The Ragas Report

Tales of adventure from the exciting lives of Matt and Traci Ragas
About Me

Matt, Traci, and Clark Ragas live in Chicago.

Matt is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, though he called the Sunshine State home for over a decade before moving to Chicago. Traci hails from St. Petersburg, Florida and has never lived more than 45 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico.

Clark originally hails from - well, we aren't totally sure. We're just blessed to have him in our family. He's a "rescue dog" as we say. :)

Here is where you can learn all about our new life in the big city.

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2012 (2)
2011 (28)
2010 (40)
2009 (3)
 

Grand opening - Tuesday night

Can you imagine a place, known for its convenience and prescription medications now selling sushi?  Now imagine, this same place having fresh fruit, a ton of prepared foods, new and unique product displays, manicures, and super-high end wine.  Believe it or now, I'm talking about Walgreens!  On Tuesday, a new Walgreens opened at State and Randolph (about 12 blocks from our house).  Matt and I both read the stories about this new flagship store, so of course we had to check it out and went Tuesday night.  We were not disappointed (even the window view of the Chicago theater is amazing!). 

Posted by Traci Ragas 
 

Christkindlmarket

We had a great time visiting the Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza earlier this week. I can see this turning into an annual tradition for us.

Posted by Matt Ragas 
 

Happy Birthday,Matt!

We're celebrating Matt's birthday with a DePaul men's basketball game tonight . Funny enough, they are playing Ole Miss. Hoping for a Blue Demons win. Will keep you posted.

Posted by Traci Ragas 
 

Las Vegas trip

A few weekends ago, we took a weekend trip to Las Vegas to see our friends Rich and Meghan tie the knot at Caesar's Palace.

It also happened to be our fifth anniversary, so we celebrated with a delicious dinner at Del Frisco's.  We also took in the sites and walked around the Wynn and Encore, two resort/casinos that didn't exist when we were in Vegas in 2003.  Here are a few pics, but as they say, "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." (kidding, of course - we actually didn't have time to gamble or even play the slots, though we did take advantage of the very cool buffet at the Wynn.

Posted by Traci Ragas 
 

Tom Brokaw at the Chicago Public Library

Matt and I continue to take advantage of Chicago and the many things the city has to offer.  On a tour to promote his new book, Tom Brokaw made a stop at the Harold Washington Library tonight and we were lucky enough (tickets were sold out, but we grabbed seats a few weeks ago!)  to have the chance to listen to his talk.  Last year we saw Anthony Bourdain, when he came to town. 

Tom Brokaw was intelligent, funny, and left us thinking.  His discussion promoted good dinner talk for us as we reviewed our favorite parts.  It was the perfect start to our week!

Posted by Traci Ragas 
 

Time in Baltimore

Back home from Baltimore after our national conference.  We had our Board of Directors dinner on the Inner Harbor.  Had fun meeting lots of new people and seeing months of work come to fruition, but happy to be back home too!  

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Posted by Traci Ragas 
 

Early racer...Chicago Marathon

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Not sure if he's the leader (and he's hard to see - taken around 9:20 a.m. when we heard the first loud cheers) but a view of the Chicago Marathon from our place.  Too cool!

Update: Here are a few pictures from street level.  

Posted by Traci Ragas 
 

Visit to UT Austin

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I just returned from my first visit to Austin in maybe seven or eight years. I attended a conference at the University of Texas at Austin this past Friday and Saturday with two of my colleagues, Jason Martin (on the left) and Hai Tran (on the right).

Posted by Matt Ragas 
 

Hello Trader Joes! Welcome to the South Loop!

Today is opening day at our new Trader Joe's and I was lucky enough to see the ribbon cutting, hear our alderman talk, check out the new store and grab some chili spiced mango (all before 8 am)! No more Jewel for us!! Yay!

ps I also think I was the first person to check out. :)

Posted by Traci Ragas