Weekend Things: Unexpected Perfection

I thought Memorial Day Weekend was going to be my favorite weekend of the summer, but this weekend, the first weekend of June, caught me by surprise with just how perfect is was!  I know we’re only four days in, but June is THE BEST!

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Joey went golfing Friday afternoon and wasn’t planning to be home till late, so I did what any person does when home alone on a Friday night in a house that feels like it’s 90°… make no-bake granola and boil water (to brew kombucha) from the burner on your grill.  The second part of that plan was maybe a mistake because I ended up with a pot of water full of cotton, but shhh, anything to avoid heating up our house is fine by me.

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The rest of the night featured reading in the hammock, eating hot pink slider bun leftovers, watching the Rockies game with Andi (Heartbreak by the Dodgers #1) and then Joey came home and we resumed our watching of Arrested Development Season 5 until I looked over and he was full on sleeping, so I ordered us all to bed 🙂

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Saturday!  The best day!  Joey requested yogurt bowls when we woke up, so I made us each one, and then we ate them in the sunshine of the backyard before biking to the Famers’ Market for the first time this summer.  It’s such a small thing, this little trip we take (almost) every summer Saturday, but it makes me SO HAPPY.  It was already busy when we got there and early-summer produce is always a bit slim, but we got iced coffees and cherries and saw a long-haired dachshund and two new foods stands (BAO BUNS AND TACOS!) so I was truly in my happy place.

Spent the rest of the afternoon on this little retaining wall project Joey cooked up for us.  I lifted like 10 bricks and did very little complaining but OH MY GOD, it was actually really hard for me.  I woke up Sunday and everything was sore!  And before you make fun of me, we looked it up and they weigh 52 pounds each.  Joey was doing most of the work, but he named me Refreshment Coordinator so I helped by providing lunch, plus I arranged for our groceries to be delivered because that just seemed like a major time-saving move.

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We cleaned ourselves up fairly early because we wanted to grab dinner before the Rockies game.  I’d been wanting to try a new-to-us placed called Goed Zuur and oh my god, I cannot believe we had not been there before!  They mostly serve sour beers and we’re on the fence with those but I did have a good one from Odd13 and daily happy hour means it was only $3, plus the food choices were great.  We both opted for a hot dog and shared a bag of duck fat, black pepper & Parmesan popcorn that I think I may have been shoveling into my mouth.  Sooo good, we’ll be back for sure!

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The Rockies gave up EIGHT RUNS in the 7th inning, but thankfully, I was barely paying attention because we attended this game with Hannah, Josh and, for his first ever Rockies game, Mason!!!  He was wearing a little Rockies onesie, baby sunglasses and a teensy hat and I COULD NOT HANDLE THE CUTENESS!  They got him a First Rockies Game button and a picture with Dinger even ♥  He was so well-behaved (and such a flirt too!) but they decided to head out at the 7th inning stretch and Joey and I looked at the score (Heartbreak by the Dodgers #2) and decided to leave too.  Made the spontaneous decision to grab ice cream at Sweet Cow afterward and look, if it’s summer and you don’t have a nightly reminder set on your phone to get ice cream, are you even really living??

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The Sunday plan was for Joey to work on the wall and me to do our food prep for the week, but I thought about it and decided we needed to have more fun than that so I suggested we grab breakfast and hit up the Chalk Art Festival as soon as it opened up and Joey was game.  We got toast and a waffle at Huckleberry then made our way to Larimer Square.  The bad news is that it was already crowded with people but the good news is it probably wasn’t as crowded as it got to be later in the afternoon and it also wasn’t too hot.  I took some shot of my favorite ones, which turned out to be anything with bright or bold colors and then we got the heck out of there.  I checked and we hadn’t been to the festival in 5 YEARS, whoa!

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The rest of the day involved wall building, lunch making (Beet, Farro, and Watercress Salad with Fig Vinaigrette coming right up!) and laundry folding but I did sneak in a workout (amen for partly cloudy skies that make mid-day running possible) and a trip to the liquor store, because I take my roll as Refreshment Coordinator very seriously, okay?  Rockies lost AGAIN (Heartbreak by the Dodgers #3 = a sweep, UGH!) but let’s focus on how good the wall looks so far instead 🙂  Joey wanted to get it in before we get a sprinkler system (FINALLY!) at the end of the month and I already think it looks great!

Rounded out Sunday by reading on the porch swing, walking Andi, cooking a quick but delicious dinner of grilled salmon and a broiled veggie side, featuring radishes we grew ourselves (!) and eating it in the backyard (MY FAVORITE!) before finishing up a movie we started on Saturday called The Tale.  What can I say, except that it was deeply disturbing but masterfully made?  Look it up!  In conclusion, if the first weekend of June is any indication, this month is going to be incredible ♥

Weekend Things: Thanksgiving 2017

Last week, I told Joey Thanksgiving is the best because the fun really starts with dinner Wednesday night and doesn’t end until Sunday.  When a normal two day weekend can sometimes feel like not enough time, Thanksgiving weekend gives you over four days of freedom and I LOVE EVERY SECOND.  I’m not going to pretend I was in a perfect mood the entire weekend, but when I was cleaning up Sunday night dishes, thinking back on everything that had happened since 4 PM on Wednesday, I was struck with an all encompassing feeling of gratitude for this life and these days ♥

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We drove home as the sun was setting on Wednesday and I was annoyingly excited about it.  It’s just that every new minute and every different angle was even more spectacular than the last.  This is my favorite time of year for sunsets.  They just seem extra beautiful, don’t they?  We got home, prepped a few things for Thanksgiving then headed over to Uncle for our traditional Thanksgiving Eve ramen dinner.  Three years and counting, guys!  Got to sit in our favorite spot at the chef’s counter, where we ordered drinks, fried green tomato buns and spicy chicken ramen (x2 because: THE BEST), then watched how seamlessly the kitchen staff works together.  Love this place so much!

