Staying In

Tonight was a great night to stay in and have a little mini-date with Joe. This afternoon I took him to the doctor to get a bump checked out, and thankfully it turned out to be no big deal. Huge relief. Then while we were waiting to pick up an antibiotic for him, we decided to stay in for the night, play an extra-long round of Mario Party, and have some pizza delivered. There are millions of things to do on a Friday night, but we made the right decision. At around 8, we ordered our half cheese/half pineapple pizza with cheesy breadsticks, and tucked in while we started our nightlong Mario escapade.

One thing that I will truly miss about Grand Rapids is the delectable Mr. Pizza on Michigan St. There is something absolutely perfect about their sauce, and I'm really not one for pizza sauce, and they are liberal with the cheese which suits me very nicely. They were running some special I didn't fully understand on their 16" pizzas, so that's what we got. Absolutely wonderful. It will be great to snack on the leftovers tomorrow.

In between bites we were fiercely competing in 50 rounds of Mario Party. If you've ever played a 50, you know that it is quite an undertaking. It only took us 2 hours and 45 minutes, which is actually the shortest amount of time I've ever completed that many turns in. I ended up winning with an incredible 9 stars (Joe was 2nd place with 5), and we had a totally fun time. It was the most pleasant Friday night possible.

Tomorrow, we're heading out into the city for once. We never really take advantage of going out here, which is pretty shameful. It's not fair to live in a relatively sizable city and never go out and take in the night life. We recently went to Hopcat, a beer bar downtown with our friends Mike and Deanna and had a magnificent time. Mike and I may have enjoyed one too many alcohols, but we didn't make total fools of ourselves. Tomorrow we are planning to visit a couple museums (I had no idea Grand Rapids even had an Art Museum...) and then go to the Bull's Head Tavern for dinner and a couple libations. More on that tomorrow.

Moral of the story is this: if you ever have a business conference at the Amway Grand or someplace in Grand Rapids and you're staying overnight, I recommend you go grab a couple of brews at Hopcat (third best beer bar in the world as rated on BeerAdvocate!), go back to your hotel room, and have Mr. Pizza deliver you a wonderful pie. You'll never want to leave the riverside.