Tag: Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day Weekend 2020

Lauren2 Comments

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I love Labor Day Weekend! I knew this one would be different — no in-person Rockies games, no social gatherings, no going out to dinner, no bike rides anywhere (Joey will barely let me do the dishes, let alone ride a bike!) — but I thought it could still be good and it truly was ❤

Friday night, we tag-teamed dinner, so Joey made grilled salmon and I made those WAY OVERSAUCED green beans (oops!) but it was all really good! And then we watched I’m Thinking of Ending Things. My sister texted me halfway through and said “We’re watching the worst movie!” and I definitely knew she was watching the same thing we were. Not going to lie, we were confused about what was happening and had to look it up afterward (when it made much more sense!) but I still liked the creepy/weird vibe and I thought all the performances were just so good! Toni Collette forever ❤

I got a Saturday morning snuggle from this sweet pup! 95% of the time, if Joey gets up before me, Andi will go downstairs with him and never return, so I was elated when he bounded back into our room after Joey left for a run. He didn’t even wake up when Joey came back inside!

Undercooked eggs (and just undercooked things in general) are a no when you’re pregnant but I asked my OB and she said eggs were fine just as long as they were pasteurized and thank god because Eggs Benedict sounded so good! We ordered from Snooze and it HIT THE SPOT! Plus that sweet potato pancake is just my favorite.

Joey was on a roll after his run and was cleaning the bathroom at 8 AM?? Then post-breakfast, he mowed the lawn, hung some hooks in the nursery/baby’s bathroom and mounted our baby monitor while I read in the rocking chair (the best!) and then who knows what we did the rest of the day! I think I made some cookies to stash in the freezer and Joey was getting prepped for his fantasy football drafts the next day.

I should mention my back has been killing me for the past week! I blame my father-in-law who asked me how my back was feeling and at the time, it felt so random because my back had been totally fine and it’s hurt since that day 😑 I can’t tell if it’s doing things or if it’s sitting still and not doing things that makes it hurt but the heating pad/lying down has helped.

We made an eggplant (with Japanese eggplant from our garden!) and tomato pasta bake for dinner, then decided to take a walk to get ice cream. We brought Andi and he only minorly panicked over being in a new place. They had Space Junkie (!!!) and I got Joey a femur-sized waffle cone of Buttermilk Cupcake and German Chocolate Cake and it was comically huge! Back at home, we watched The King of Staten Island (which is finally available to rent for $6) and it was about what we thought it would be. Which is to say Pete Davidson was funny albeit immature and the movie was unnecessarily long. I mostly liked it but I’m not sure it really had any narrative arc. Oh well!

Happy Golden Anniversary to us! That’s six years! On Saturday Joey asked me if I’d gotten him a present and I don’t know if it’s a brag or an embarrassment to say it hadn’t even crossed my mind to get a card, let alone a present 😬 Luckily, we were on the same page 😋 We lost our anniversary photo photographer (Chris and Amanda moved back to Illinois last year ☹), so we had to rig it up ourselves but good enough! We obviously had to take a masked one as well 😂

I made us pancakes and bacon for breakfast and then we sat outside until it got too hot. Andi even got a little brush, then gave me this moody pose when I tried to snap a pic. Did I mention it was HOT all weekend? We hit 100 degrees on Saturday and Sunday wasn’t much cooler. So once it started to heat up on Sunday, I hid inside for the entire rest of the day.

I’m trying to get a few things in the freezer for when baby comes but not too much because A) our freezer isn’t so big, B) we have plenty of good take out options here in Denver and C) my mom can cook (as she keeps reminding me ❤). Plus, who knows, maybe we’ll still manage to cook! But I did want us to have a quick breakfast option, so I threw these egg sandwiches together and I think they’ll be really good!

After that, Joey had two fantasy football drafts that took up basically the rest of the day, so I hid upstairs and read/took a nap, then at 7, I left to pick us up an anniversary dinner from Cart-Driver. We hadn’t had that clam pizza in so long, so it tasted extra good. It was also literally raining ash outside (Colorado has a bunch of fires going on ☹), so it was an indoor celebration and I totally forgot to take a picture but I think you’ve seen enough photos of that clam pizza 😋

Labor Day! We had a small list of things we wanted to get done and except for packing our hospital bag (which I’m hoping to still do this week), we got it all taken care of. First, we grabbed coffee at Black Eye (which is finally back open!) then ate breakfast and watched The Kitchen before installing both car seats in our cars. Please don’t judge our fake baby because Joey kept making jokes about getting one until I finally actually got one 😂 Andi was acting like a total weirdo and just sitting straight forward next to the car seat and we thought it was really funny! Hopefully the car seats pass inspection 🤞

The rest of the day, we sort of alternated between relaxing on the couch and getting stuff done. I made us some graham crackers for dessert later and Joey cleaned the bathrooms and covered up our garden/flowers because no joke, it was supposed to go from 90 degrees to 37 degrees with a chance of snow!!!! I’ve seen some whacky weather in Colorado but this tops the cake. Those fires sure could use some moisture though, so I’ll allow it. I took a quick photo of the planter my sister got me just in case it didn’t survive, so I could see just how much it’s grown since she first gave it to us!

Then we tag-teamed dinner again. Joey made us these killer Honey Bourbon Chicken Pops and I made this Sesame Corn and Basil Saute for the second time in a week because it’s so so good and easy and altogether this meal made me so happy!