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Joey was up early on Thanksgiving morning taking pictures of the sunrise for me, which is sort of the sweetest.  Sunrises are pretty good this time of year too!  Then COFFEE!  PARADE!  ME BEING THE HAPPIEST I’VE EVER BEEN!  That SpongeBob SquarePants musical looks whack (of all the dumb cartoons from when I was younger, why did that one stick around?) but I was surprisingly into the Anastasia performance and I loved that pre-recorded intro with Harry Connick Jr.  Till next year, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade!  We finished up our Thanksgiving meal contributions then headed to Meal #1.

P.S. It was over 70° but I bought that sweater just for Thanksgiving and I had to wear it.

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Back at it trying to force stuff like “creamed greens” on everyone at Thanksgiving.  And I think we finally perfected the sweet potato casserole!  Meanwhile, Jory “doesn’t eat casseroles.”  His loss!  We also had the best turkey (per usual), the best wine (so smooth!), a scary strong shot of something Lori got earlier this year in Greece and pardon the bad lighting in those bottom two pictures but I needed to share the look of pure happiness on my face when I was presented with that handmade Fantasy Big Brother trophy.  It sleeps in bed with me now 🙂

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We seriously made it to the parking lot at my parents’ before realizing we had left all the cocktail ingredients back at Chad’s.  One quick parking lot alcohol hand-off between Joey and his uncle later and we were back in business.  Worth it, if you ask me, because that cocktail (the New England Express, which we’ve made twice now) was really good!  My brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew joined us for dinner and let me tell you, it was a really touching moment when my niece asked if she could have my phone when I die (HA HA!).  Mom blew me away with dinner and her stuffing is still the stuff of dreams.  Also, I’ve gotten REALLY into cranberry sauce in the past few years.  Does this mean I’m a real adult?

I blew it and didn’t remember the promise I made to myself earlier in the day to take a family photo at both meals until AFTER half the family had left.  UGH!  I think I was distracted by my niece’s legit drawings skills and my nephew’s insistence that he hates the Broncos.  Maybe it was for the better though, because I do not think children have the patience it took to get this family photo.  Just know half of us are kneeling on the couch, Joey’s phone was propped on a shelf and we have a dozen outtakes.  Meaning this night ended with a lot of laughter and I couldn’t help feeling like this Thanksgiving was really really good ♥

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Friday started with waffles — let it be known that if you don’t have eggs, it really narrows down your waffle recipe search — and then it was Brew Day!  We’ve got a “Red Yum” amber ale comin atcha in a few weeks and I’m pretty excited about it.  Also snuck in a run and I literally do not know where the rest of the day went but I do know we made a spontaneous decision to go buy puff pastry so we could make turkey hand pies (side note: I sent a picture to my mom and she said “what else is in there other than turkey hands?”  Mooooom!), then we poured ourselves a drink, turned on the Christmas classics station and put out decorations while the pies baked.  I think Joey got it right when he said, “holy shit, I’m happy!”

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Started Saturday at the Stanley Marketplace or, more specifically, at Annette where Joey, my sister, Wayne and I ALL ordered the pork hash.  But really, why would you order anything else when this dish is so good?  Afterwards, we walked around the marketplace and so much more has opened since we were last there!  I think we reached boutique fatigue by the fifth store but my sister and I did buy some new Base Coat nail polish, so I’m calling Small Business Saturday a success.

Confession: I went to the Union Station Whole Foods more than once this weekend.  It’s just that it’s so new and shiny and they have stuff like really teensy apples (are they decorative??) and Dufour puff pastry and raclette cheese and 165 parking spots inside a heat-controlled garage.  Plus I saw that sunset on my way there.  Aka, WORTH IT.

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Woke up Sunday to Joey asking if I’d make him a yogurt bowl.  Who is this person who suddenly wakes up before me and also eats yogurt bowls?  Maybe we’re morphing into the same person after 10 years?!  Anyway, yogurt bowl + coffee in our Christmas mugs it was!  He left to watch football and I roasted some veggies, went for a walk (um, how’s it late November and 75°?!) then sat down at watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which sounds like something I do all the time but they haven’t been showing this one for some reason and also, I turn Harry Potter Weekend on all the time but I rarely (if ever) actually sit down and watch any of the movies start to finish.  Hurry, let’s end this discussion before I start listing all the times I almost cried into my turkey salad…  Finished out the day with a really full yoga class that felt easy until today, when my hips are majorly sore.

So here we are post-Thanksgiving, and I’m feeling fully sad that my favorite holiday has come and gone but at least there’s Christmas movies and holiday shows and cookie baking to look forward to.  Plus Hannah is having a baby very very soon and I can hardly wait for that text to come through any day now.

P.S. Please also know we watched The Jinx, Swiss Army Man and THREE James Bond movies this weekend.  I wonder if I watch too much TV…

What were the best parts of your Thanksgiving weekend?