Weekend Things

Raise your hand if you stayed out way past your bedtime on Monday night and felt exhausted for the rest of the week.  No?  Just me on that one?  This is my way of justifying a lounge-y laid-back weekend that involved many naps, though we took my niece to see The Little Mermaid at the BDT Stage last night and it was midnight by the time I crawled into bed so I apparently did not learn my lesson.

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Post couch-nap on Friday, we headed to the Rockies game.  It felt like it’d been so long since we’d been to one, so Coors Field looked extra beautiful to me.  We saw a bat (the animal kind, not the baseball kind), my friend Ari and a Rockies win so it was a good night!

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We woke up Saturday morning and headed straight to Stowaway because we hadn’t been there for breakfast since… Easter?!  Can that be right??  I was starting to get the shakes just thinking about how long it’d been.  We had the shaded patio to ourselves and it felt so cool and peaceful out there as we shared a chai peach muffin, sipped coffee and ate up our entrees.

Afterward, we scoped out some work our company did at Improper City, which was having its opening weekend then did a little bit of garden clean up back at home.  We harvested our first yellow squash!  Andi seemed quite content to just be propped up in Joey’s hands 😛

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A bit later, I left Joey in the backyard and headed in to bottle some kombucha.  Lori got me this kombucha book for my birthday and I am feeling SO inspired by it!!!  There’s a whole section with flavor suggestions that I never ever would have thought up on my own.  I want to try them ALL!  I went with watermelon (blended up and strained to concentrate the flavor) and vanilla bean (look closely and you can see the flecks!) and I can hardly wait to see how it turns out.  Since I had already blended up the juice, I used the leftovers to make some salted watermelon juice, which is really just the preamble to salted watermelon margaritas, right?

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Spent a couple of hours at Kyla’s bridal shower after that and how cute is that balloon champagne display??  I got to visit with both sides of Joey’s family, drink a glass of sangria, watch a very funny game of pin the tail on the donkey (except not pin the tail on the donkey :P) and I even won a bottle of wine!  Can’t wait for the wedding, come August!

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I hit up a Sunday morning yoga class and between getting up semi-early and a super dreary rainy day, I basically felt how Andi looks in the picture above.  Our enthusiasm over the World Cup was about the same level too.  Is it just me or do soccer players have the most hipster haircuts of all athletes?

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After a mainly lazy day, I headed over to my parents’ to see my niece!  She opened birthday presents from Joey and I — a light blue bouncy cow that we named Claudia and decided is cousins with our cow and a modelling clay set — and she and I were both very into that clay.  Then my sister came over and we took her to the show!  I don’t know what game BDT is playing at by having a kid-friendly show start at 7:45 PM on a Sunday but we all managed to stay awake.  They actually did a GREAT job with the set, considering it’s a story that mostly takes place underwater.  “Under the Sea” was my favorite part!  Really appreciated the show’s desire to stay relevant by changing the words to “each little crab here knows how to dab here, under the sea.”

Hope you had a wonderful weekend, Happy Monday!

Weekend Things & My 29th Birthday

Today is my actual birthday but it’s felt like my birthday since last Thursday because since then, I’ve gotten a new car (!), had dinner at Linger (!), enjoyed a backyard movie night (!) and picnicked at City Park Jazz (!).  And all big exciting happenings aside, there’s also been like a million smaller things that have just made me feel extremely happy.  The end of 28 was simply amazing, so here’s to an equally lovely start to 29!

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Hi, here’s me looking like my happiest self because I’m now in possession of a brand new Subaru Crosstrek!  Mainly I’m excited about the touchscreen audio system, the backup camera, the all-wheel drive, the seat warmers, the moon roof, the new car smell.  So basically everything 🙂  I’m also the last person in the family to drive a Subaru, so it’s been a long time coming!

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Friday night, we headed to Linger for a birthday dinner.  I only made the reservation like 3 months ago, don’t worry about it.  Debated going to El Five again but the dinner menu at Linger looked so good (an entire bao bun section, guys!) and of all the Edible Beats restaurants, it just has the most special place in my heart.

Sort of wished our food hadn’t come out so fast because we were in and out in less than an hour and it made me feel like the whole experience was rushed but NO COMPLAINTS about the food because that India Cone Salad was an incredible compilation of flavors/textures (and most importantly, it involved HALOUMI CHEESE ♥), the two buns were unique and delicious and I made a last minute decision to order the (unpictured) lamb kabobs instead of the pork because: LAMB.

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Let me tell you about Saturday, because it was a perfect day.  We woke up, had breakfast and some ease-into-the-morning time, then hopped on our bikes and made our way to the Farmers’ Market.  Not going to lie, by the time we got there it was A) SO HOT and B) SO CROWDED.  So while my #1 thought was “GET ME OUT OF HERE!” I’m going to focus on the fact that I got out with peaches, shishitos, cherry tomatoes and a mini pie.

We were seriously debating fitting in a trip to the MCA but it has come to my attention that I am what my sister refers to as “an overbooker,” and honestly, it did sound kind of nice to just chill out at home and do mostly nothing, so that’s what we did.  There was lunch in the backyard, lots of reading time, garden gazing, a real leisurely trip to the grocery store, even a nap!  Who am I??  Also, please know our doggy had to have two teeth removed last week and I know we should feel bad for him, but he looks so silly without those two teeth!

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We made our fav broccoli tacos for dinner and without that trip to the MCA, I even had plenty of time to make tortillas!  It rained while we were cooking and I was sad because it seemed like any outdoor evening plans were off the table but the storm was in and out and actually made it the perfect temperature for dinner al fresco and backyard movie night.  My heart was so so happy as we settled into the hammock with out pup, popcorn and pillows.  Watched The Usual Suspects and don’t think I didn’t have serious misgivings about watching a Kevin Spacey movie.  Still, the story was good and the end of Scary Movie makes so much more sense now 😛

Perfect night ♥

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We got up Sunday for a 5-mile run and it was seriously hot already at 7:30 AM, ugh!  Afterward, Joey went to get us iced coffee and I used the rest of the challah to make more French toast.  We left the bread out over night so it could dry out a bit and it turned out to be our best batch yet!  Some time later, Joey headed outside to do whatever it is he does out there mow the lawn and I stayed inside to make Cobb salads and then I decided we should paint the Little Free Library (!!!!!) my parents gave me for my birthday.  I was like “are these the spontaneous decisions people who haven’t pre-booked every minute of their weekend do?!”  It’s a pretty sky blue now and all it needs is white trim, some stencil work, oh and that putting it into the ground part.

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Spent the evening at City Park Jazz and it was perfect!  Well except the brief wind scare when we first got there and the fact that we forgot plates and Joey’s Yeti koozie, but it all still felt perfect to me.  We gave serious consideration to each and every one of those jams/mustards and decided the red pepper jelly, blue cheese herb mustard and wild Main blueberry were the best.  Shared that teensy blueberry-lemon pie for dessert then scooted out so we could be home in time to watch Big Brother and read in bed.

If today is even half as good as this entire weekend was, I’ll call it a monumental success.  And considering I already opened the best presents from Joey and Andi this morning and we have plans to watch The Big Lebowski at Film on the Rocks tonight, I have every reason to believe it will be ♥