Tag: sister time

Memorial Weekend Things

Lauren1 Comment

I have fuzzy memories of Joey and I listing off the wonderful things that happened over the course of Memorial Day Weekend 2018 before immediately falling asleep last night and whoa, that list was long!  Friday night Rockies game, Saturday run followed by double yogurt bowls on the front porch, Becca’s bridal shower, seeing Solo: A Star Wars Story and Avengers: Infinity War on a perfect night at the drive in, being served a crispy buttermilk waffle on Sunday morning, summer color pedis with my mom and sister, Detroit-style pizza, running our NINTH Bolder Boulder and having my mom, dad and mother-in-law there at the finish, BBQing with family and being so exhausted that I accidentally fell asleep only something like 5 times 😛

Told you the list was long!

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Dipped out of work a bit early on Friday and had backyard lounge time before watching the Rockies beat the Reds with beers in hand.  That picture of Joey using his hat to shade Andi is actually my favorite thing ♥

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We got up and ran Saturday morning and it was already HOT, but there was iced coffee waiting for us back home and we ate breakfast on the porch with our doggy and it made me feel really happy about summer being here!  I spent the afternoon at Becca’s bridal shower and I cannot believe she and Bobby’s wedding is so close.  I could not be more excited!  Saturday night plans included picking up Illegal Pete’s and heading to the Denver Mart Drive In for opening weekend and to say I’d been looking forward to it would be a MAJOR understatement!

The weather was PERFECT, my burrito was delicious and we really liked Solo!  The sun hadn’t quite gone down when it started so we had a hard time seeing the first bit of the movie (BOO!) but Alden Ehrenreich was perfectly smug-charming, Lando had a closet of capes and I thought the whole thing was just really fun.  Not as sold on Infinity War.  It was already after 11 PM when it started, so we maybe closed our eyes a few times but it also seemed really Thanos heavy and the ending was confusing/weird.  Did really enjoy the Thor/Star-Lord stuff though!  Guys, it was 2:30 AM when we got home, which is a million hours past my bedtime.

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When I got up on Sunday morning, Joey was in the kitchen making us waffles!  The best!  I ran to get coffee and when I got back, I was presented with a perfectly crispy buttermilk waffle and all the fixings ready to go ♥♥♥  We ate them on the porch swing and it was truly glorious.  Afterwards, we cleaned our house in preparation for our Memorial Day BBQ and even though I dread cleaning our house, it wasn’t so bad and happened really quickly.  Andi and Curtis Cow supervised from their thrones.

That afternoon, my mom and sister came over and we walked to Base Coat for pedis x3.  My mom almost got a purplish gray color but switched at the last minutes so we all ended up with fun summer colors.  I tried to convince them to stay in Denver and go to dinner with Joey and I but something about not wanting to abandon their significant others so we went to Blue Pan Pizza by ourselves and maybe it was all for the best because we were able to snag a two person table right away.  Saw a cute planter thing on the side of some hipster home on our way in too!  We walked Andi when we got home and I am already LOVING warm summer nights where the sun stays out late enough to walk him after dinner.  Then we watched Get Over It because it’s still our favorite. 

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It only took nine years, but we’ve finally perfected our Bolder Boulder morning plan so waking up, getting out the door, parking and making it to our wave (with time to spare even!) went so smoothly.  Some years I don’t care about my time, which immediately inspires me to care abut it the next year so I really wanted to finish under 60 minutes this year and I’m happy to report that we did so!  58:33 and it felt EASY!  My mom, dad and Lori (her first time at the BB!) were there to cheer us to the finish and can you even handle that sign my mom made?!  I cannot!  We hung out in the stadium for a bit to watch some other racers (including the Marine Corp, two butterflies and a butterfly catcher, a dad carrying his son and a man in a wheelchair) finish before heading out.

