Dining Al Fresco – Life as Lauren

Sometimes you are gifted with a perfect weekend and this weekend, that started with a really good movie, included a night out with our besties and ended with a taco festival, was just such a weekend. Just thinking about it is making me feel so so happy ♥

Real life dinner sometimes looks a lot different than Instagram dinner but those leftovers were delicious and we got to watch some of the Rockies game before making our way to the Mayan to see Eighth Grade. Guys, the movie was SO GOOD. I think I had mentally prepared for it to be really sad, so I was pleasantly surprised at how A) funny and B) optimistic much of it was. But don’t get me wrong, there were many cringe-worthy and heart-breaking parts too. Please see it, it is truly beautiful!

The Saturday morning plan was to wake up and head straight to the Farmers’ Market then have breakfast when we got back, but Joey got up SUUUPER early and went for a run and then I got up two full hours before the market started so pancakes at home it was! These Coconut-Cashew Pancakes were in the newest Cooking Light and once I got the batter properly thinned out with extra coconut milk, they turned out really good!

We hadn’t been to the market in something like three weeks, and in our absence, all the peppers popped up! We paid $20 for our haul and I thought that was a pretty good deal. Spent the rest of Saturday doing a few productive things — grocery, garden clean up, over-baking some Pistachio-Raisin Bars — but mostly some restful things — reading, napping, watching Anchorman — before our exciting evening plans.

We made Dining Al Fresco reservations for Osteria Marco all the way back in MAY and even then, 8 PM was the earliest we could get in! We also waited 20 minutes for our table but there was complimentary Prosecco, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much. Once sat, it was just a fun night of dinner under the string lights with our best friends ♥ It started POURING as we drove back home, so we could not have timed it more perfectly!

Fish Taco from Los Chingones

Jackfruit Taco from Mas Kaos

Scallop Taco from Bright Marten

Hard Shell Beef Taco + Green Chile from La Fiesta

Barbacoa Taco from Chuey FU’s

Carnitas Taco from Adelitas Cocina Y Cantina

Chocolate + Butter Pecan Paletas from Neveria Jedany’s

Sunday morning, I got up early(ish) and headed to yoga and Joey was out most of the day for a fantasy football draft so when I got home, I got our salads for the week made and finished my book so we could have the rest of the late afternoon to spend together at… Tacolandia! Aka, an all-you-can-eat taco festival at Civic Center Park. Look, there wasn’t a bad taco in the bunch, but the barbacoa from Chuey FU’s was my favorite.

After we had watched enough of the Lucha Libre Final Match (the wrestlers slapping their leg as they “punched” each other to imitate the noise was seriously so funny!), we decided to top it all off with some dessert in the form of the creamiest paletas and a Tamaricco, which I’d never heard of before but found super fascinating. Also, again, the weather was not supposed to be great for this outdoor event, but we totally lucked out because, except for a bit of wind, it was plenty warm and sunny. We had so much fun doing this! Oh and Rockies swept the Braves!

Please tell me something fun you did this weekend! 🙂

I originally wrote this post earlier in the summer, when I had barely made it through any of the things I had imagined myself doing that season. Since then, we crossed off a bunch of “Summer Bucket List” items, but I wanted to share it anyway, as a reminder that it’s completely okay to take summer at your own pace and maybe not get to all the things you thought you were going to get to. There are plenty of future summers for those things and in the meantime, you might just discover happiness in a whole slue of unplanned activities 🙂

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When I looked at my Summer Bucket List, hanging on the magnetic board in our kitchen, with just two items crossed out, I felt sad. But then I thought of all the wonderful and fun things I did this summer that weren’t on that list and I felt sad no more. I didn’t fail, I just wrote the wrong list!

What if, instead of spending most of our time trying new things, we just fine tuned/perfected/cemented our love for old things/routines/habits/experiences. Getting better at stuff you already know you love is totally an accomplishment to me.

We went to the Farmers’ Market every Saturday we could and knew the best tents for tomatoes and just how much we could fit into my bike basket (even if we still bought more than that every time…).

We watched Dirty Dancing at Film on the Rocks and knew you forego the tailgate in favor of a amphitheater picnic because it means getting in earlier and grabbing a better seat.

I went to Yoga on the Rocks, not once but twice! We went to so many good concerts and even upped our tailgate game by buying an actual table to sit at.

I baked ALL THE THINGS. If weekly pie/cobbler/cake is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. But don’t worry, we still made time for a trip to the ice cream parlor too.

We dined al fresco so many times and didn’t take a single backyard dinner for granted because they are, arguably and low key-ly, the best part of summer.

I read and ran and relaxed. Uptight might be my middle name, but when there’s corn to grill and hammocks to read/nap in, who has time to worry about how clean (or dirty) their kitchen floor is.

I got a new grill and we found that sweet spot between BBQing for a group and just grilling up a quick dinner for ourselves. In the end, that mostly means we just ate a lot of good things this summer.

Don’t even get me started on our little garden that I love with all my heart. We were so much more organized and prepared this year and it was so fun to see new things grow and have that 10-minutes to water and admire all those cute little vegetables after work.

And let’s not forget weddings and vacations and weekends spent with our families that could have been stressful but ended up being relaxing and rejuvenating and a good reminder that despite all the bad things in the world, you have your people and they have you.

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