It was already sort of windy and the air quality was not great, but we sat outside just long enough to roast some marshmallows and toast our S’mores to a wonderful Labor Day Weekend ❤

Labor Day Weekend 2019 ♥

Lauren

Can all weekends be three days, please?  I felt like I had enough time to do every thing I wanted, everything I needed, plus extra time leftover to semi-nap on our deck sofa, see a 3 hour movie and like every Telluride Film Fest-related tweet 😛

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Wow, Friday feels SO LONG AGO.  I’d really been wanting to see Where’d You Go, Bernadette since I just read (and loved) the book, but it felt like I kept putting it off, for reasons that are probably Rotten Tomato score-related but also because it kept showing at either 6 PM (so early!) or 9 PM (so late!).  Can’t a girl get a 7:45 PM movie??  Anyway, after Joey told me to stop acting like I’m too old to go to a 9 PM movie, I acquiesced.  Look, the book is obviously better and there were major changes made (especially toward the end) that I felt significantly lessened the impact of the plot, but I still liked it!  Joey and I laughed a lot over the really badly edited photos of younger Bernadette and her husband.  Was it supposed to look so bad and fake??

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Woke up Saturday and made us some banana bread buckwheat pancakes because, as Joey put it, “WE OWN EVERY FLOUR!” and buckwheat was one of them.  Turns out buckwheat not only looks like sand, but tastes like it?  No thank you!  Afterward, we hit the farmers’ market and two different grocery stores!!!  I was very proud of our stamina.  We were hosting a family BBQ on Sunday and weeks ago, when we planned the menu, I was elated over the prospect of buying fresh produce at the farmers’ market.  It was just as exciting as I thought it’d be 🙂

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We spent the rest of the day cleaning the house, which is not exciting, then cleaned ourselves up and headed out for dinner/Rockies, which was exciting (until the game sucked).  We’re nearing the end of Rockies season, so I’m running out of time to try all the Biker Jim’s dogs, eek!  Joey and I traded halves so I could knock out two — Elk Jalapeno Cheddar and Rattlesnake & Pheasant — and both were great.  I fear I’m going to get to the end of this experiment and tell you what you already know — Elk Jalapeno Cheddar with classic topping is the best.

It was a perfect night at Coors Field weather/sunset-wise, but woof, that game!  We left early to go grab ice cream at Smith + Canon, only to find they had sold out and closed early, noooo!  Luckily, Ice Cream Riot is just down the street and though not quite Smith + Canon level, still very very good!

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I remarked on Saturday that I couldn’t remember the last time we’d gone on a weekend run, so we woke up and did just that on Sunday.  My left quad is SO SORE and I have zero clue why, so we maybe walked a little, but “that’s what weekend runs are for” Joey says.  After cooling down for a bit and eating breakfast, we jumped right into BBQ prep.  Joey was outside cleaning up the front and back yard and I was in the kitchen whipping up potato salad and squash and corn salad, then prepping a tomato salad and burgers.  Go figure, I only got a picture of one of those dishes, but that tomato salad sure looks pretty!  Also, while I cooked, I had Titanic on and I’m never not blown away by that film!

This whole BBQ was supposed to function as a “Garage and Deck Christening,” thought up by Joey’s grandma, who wasn’t feeling well and ended up missing the whole thing, bummer!!!  But Joey, my parents, my sister, Wayne, Lori, Adam, Joey’s grandpa, Jory, Betsy, Lorenzo, and Ellie were all there and my heart was so full.  Lori got us the sweetest sign for our deck ♥  I asked my mom to bring a dessert, so naturally, she brought two.  I maybe loaded my plate with peach cobbler (MY FAVORITE!!!) and vanilla ice cream, plus almond cake with whipped cream and strawberries and my mom saw and said “I’m so proud of you!” HA!  Half the party went home around 8, but those that were left, watched A Goofy Movie on the deck and it was the best ending to the best day ♥

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How great it is to host a Sunday BBQ, then get a day of recovery afterward??  Amazing!  We slept in till 8 (when did 8 become sleeping in??), then took ourselves to Weathervane for giant coffees and breakfast on the teensy front patio.  We wrapped our heads around September — we leave for Italy in one month and I do not feel ready, but we’ll get there… I think! — then headed to my parents’ to pick up our pup, who was not invited to the BBQ and it was so good to have him back… and then to leave him at home while we headed to Golden.  A day off, with nothing to do, felt like the right time to visit a brewery and I’d heard good things about New Terrain.  It wasn’t so busy when we first got there, but when we left a couple hours later, it was PACKED.  My Golden Haze was so so good and I only had a headache for a day and half afterward!  (Why???)  Also, what a view!

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It was an actual 100° degrees outside, so we were looking for something cool and dark to do afterward and a movie sounded like just the ticket!  I can’t remember if I mentioned this, but we have the Alamo movie pass, so we pay a monthly fee and then we can see as many movies as we want!  The only thing A) we wanted to see and B) was showing at the right time happened to be Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, which yes, we’ve already seen but it was “free” and can I please endorse the concept of the re-watch?  You catch so much more on a second viewing.  We still really really loved it, but found extra lines to laugh at and maybe clutched each others’ arms when we saw Leo get out of the pool and head to the tool shed.  Also, shout out to Zoë Bell, whose brief but brilliant scene is just so good!

Back at home, we relaxed on the deck, walked the pup, ate BBQ leftovers (from now until forever), dreamt of not drinking beer or overeating and crashed into bed.  I loved every single second of this Labor Day Weekend and fear the post-holiday weekend blues that are sure to follow, but I wouldn’t trade the memories for anything.  I hope yours was just as good!