Back at home, we rested on the couch for maybe too long then sort of scrambled to get everything ready before our family turned up for the BBQ.  We grilled an assortment of brats, I made maple baked beans, Joey made German potato salad, my mom brought cocktails and the most pasta salad, Wayne made the best guac and Lori supplied us all with Cherries in the Snow for dessert.  I maybe ate a big piece then felt majorly full for the rest of the night 😛  It rain-hailed later on, but seeing my niece, nephew, brother and sister-in-law was still the best.  Oh and Lori brought us the most vibrant peonies from her yard and my sister got me thee cutest orchid that I’m determined not to kill.

Memorial Day Weekend always leaves me feeling exhausted but in the best possible way and this year was no exception ♥  Now, let it be summer!

Weekend Things

Lauren1 Comment

Mother Nature has been so cruel lately, giving us perfectly warm spring weather during the week then letting it rain all weekend.  But, last week she turned it around, meaning we had THEE BEST weather all weekend and as a result, we were able to clean up our yard, plant our garden, eat meal after meal outside and I just truly felt like my happiest self.  Our doggy even got to join us outside and I was like, “Andi, this is our summer life, isn’t it the best?!”  He concurred… then barked at a squirrel for 15 minutes.

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Friday, we headed home, walked Andi and mixed up these Spring Pea Veggie Burgers from Joy the Baker for dinner.  As meat eaters, we’re pretty pro-real burger but these were SO GOOD!  They held together NO PROBLEM, and decked out with cucumber slices, watercress, avocado, mustard and most importantly, a perfectly spicy Sriracha mayo, they tasted truly incredible.  Would have been the perfect opportunity to actually grill a burger (had I planned better), but we compensated by grilling some sweet potato discs.  Joey gifted me the very last can of Madame Psychosis from Fiction Beer Company.  In other words, this was a perfect night!

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Briefly considered Saturday morning waffles but then the idea of defrosting buttermilk, zesting a lemon and waiting for butter to melt then cool was all too much, so I mixed up our super simple go-to whole wheat pancake batter instead and wasn’t mad about it.  Also, we filled a growler of iced coffee on Friday and that’s how you ensure that the rest of the weekend is good.  Plus we needed all the caffeine for an afternoon of yard work!

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We maybe spent way too much time and way too much money at Paulino Gardens but we finally made it back home and to the backyard.  Joey did most all the hard stuff, but I planted our backyard pot and front porch buckets and I’m so in love with them!  How incredible are those stripped and speckled petunias??  We tag-teamed the garden bed and now our tulips — one of which finally opened up! — don’t look so lonely.

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Later on, I left Joey in the backyard and hit the grocery but then I came home and we cleaned up just in time for my sister to come over so we could all go to dinner ♥  We took her to Meadowlark and look, I feel conflicted about giving away this secret, but this might be one of the best restaurants in Denver.  I didn’t even know they had a back area but that’s where they sat us, so we got to be half inside/half outside and it felt perfectly summery.  We split a burrata dip with fried naan, a spring salad, chicken nuggets and the famous Meadowlark burger.  I’m kicking myself for taking an Instagram video and not an actual picture, because it was CRAZY.  Look it up!  Also, it tasted incredible.

Back at home, we all watched Tragedy Girls and it was super quirky and weird and gruesome and inappropriate but enjoyably so?  We think we liked it.

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Sunday started with another 5-mile run.  We did it in 47-something minutes, which is really fast for me and probably explains why I felt dead at the end.  We recovered with carrot cake overnight oats from The Savvy Cook and I think I want to make them again!  The rest of the day involved making Chili Mango Zesty Quinoa Salads for lunch this week — I’ve been cooking beans in our pressure cooker and even though I keep overcooking them, it’s been a fun experiment — and finishing up garden stuff, aka planting our seeds.

We jotted down some notes at the end of last year so hopefully we’ve refined the process just a bit more for this growing season.  I’m mainly excited for speckled lettuces!  It’s a bit more work — water, weed, harvest, repeat — but now that things are planted and there’s LIFE growing in the backyard, all feels right in the world.  We ended Sunday by watching 6 Balloons and while I didn’t LOVE it, I liked it and still thought it made for a perfect end to a perfect weekend.