Category: Summertime

Weekend Things: So Long, July!

Lauren5 Comments

It’s Monday, it’s August and it feels like the freshest of starts!  I’m welcoming August with open arms, because after all the celebrations of July, this feels like the month to slow down and be more mindful about what we really want to fit in during this last full month of summer.

Before July ended, it gave us one last jam-packed weekend and though I never felt like I was in one place for long enough, I kind of liked seeing so much of Colorado — from Boulder, to the mountains, and back to Denver again — in such a short amount of time.  I adore this beautiful state of mine.

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We ditched work early on Friday and headed to The Med for my mom’s birthday dinner.  My love-hate relationship with Boulder is a complicated one, but my relationship with The Med is all love.  Sangria for Mom and I, plus a smattering of tapas for the whole table.  I think my favorites were the shrimp and bacon-wrapped dates.

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After dinner, we strolled the Pearl Street Mall, indulged our inner child at Into the Wind (it’s a toy-store, for those of you who didn’t spend most your childhood in Boulder) and caught sight of this lovely evening sky.  Later in the night, the most incredible cloud manifested and I saw no less than five pictures of it on the internet.

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We had a two and a half hour drive into the mountains on Saturday morning, but first things first: BREAKFAST BURRITOS!  No joke, I rode my bike to our favorite little place, filled my basket with burritos, then rode back home.  Joey thought this was the funniest thing ever, but it seemed legit to me.  Also, Adam called this “the best breakfast burrito he’s ever had” and I felt like my life goals were accomplished.

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Joey’s family has a cabin in Hartsel, Colorado and I didn’t even know that was a place but I was excited nonetheless.  Here’s the thing about cabins in the mountains… they are PERFECT!  It was so dead quiet up there, in a way that appealed to my introvertedness so hard.  I love that it feels so right to just relax, sit in silence, read a book, sip a beer, take a nap.  Which is what everyone did!  Oh, plus Frisbee golf and a 2,000-piece puzzle that we came nowhere near finishing.

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We celebrated July birthdays — I know, I know, I’m as ready to put my birthday to rest as you all probably are — and I introduced my family-in-law to the Whole Foods Chantilly cake.  I think it was a life-changing experience for everyone 🙂  Also, the most incredible sunset views!  Ugh, I just can’t even get over the beauty that is Colorado.  The drive home was mostly about listening to Third Eye Blind, Music from The O.C. and… Click Five.  Don’t ask…

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Sunday morning, I half-heartedly joined Joey for a run (he’s training for the RnR half) then ditched out to pick us up iced coffee.  Later that afternoon, I joined my mom and niece for a “girls’ day!”  We took her back-to-school clothes shopping and it was like re-living my childhood all over again.  Meaning, my mom did that thing where she’d leave the dressing room to exchange sizes, then return with five new things ♥♥♥  We also took her school supply shopping and I kinda wanted to buy some for myself.  Anyway, above is Belle’s favorite outfit from our shopping trip.  She COULD HARDLY WAIT to get back to my parents’ to put it on.  Too cute!

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Back at home, I was greeted by these backyard string lights that Joey started hanging while I was gone.  I proceeded to fall in love with them and obsessively take pictures at different points of darkness.  We’ve got one more strand to hang, but I’m SO EXCITED about how they look.  Also, please note our flourishing garden boxes in that first picture.  Our back yard is my favorite right now!

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We made these Seared Cod with Potato and Chorizo Hobo Packs (is that PC??) for dinner and though I was insanely excited to try the recipe and we spent $7 and way too much time locating that chorizo, they didn’t turn out the best.  As in the potato skins were a little crispy and the chorizo was straight char.  I know, because I put a piece in my mouth then had to get up and spit it out in our yard…  The cod also completely fell apart but all was not lost because the Pumpkin-Seed Lime Butter we put on top was DELICIOUS!

So long, July and HELLO, August!

Weekend Things

Lauren2 Comments

When it’s Friday and you meet Trevor Story or it’s Saturday and you have a pre-Shakespeare Festival picnic with you mom and sister or it’s Sunday and you brew beer before deciding to go to City Park Jazz then nothing is bad ever ♥

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We got invited to an “Exclusive Autograph Session” before the game on Friday and totally expected to meet a relief pitcher or maybe someone on the DL, so imagine our surprise when it turned out to be Trevor Story!  Guys, in person (and not on the field) he is HUGE!  I was gonna make a “you didn’t have to dress up just for us” joke because he was in a t-shirt with cutoff sleeves but then I got too nervous.

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Afterwards (and before the game started), we grabbed dinner up on the rooftop patio at Whiskey Foxtrot Tango.  The service was kind of slow and my tuna bánh mì was WAY TOO spicy but it was a perfect night for some rooftop sitting and also I didn’t care because: Trevor Story.  He went on to hit a homerun, Rockies went on to win the game and we had the best seats behind home plate.  Just an overall perfect night, even if we didn’t catch any Cracker Jacks during the 7th Inning Stretch.

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I’d been dying to try The White Whale Room for MONTHS and we finally made it there Saturday morning.  We were the only ones there (save for a friend of the barista’s, sitting at the bar) so that felt weird but the space is so funky-beautiful (that’s a term, right?), they serve drinks in Tiki mugs and that breakfast burrito is griddled and plated to straight perfection.

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The rest of the day involved complaining about how hot it was errand running, in preparation for a picnic I was having that night and picking up beer supplies for some Sunday homebrewing.  Cheese + Provisions opened up in our neighborhood a few months ago and I had been looking for a good excuse to go drop some money on fancy cheese, so a picnic seemed like the perfect opportunity.  Spoiler: I loved the shop!!!  Also, we walked through this new bridge tunnel to get to the liquor store and I’m frightened that this is what we consider excitement.

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The moment I look forward to all summer… SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL!  I know, I know but my nerdy English major heart just loves sitting outside in the Mary Rippon Theater with my two favorite people, listening to cryptic-Shakespearean language on a summer night.  Joey suggested we picnic before and when he heard the spread we had planned his response was “um, well I just meant something like sandwiches.”  It’s like he doesn’t even know us Dorseys at all.

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My mom claimed The Comedy of Errors “wasn’t her favorite,” and I’ll admit it was a little overdone but I still liked it and ended up loving that they switched out the four main male characters for females.  Girl power!  Haunted Mackey Auditorium was looking extra eerie as we walked back to the car afterwards.  My heart is always so full after attending the fest with my family and this year was no exception.  Is it too soon to start looking forward to next year??

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I dragged Joey on a run Sunday morning but then I made up for it with homemade Vietnamese Iced Coffee!  Turns out it’s totally easy to make yourself and it was a good way to use up some of the dark roast coffee I bought then decided I didn’t like on its own.  Sweetened condensed milk makes all things better, ya know?  We also jumped right into beer brewing and were done and cleaned up by noon?!  We’re never not doing it that way again.  Red ale comin at ya in 3-ish weeks.

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As we were outside pulling weeds from our garden, I lamented that “I don’t want to do any responsible adult things today!”  Not into it at all.  I bucked up and eventually dragged myself to the grocery store/prepped lunch for the week, but then we ditched dinner at home and decided to hit up City Park Jazz.  It was the second to last week AND we already had all the (leftover) makings of a picnic so it seemed like perfect timing.  It was SO NICE to just spend an evening outside on a blanket, eating cheese, listening to live music and taking advantage of as much weekend time as possible before Monday.

In other words: PERFECT WEEKEND.