Tag: relaxation

Weekend Things

LaurenLeave a comment

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 ♥

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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!

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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.

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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!

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Fish Taco from Los Chingones

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Jackfruit Taco from Mas Kaos

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Scallop Taco from Bright Marten

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Hard Shell Beef Taco + Green Chile from La Fiesta

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Barbacoa Taco from Chuey FU’s

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Carnitas Taco from Adelitas Cocina Y Cantina 

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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! 🙂

Weekend Things

Lauren1 Comment

Two nights out with friends, a trip to the Farmers’ Market, much Saturday relaxation, beer brewing on Sunday morning, seeing Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again with my mom and sister late Sunday afternoon and to cap it all off, Joey making me dinner.  So even though I think I was feeling sort of crabby on Saturday afternoon, I’ve all but permanently deleted that memory from my mind because the rest of the weekend was too good!

Oh and I finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and only cried like five times 😛

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Friday afternoon, we met Hannah and Josh at Community for some happy hour action and oh my gosh, has a cuter baby dino ever existed??  I spend a lot of time thinking “Mason is growing so fast, where is the time going?!” but when I saw him sitting in the restaurant high chair, he looked positively teensy.  He can now do things like feed himself cereal pieces and pull himself up to standing!  Also, we ordered approximately a million plates of food and it was all really good.  We had to grab gelato up the street afterward, because there was no AC in the restaurant and it was SO HOT so we needed a way to cool off 🙂

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We woke up Saturday and headed straight to the Farmers’ Market and it was blissfully the opposite of what the last visit was like, THANK GOD.  We left caffeinated — first stop is ALWAYS Pig Train for nitro iced coffees! — and with peaches and thee fluffiest pita that I am so excited to try.

Not going to lie, much lounging happened during the rest of the day and it was perfectly wonderful.  We watched Ant-Man for the first time and I’ve gotta be honest, it was sorta dorky.  If Paul Rudd wasn’t in it, I probably would not have been interested.  Someone could have warned me about close up shots of ants!  I still have PTSD from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.  

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I cracked open my “Melonilla” kombucha and I think it’s one of the best I’ve ever made!  I absolutely love the vanilla flavor and it’s perfectly carbonated.  Unlike the lime-ginger I made last week that I keep making Joey open for me because it’s explosively carbonated… Oh and we made a trip to our homebrew store for ingredients and got the trim and door painted on my little library.  Just needs to stencil work and it’s ready to go in the ground!

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We met Bobby and Becca at The Source later on for dinner at Comida.  That taco platter is a beaut and all of the tacos were good, but for me, the grilled taco still reigns supreme so I’m probably only ordering those from here on out!  Since we were so close to a handful of breweries, — but can you really be anyplace that’s NOT close to a handful of breweries these days? — we walked over to the Great Divide Barrel Bar for a beer.  There, we reminisced about how perfect the wedding was and I kept hearing myself say stuff like “I remember, at our wedding…” and felt like a real old married person.

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We woke up Sunday and, while Joey got our beer brewing, I made us pancakes and then we had like four hours to kill while we brewed.  I posted a few Sunday clips on my Instagram story and told Joey “it looks like I’ve done a million things today but I’ve really just done like 5 minutes of all of them!”  Those things being garden harvest/upkeep, black bean pressure cooking, reading, a little workout/yoga session and watching the OG Mamma Mia! because I needed to prep for sequel time later.  I was incredibly embarrassing dancing around to “Dancing Queen” but I can’t help it!  Also, that synth sound at the beginning of “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” gives me life!

As for the sequel, as my mom said afterward, “it’s not a good movie but it’s so much fun!”  That fleet of ships carrying dancers performing “Dancing Queen” made me the happiest I’d ever been.  Also, Lily James is a knockout, Jessica Keenan Wynn is a dead ringer for Christine Baranski and I was very very thankful for far fewer musical numbers by the three, ahem old mature men.  Cher doesn’t have a huge role or much screen time but she is a LEGEND, so we should feel lucky any time she graces us with a performance.

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I came home to this stunning dinner that tasted even better than it looked and most importantly, didn’t involve me lifting a finger, except the one I used to swipe my credit card when I bought the salmon on my way home.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there’s nothing better than having a homemade dinner prepared for you!

What did you do this weekend?!