Category: Spring Things

Celebratory Weekend Things

Lauren1 Comment

Joey loves when his birthday and Easter coincide and after what I would call an A+ weekend, I can see why.  Family gatherings, lots of good food and awesomely warm spring weather!  Plus baseball’s back and I can’t be mad at that 🙂

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I got Joey all the makings of an Old Fashioned and I’m pretty excited that we get to play bartender with giant ice cubes now.  Oh and I made a mad dash to Whole Foods to pick up a surprise Chantilly cake while Joey was in a meeting.  I think everyone at work liked it…

Only felt kinda serial killer-y toting that giant knife around.

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At 3 PM, Joey had decided he was over work so we ditched that place and took ourselves to Root Down for a pre-birthday dinner drink.  We sat at the bar and tried to take note of Old Fashioned-making techniques.  I ordered a Pepper Blossom which is totally not on the HH menu but totally worth full price because it’s INCREDIBLE.  P.S. New boots!

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IMG_7584I took Joey to Harman’s Eat + Drink for dinner and the food was so incredibly good!  The drinks?  Not so much.  I was the DD so I didn’t really care, plus I was distracted by teensy tacos, celery root tots and the juiciest pan roasted chicken there ever was!  I would totally recommend (the food at) this place!  For real, I had to force Joey to go get ice cream with me after dinner.  Who does he think he is?!

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The first half of Saturday was spent at Joey’s dad’s for springtime birthday celebrating/early Easter.  We brought a buncha cupcakes from a bakery near our house and I think they went over well!  Second half of the day was spent celebrating Joey’s birthday with his mom.  Annual Mexican dinner at Los Arcos.  Would you check out that look of pure delight on Joey’s face when they put that sombrero on his head.

Afterwards, we had his grandparents over to see our house for the first time ever then we convinced his mom and brother to go on a mini brewery crawl with us.  Full disclosure: I left my purse at the first brewery, didn’t realize until after the 20 minute walk to the second brewery and basically bereted myself the entire walk back to get it.  Yeah, for those of you keeping track, this is the third time I’ve done that…

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Easter Sunday was busy!  Okay, not really, we just got coffee (iced, duh!), roasted A TON of veggies (because it’s gonna be a busy week and having grab and go lunch options is going to be key!), I went on a run and then Easter dinner.  Mom knocked it out of the park food-wise.  That asparagus!  Both our mothers spoiled us with Easter basket gifts galore — yeah, we got Sea Monkeys! — and I provided Strawberry Shortcake for dessert.  How pretty does it look on Mom’s china?  I tried my hand at coconut whipped cream and it turned out awesome.  Though that’s not actually it in the above picture 🙂

This Week: Rockies Opening Day, a fantasy baseball draft, dinner and Motown the Musical, probably another dinner out for Joey’s birthday and the Rockies HOME Opener!  Yes, yes yes!

A Very Good Weekend

Lauren4 Comments

On Wednesday, I texted Joey saying my weekend cravings were warm weather, sleep, an everything bagel and a fun post-rental showroom lunch.  Check on everything but the bagel — maybe I’ll treat myself to one sometime during the week — so, in other words, it was a very good weekend.  I think the weather had a lot to do with it (sunshine makes me happy!), but I was just in such a good mood all weekend long.

Friday’s al fresco dinner.

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Our neighbors have three cats that roam around outside and like to come keep us company when we sit out there.  Joey’s allergic, so I think this is the closest I’ll ever get to owning a cat and I’m soaking up every second.  This guy’s name is Big Chuck and this is apparently how he likes to sleep.

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For whatever reason, Saturday was just a perfect-feeling day.  We were up and at ’em for a trip to our wedding rental company’s showroom so we could check out what they had to offer, plus it was warm enough to don a skirt and spend a majority of the day outside.  Meaning I ate every meal outside, walked everywhere I could, took a nap in our hammock (!!) and ignored anything that “needed” to be taken care of inside.

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Thank goodness I soaked up all the warm sunshiny goodness on Saturday because Sunday was cloudy, rainy and chilly (stop teasing me, spring!).  But that just meant it was a good day for breakfast and a massage with mom.  I requested the HCJr. station, which meant a lot of Sinatra and Etta James.  I love that old music because you don’t have to wonder if that’s auto-tune or talent.

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Afterwards, beer kegging commenced!  Turns out there’s a place to re-fill CO2 tanks really close to our house so we were able to conveniently do that on Saturday then work on the whole sanitizing, beer-transferring, regulating and force carbonating stuff yesterday.  If all goes well, we’ll have beer ready is a couple days.  And good thing because our fridge is completely beer-free and I’m not sure how long Joey will last.

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Sunday night dinner, compliments of my sister’s Whole Foods discount and my mom’s neighbor who grows asparagus.  I was hoping a summery dinner would bring about warm weather for this week but instead, it’s going to be in the 50’s till Friday.  What can you do?

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P.S. I don’t remember adding “slice finger on blender blade” to my weekend cravings list, but I most definitely did that too.  It’s proving to make a lot of things — like putting my contacts in, getting a good grip on the bathroom doorknob and typing this post! — very difficult.  My finger has a heartbeat.

Happy Monday!