4th of July 2020

What a weekend! Guys, I’m tired. I think we almost always do our own two-person thing on the 4th, but since we never had a Memorial Day BBQ and everyone had the day off, it only felt right to invite our family over for ribs. Between that and taking a trip to Loveland on Friday and a trip to Frederick on Sunday, I am beat, but in a good way 😃

Can I also say that celebrating America felt weird this year. I’m not going to pretend any of the problems this country is facing right now, just popped up this year, but they are in the forefront of my mind and look, I know there are many great things about America, but she’s not looking her best right now. It’s tough.

I don’t know how to segue out of that one, so here’s a bump selfie comin in hot! Please ignore the messy state of our room, okay? 24 weeks, can you believe it?!

We had Friday off, so while Joey headed over to our old house to do some last-minute yard clean up before our renters move in, I baked ribs and ran over to D Bar to pick up a 4th of July cherry pie! It was fresh out of the oven so it hadn’t quite set up yet and started leaking when I put in on the car seat, so I quickly had to move it to the floor to be more level. Smelled so good!!!

Afterward, we headed up to Loveland for a long overdue visit to my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. My nephew is like 5′-8 now?? And my niece has braces and they BOTH have cell phones. When did they get so grown up?? It was really nice to chat with my bro and sis-in-law and would you look at that pendant my brother made me?? GORGEOUS! ❤

Back at home, we lazed for a bit then made portobello burgers for dinner eaten al fresco. Oh and we watched The Photograph afterward and Joey liked it but I thought it was just alright.

Well we started the 4th in a relaxed way with buttermilk pancakes and PEACHES (!!!). Since we haven’t been to the Farmers’ Market, I have lost all sense of what’s in season, so maybe it’s still early for peaches but I couldn’t wait any longer! After that, the whole day just felt like a series of unfortunate incidents. First our A/C went out, then I exploded a stick of butter in the microwave, then our sink started leaking into the cabinet underneath, OY! But then everyone came over and even though it started raining just as Joey went to grill the ribs, we had a pretty new dining table to relocate to. We were able to move it back outside for dessert and to watch all of Denver shoot off fireworks from their backyard. It was NUTS! Andi didn’t seem to mind but Huni was over and spent the night huddled between Joey and I, shaking. Poor pup!

We did a bit of relaxing on Sunday morning, then whipped up some coleslaw and headed over to Bobby and Becca’s new house. It looks so nice!!! They are having a baby girl in just about a month, so we got to see the nursery and all those adorable newborn baby girl clothes ❤ They fed us lunch and dessert and we got to catch up and it was so nice. Back at home, we finished The Sopranos!!! I can’t believe we got through it that fast but I’m so glad we’ve finally seen it.

Please tell me how your 4th of July weekend was!

Weekend Things

It’s Monday and I’d like to wish a very Happy Birthday to my dad, who is turning 70 today!  It’s also Oscar Nomination Day and I’d like to wish a not happy day to the Academy who didn’t nominate JLo, Greta Gerwig, Awkwafina or Adam Sandler.  Now, let me tell you about the weekend!

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As movie season winds down, I think we’re going to find ourselves at home more often on Friday nights, beginning with this one.  We queued up The Report basically as soon as we got home (Adam Driver is great as always and I was HORRIFIED to see those torture scenes, it’s an important story albeit not the most enjoyable one), then moved on to Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, which stars Joaquin Phoenix as an alcoholic paraplegic who joins AA with Jonah Hill as his sponsor.  Joey fell asleep halfway through but not before we enjoyed this homemade ice cream.  Peanut Butter, banana, honey flavor is majorly good!

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Woke up Saturday morning and made buttermilk pancakes (the best!!), then finished our movie and I mostly liked it but REALLY loved Jonah Hill in it ♥  Not a fan of watching movies in two parts though, so no more of that please.  Afterward, I drove to not one, not two, but three different grocery stores looking for extra ripe bananas to make banana bread with.  Turns out people will comment when they see you picking out “bad” bananas.  I finally sort of succeeded (still had to use the oven trick) then came home to a watch dog and some afternoon baking.  I made this Almond Flour Banana Bread,which is gluten-free and dairy-free and WHOA, it turned out so good!!!  This might be my new go-to despite the fact that I’m neither gluten nor dairy-free!

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Date Night!  We had tickets to the Nuggets game and decided to hit up a new restaurant beforehand.  We debated then landed on Woodie Fisher which is inside an old Fire Station so it looks extra cool on the outside, but as it turns out, it’s beautiful on the inside too!  We had amazing service and we LOVED the food, but it was EMPTY in there so please take this as encouragement to go try it out, Denverites!  The Nuggets lost 😦 and it was Western Night 😦 but they did parade a mini horse around and Joey made a Little Sebastian reference, so all was not lost.

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Sunday was a busy day!  First up, family breakfast for my dad’s birthday.  Joey went to Huckleberry to grab us both a coffee and then we did a drive by coffee exchange through our car windows, ha!  Breakfast was not long enough for me because I had to rush out for a haircut I’d previously scheduled and it all made me feel a bit frantic, to be honest.  Post-haircut, we headed to Grant and Kelsey’s Sprinkle for Baby #2!

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Back at home, we finished lunch salads, I finished my book (I didn’t feel like I completely understood the ending and yet, I didn’t care enough to want to completely understand the ending…) then made “Fish and Chips” for dinner and watched Atonement, because it’s a Saoirse world and we’re all just living in it!  I have so so so many older movies to catch up on and yet, they are sometimes hard to watch because they just don’t look great.  I was really distracted during the first half of this movie by how harsh the sunlight was!  Did it really look like that when it came out in 2007??  Anyway, by the end, I’d decided I rather liked it!  Andi wasn’t very helpful in choosing a new book, but he sure did look cute ♥

How was your weekend??