You know when your weekend was so good that just thinking back on it has you doing a little good mood dance in your office? No? Yeah, me neither…
But seriously, this weekend we had a very chill Friday that involved cooking vegetables from our garden, a Saturday that started with a new coffee shop and ended with a summer BBQ with our friends and family and a Sunday that was so blissfully relaxed it almost felt wrong but mostly felt so damn right. THE BEST!
To say I had been looking forward to this dinner all week long would be a major understatement. We pulled four cute little beets from our garden and used them to make this flatbread from my new cookbook and then I sauteed a HUGE bag of chard we harvested from our garden and Joey raved about it all through dinner. I was like “it’s just some chard!” but yeah, it was actually VERY GOOD. Also, I guess I’m just gonna quit my job and be a beet farmer now, okay? Please tell us the difference between pizza and flatbread though!
Everyone was coming over at 5 on Saturday and our house needed to be cleaned and burgers, sangria and broccoli salad needed to be made, but there is ALWAYS time for coffee first! And Blue Sparrow Coffee was ADORABLE, so I’m 100% glad we made it there. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, RiNo is just the coolest neighborhood in Denver! We got our coffee and headed up to this rooftop patio and had the whole thing to ourselves. It was so cool and peaceful and quiet up there ♥ We went full-on dorky married couple and inspected those garden beds so hard. I loved every single second!
Afterwards, we cleaned and prepped (hallelujah for husbands who mow and pull weeds and water lawns and put out tables, chairs and cute little drink stations so that when you come outside everything is already perfect!) and it was all so low stress that I even took a hammock nap and finished a book afterwards. WHO AM I?!
As for the actual BBQ, I loved it SO much! Everyone brought such delicious things and Joey grilled the burgers (x3!) to perfection and everyone was like “this water with fruit in it is so good!” and I got to see and laugh with all the people I love best in this life. It was magical indeed. Also, for the record, the pregnant lady outlasted everyone else and was the last person out the door at the end of the night. Guys, Hannah and Josh are having a baby boy and it is fucking fun to talk about HIM instead of IT now.
P.S. Totally ate a brownie while cleaning up after everyone had left.
Started Sunday with a run breakfast at Sassafras and yeah, those roasted vegetable grits with goat cheese and a side of jalapeño cornbread were as good as they look! Afterwards, while Joey being a bike mechanic in the backyard (don’t ask…), I I re-stocked myself on granola and made some hummus with extra virgin olive oil that Lori brought back FROM GREECE! She also got me thee most stunningly beautiful blue opal jewelry and I am actually the luckiest daughter-in-law ever.
Then…our first Sunday Rockies game of the year (how?!) and we biked and had seats in the shade and won 13-3, so I was in my happy place for real. Afterwards, we tried to move as little as possible and keep all the lights off because summer heat is not messing around this year. Plus we had our groceries delivered and decided to wait till Monday to do our weekly salad prep so we really had nothing we needed to do. It was honestly SO NICE.
For dinner, I picked our first squash and tomato of the year (!!!) and then we ate outside and I was like “I LOVE SUMMER!” Big Brother and Game of Thrones afterward!!!! Ummm how incredible was that episode of GoT?! I had literal chills so many times and even Joey couldn’t stop talking about how crazy good that ending scene was. My sister and Wayne just started watching the series and I’m simultaneously jealous that they get to watch from the beginning and disappointed that they’re JUST NOW watching from the beginning.
This week, I have book club, birthday celebrations for my sweet mama and a weekend concert to look forward to so I think I’ll be riding this summertime high for a while 🙂
This is what the start of 28 looks like. Aka waking up to roses, eating an avocado tartine (so less nauseatingly trendy than avocado toast, of course :P) and multiple cups of coffee. Not mad about it at all!
Life as Lauren 