Category: Beer Talk

Weekend Things

LaurenLeave a comment

I’m searching for a common thread to tie this weekend post together, but honestly, all the days felt very different.  Friday was spent with Hannah, Josh and for a little bit, Favorite Baby Mason.  Saturday was cool and I felt sort of sleepy all day, which I totally blame on the Royal Wedding.  And Sunday was packed with “get ready for the work week projects,” that took up the whole day.  At the end of it, I told Joey, “we should have had more fun today!”

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Yes, yes, Little Man’s Space Junkie ice cream and amazing beer + taco dinner but most importantly, that smiley little babe that I love so so much.  Do you see all that fluffy hair he has now??  I asked that he please not grow between my visits but I’m not sure he was listening because he was busy putting a plastic football in his mouth and watching Avery dog run around.

After we got some Mason time in, we dropped him off with his grandparents and headed to Liquid Mechanics for a drink and hit up the Butcher and the Blonde food truck outside for dinner.  I think we’ve been talking about chasing down this food truck for three years.  Finally!  Everything was so so good and the carnitas on both the street fries and my tacos were my favorite part.  I also decided to venture outside my comfort zone and order an IPA.  Oh wait, that’s what I get everywhere 😛  It was straight delicious though!

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If you thought I wasn’t going to wake up at 4:30 AM to watch the Royal Wedding, you’re wrong!  But if you thought I was going to wake up at 4:30 AM to watch the Royal Wedding, you’re only half right because I think I was still mostly asleep while I watched it.  I liked Kate’s dress a lot more but if seeing Harry and Meghan look lovingly into each others’ eyes with nothing but pure excitement and happiness didn’t touch you, your heart may be made of ice.

When we woke back up, we had banana pancakes then went to the grocery store.  Later on, we tried Andi’s new bandanna on.  For the record, I don’t condone this but it’s also a cute little dog bandanna so I might sort of condone it.  We took a trip to Home Depot then came home and made some Mediterranean Eggplant and Halloumi Bowls with Lemon-Dill Sauce for dinner and I loved every squeaky bite.  Clearly, Andi was tired after our early wake up call too ♥

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Ha, why am I so bad at taking Sunday pictures though??  Between that first picture — Joey made me an egg sandwich! — and that last picture — Summer Chipotle Chicken Cobb Salads almost make you forget it’s rainy outside — was me pressure-cooking some Navy beans, baking some beet brioche slider buns and brewing kombucha and Joey making us Superfood Salads for weekday lunches, giving Andi a bath and grilling chicken in the rain (hero!).  Plus we both went on a run, watched the Rockies lose, read on the couch and ate freezer cookies for dessert.

Mostly, I am just ready for good weather and sunshine and am feeling sort of uninspired without it.  Luckily, we are supposed to be in the 80s all week and heading straight into Memorial Day Weekend.  I can’t wait!  Happy Monday 🙂

Weekend Things

Lauren1 Comment

Mother Nature has been so cruel lately, giving us perfectly warm spring weather during the week then letting it rain all weekend.  But, last week she turned it around, meaning we had THEE BEST weather all weekend and as a result, we were able to clean up our yard, plant our garden, eat meal after meal outside and I just truly felt like my happiest self.  Our doggy even got to join us outside and I was like, “Andi, this is our summer life, isn’t it the best?!”  He concurred… then barked at a squirrel for 15 minutes.

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Friday, we headed home, walked Andi and mixed up these Spring Pea Veggie Burgers from Joy the Baker for dinner.  As meat eaters, we’re pretty pro-real burger but these were SO GOOD!  They held together NO PROBLEM, and decked out with cucumber slices, watercress, avocado, mustard and most importantly, a perfectly spicy Sriracha mayo, they tasted truly incredible.  Would have been the perfect opportunity to actually grill a burger (had I planned better), but we compensated by grilling some sweet potato discs.  Joey gifted me the very last can of Madame Psychosis from Fiction Beer Company.  In other words, this was a perfect night!

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Briefly considered Saturday morning waffles but then the idea of defrosting buttermilk, zesting a lemon and waiting for butter to melt then cool was all too much, so I mixed up our super simple go-to whole wheat pancake batter instead and wasn’t mad about it.  Also, we filled a growler of iced coffee on Friday and that’s how you ensure that the rest of the weekend is good.  Plus we needed all the caffeine for an afternoon of yard work!

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We maybe spent way too much time and way too much money at Paulino Gardens but we finally made it back home and to the backyard.  Joey did most all the hard stuff, but I planted our backyard pot and front porch buckets and I’m so in love with them!  How incredible are those stripped and speckled petunias??  We tag-teamed the garden bed and now our tulips — one of which finally opened up! — don’t look so lonely.

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Later on, I left Joey in the backyard and hit the grocery but then I came home and we cleaned up just in time for my sister to come over so we could all go to dinner ♥  We took her to Meadowlark and look, I feel conflicted about giving away this secret, but this might be one of the best restaurants in Denver.  I didn’t even know they had a back area but that’s where they sat us, so we got to be half inside/half outside and it felt perfectly summery.  We split a burrata dip with fried naan, a spring salad, chicken nuggets and the famous Meadowlark burger.  I’m kicking myself for taking an Instagram video and not an actual picture, because it was CRAZY.  Look it up!  Also, it tasted incredible.

Back at home, we all watched Tragedy Girls and it was super quirky and weird and gruesome and inappropriate but enjoyably so?  We think we liked it.

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Sunday started with another 5-mile run.  We did it in 47-something minutes, which is really fast for me and probably explains why I felt dead at the end.  We recovered with carrot cake overnight oats from The Savvy Cook and I think I want to make them again!  The rest of the day involved making Chili Mango Zesty Quinoa Salads for lunch this week — I’ve been cooking beans in our pressure cooker and even though I keep overcooking them, it’s been a fun experiment — and finishing up garden stuff, aka planting our seeds.

We jotted down some notes at the end of last year so hopefully we’ve refined the process just a bit more for this growing season.  I’m mainly excited for speckled lettuces!  It’s a bit more work — water, weed, harvest, repeat — but now that things are planted and there’s LIFE growing in the backyard, all feels right in the world.  We ended Sunday by watching 6 Balloons and while I didn’t LOVE it, I liked it and still thought it made for a perfect end to a perfect weekend.