Saturday December 31st, 2016. The last day of the best year of my life. Let's do this. The original plan was to host a party at Beth's new place in the city, until about a week out from New Years when Beth and I both won 2 tickets to the Corona Beach House for the ChiTown Rising event. $200 per ticket, how could we say no!? Plus most people had not committed to Beth's place yet, so we now had "legit" plans.
Beth tried to get various of her friends to attend, but at a week out, everyone already had plans. I even tried all my friends, but pretty much everyone had plans as well. Finally it was the day before New Years Eve and we asked John what he was up to. His original plan was to go to Michigan with his parents, but then something changed and at the last minute he was in (Melissa is in Europe, lucky girl).
We spent the morning and early afternoon of New Years cleaning and cooking. Beth came over around noon or so and helped with the activities. Rachel cooked a delicious Chicken Marsala topped with mushrooms dinner, with green beans topped with bacon bits and almond slivers, and a side of wild rice. So tasty.
John waited until the last minute to try to use his ticket, we are talking around 4pm when he was going to leave at 5p and the promo code would no longer work. It said that it had expired. We went into a scramble, calling anyone and emailing everyone we could to see if we could get this resolved. Finally someone responded with a new promo code to try and it worked. John would be joining us!
John arrived a little after 6p and we played some games like 3 man and ate our delicious dinner. We took a few photos then jumped in a $12 uber downtown to the Hyatt Regency around 9p.
Once we were downtown we made our way into the venue, grabbed our tickets, and then checked our coats. The Corona Beach House was in the crystal ballroom on the second or third floor. The rest of the night was filled with dancing, DJ's, Corona beer, music, screaming, free swag, free drinks, free hats, fireworks, and tons of fun! Check out the photos and the Vlog for a full experience!
We left around 1:15am and initially planned on taking an uber home. Remember that $12 uber ride to the Beach House? It was now a $48 ride home. 4 times the price! We'll take the bus! On the bus ride home, this weird guy, who may or may not have been homeless, talked to me for the enitre ride home. The best part was there was 2 rows of people between him and I that we so politely talked through the entire time. Scratch that, he talked, I just kept saying wow, yep and uh huh. Such a good listener.
A stop or two before our stop, I was tired of hearing this guy talk about how he knows Steve Goodman (who wrote Go Cubs Go) and how the Bodyguard movie was based on him, plus I really had to go to the bathroom, so I jumped off and everyone had to follow. It added a few blocks to our trip, but I was relieved! Back in our apartment around 2am, we talked a little bit, until everyone was asleep except I. And then finally right around 3 am, I called it a night and went to sleep. Happy New Year everyone! 2017 is off to a great start!
Josh