St. Patrick's Day Round-Up

I know St. Patrick's Day was last week but we are still in March therefore I'm not too late for a holiday inspired post ;)  Truth-be-told we are not huge fans of St. Patrick's Day although I never pass up an opportunity to dress festively and add a few holiday touches to our decor at home.  In college, we avoided the St. Patrick's Day bars and parties.  It wasn't until we moved to Chicago that we appreciated it a bit more and started to get out a few times in celebration.

Texas just doesn't seem to have the traditions and interest in celebrating anything other than it's own history therefore there wasn't any big "event" that goes on.  Below is a quick summary of our St. Patrick's Day experiences over the past few years.

Ahhh Chicago......they really do it best.  They have a tradition of dying the river green each year.  It's fun to watch and creates really great photo moments :)  We first experienced the river dying in March 2008.  

Fun trivia fact: The powder is orange in color, it first turns the river yellow before mixing to green! (We really had this as a trivia question one time)

It was freezing, in the 20's if I recall correctly and loads of people lined the rivers and bridges to watch the river dying!  It was quite fun to see but even more fun to experience the excitement of the crowd!

St. Patrick's Day 2008

Not the best shot of me however you can really see the river!

Fun story about that year.  Following the river dying, we headed over to the St. Patrick's Day parade.  It was the LONGEST parade ever.  We left after 3 hours and there was not an end in sight!  During the parade we noticed a guy with security guards around walking down the street shaking hands with the crowd.  When he past us, we shook his hand but were both puzzled on who he was.  Fast forward a few months when Obama became President and there was all of the controversy on who sold his senate seat, we figured out who's hand we shook.  It was Rod Blagojevich!  We didn't realize it until his face was plastered on TV due to the scandal.  

There were a few years where I either forgot my camera or we didn't really celebrate the holiday because the next St. Patrick's Day I have was in 2011 when my sisters came to visit Chicago!  My brother-in-law was turning 30 that year so they all came out to Chicago to celebrate!  

St. Patrick's Day 2011

3 out of 4 of us in Chicago

The last St. Patrick's Day we celebrated as Chicago residents was in 2012.  It was a memorable year due to the record breaking temperature the city experienced.  It was 75 degrees that day!!  There were people everywhere because it is extremely rare not to be bundled when outdoors in March in Chicago!

St. Patrick's Day 2012

As I mentioned previously, Houston doesn't really have any traditions to celebrate the holiday.  We did find the first annual Houston Whiskey Festival was taking place on St. Patrick's Day in 2014.  I didn't plan appropriately therefore no green dress for me.  Since I am not a fan of whiskey, Brian got to indulge in double tastings!

St. Patrick's Day 2014

Finally this year, since it fell on a Tuesday and we had to work there was not much celebrating.  We decided to indulge in an after dinner drink complete with a little green dye!  I didn't take any pictures of our decorations but you can see a few of them in the background.

St. Patrick's Day 2015

Hope you enjoyed your holiday by either going out, indulging in a beverage, simply wearing green or all of the above :)

Sláinte!

~A