The chances of getting a ticket were about 2 in 5 in our experience. Weekend evening and matinees of any movie less than 5 weeks old were always sold out.

"But Ashley," you are probably asking, "why not just go to the Waldorf theater and avoid all of that Virginia nonsense?" Ahh, the St. Charles Towne Centre Theatre. Home of the pretentious and unnecessary e. They mostly showed second run movies. Which is fine, since I don't need to see movies the second they come out. (It's still the same movie, whether you wait in line at midnight or see it on a Sunday three weeks later.) Unfortunately, they only had about six screens so the movies they got were the super blockbusters. Nothing even a little bit smaller, ever. All slapstick comedy and big budget FX spectaculars, all the time. Also? There was NEVER soap in the bathrooms. In a place that small, you know the heavily eyelinered teen scooping your popcorn with her hands does not have a super-special staff bathroom with extra amenities like, say, soap.

So, anyway.

In the last five months, Damian and I have seen at least as many movies as we saw in five years in Maryland. Which is awesome, since I lovelovelove going to the movies.

Tonight, after a sparkling wine tasting (amazing--six sparkling wines, all very different, all very good), we went to see Juno. D and I cannot recommend this movie highly enough. It was funny and sad and sweet and all-around excellent. We laughed and cried. (At least, I cried. Damian has never cried in his life. I swear.) The writing was great and the actors all did a fantastic job. If you haven't seen this movie, stop reading this stupid blog and go! Gogogo!

*Sure, the big things are turning into a disaster, but, hell, we can see MOVIES, people!

Catching up/ filler material

So, we have been bad about posting. Really bad. And we have been reminded of this (You know who you are... Jonnett). Ahem. So I'm just going to fill in some time here quickly with the help of a few pictures because I'm lazy.

Thanksgiving:

We spent Thanksgiving in Michigan this year. The beauty of it was that Damian worked a full day Wednesday and we were still in Niles well before dinner! We spent a great deal of the time at Ashley's parents since they invited Damian's Mom and Grandma over for dinner and his Dad had to work a good chunk of the time we were there. We went out to the bar in Niles that Wednesday to meet up with our friend Kris from high school. Needless to say, that didn't last long. It is Niles after all. But we did run into a few people we knew and it was good to see them and say hi. And then leave.

During Thanksgiving dinner, it began to snow. We got a good six inches or so and of course we took pictures.

The Final Frontier

Ashley's new CRV covered in it's first snow

Ashley's parent's yard

That Sunday was Damian's mom's birthday so we went out for breakfast before leaving town. We got back home early enough for some decorating. Ashley started putting up inside decorations while Damian put up lights outside. Here is a blurry picture of what it looks like.

The following weekend we went out to a Christmas tree farm to cut down a tree. Just as we finished walking out to where the trees were, it began to sleet/snow. Hard. And the trees were not very good. So we wound up with a pre-cut from the same place. They were nicer trees anyway. Plus that way were were able to focus on getting hot cider and donuts. It was win - win. We don't have any pictures of the tree yet but I'll add them when we do.

We would like to take a minute to list reason #3562 of why we love Wheaton. During the week we were the recipients of another six inches or so of snow. When Damian went out to shovel the driveway the next morning he was surprised to see two of his neighbors on their way over to help. Between the three of them it took about 3 minutes. Plus another 5 or so to talk afterwards. Granted these were a couple of guys Damian talks to somewhat frequently now, but still something that never would have happened in Waldorf in a million years. They both had to go to work as well but still took the time to help a neighbor. God bless the Midwest.

And an after shot just for the hell of it because snow = pretty. Especially when it isn't in the driveway.


And that brings us to last weekend. On Saturday, our friend Marty drove down from Milwaukee to visit for the weekend. We spent most of the time at the house but showed her around downtown Wheaton some as well. It was a good visit overall and good to catch up with her. Next time she visits we will take her around a little more to see some of the hot spots.

And to send this post off, here are a few more blurry pictures of Wheaton decorated for the holidays. The pictures don't really do the decorations justice however since our camera struggles mightily with night shots. Anyone who is curious will just have to come see it for themselves.

The south end of Main St.

Main St.

Christmas tree in front of City Hall

Christmas tree in front of City Hall from the side

The Cellar Bistro

We have lots of post to write, but I wanted to do a quick post about the latest restaurant to open in Wheaton. It's called the Cellar Bistro. We went last week to check it out and we were not disappointed. They have main courses to please the starving, but their specialty is small appetizer plates that you can get to share over a bottle of wine. We ordered the stuffed mushrooms, baked brie and some wine. It was delicious and the atmosphere was great. It's advertised as a restaurant (it is Wheaton after all) but I think it's better suited as a wine bar to order small plates and talk with friends. They also serve a lot of organic wines and plates as well as local selections. This is becoming very popular in Wheaton which is a nice surprise.

The Bank Restaurant and Bar should be opening this weekend which is the one I'm really excited about. So you can expect a review of that very soon...

Dine Away Hunger

Before I gush on about Adelle's, I need to clarify something. In a previous post I mistakenly took credit for taking all of the Chicago pictures. I didn't realize I had done this (I had a couple of drinks and I was tired) but I should give credit to Ashley as well. She took some of the pictures there were posted so it was a team effort.

Anyway, on to more delicious things. We have managed to do a few fun things lately but I only have so much time but I wanted to mention a restaurant we went to last Wednesday. It was for an event called Dine Away Hunger where 17 Wheaton restaurants donate a portion of their proceeds for that night to the People's Resource Center in Wheaton. The money goes to stock the food bank at the Center which provides food for 18,000 DuPage County residents who need assistance. We had not been to a nice dinner in Wheaton yet and thought this would be a good time to do so. Ashley made reservations for us at Adelle's.

We started off sharing the portobello fries which were so amazing, I think even Graham would like them. Ashley had the pistachio crusted salmon and I had the beef tenderloin. It may have been the best steak I've ever had. And while we were there we figured we may as well have desert also. They also have a good wine list and we both enjoyed our selections. Anyone coming to visit should check out their link above and let us know if it sounds interesting. There are plenty of other excellent suggestions in the area but we haven't been to most. Yet...

We Chose Well.

Today, D and I walked the Illinois Prairie Path. It runs right through downtown Wheaton and near our new house. We wanted to see how long it would take us to walk to town. It's an easy and beautiful 20-minute walk. We found a park off the path with a picnic area and playground. Nice! We are thinking about investing in some bikes this fall for when we don't want to walk.

We also discovered even more Wheaton awesomeness.

This park is right down the street from our house. In addition to the ballfields and playgrounds that we knew about, today we found rentable garden plots. The public can rent a little space and grow their own vegetables and flowers.

Then! Then! We stumbled onto this. It's about a minute from the new house. We walked the path around the lake and love it. There were a bunch of people there running and biking, cooking out and fishing. There's canoe and rowboat rental, too. We can't wait to explore it some more.

Mostly, after today, we are even more blown away by how lucky we are!