Its a Hero

adventure

weekend wrap up //

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I would like to say that we have grand weekends full of fun and adventure. However, that truly is not the case. In fact, a wild weekend for us means an evening at Café O’Play and PJs by 8pm. For serious.

Let’s be real though — this is my life 99.9% of the time… and that .01% of the time? I’m faking being a functioning adult; I’m pretending to be a childless 30-something.

But this past Saturday we went balls to the wall, friends! Chad had to work so Moosh and I took an early morning trip to Columbus to see my sissy and my mama!

Sadly I have like ZERO pictures from our day — because wrangling a sleepy two-year old while flying solo is a LOT of work.

But here’s what we did:

    • We stopped at Starbucks and Target. Because, first, coffee; and second, because this mama didn’t anticipate 80+ degree weather. Thanks, Mimi, for running into Target and grabbing the first (yet, adorable) shorts/shirt outfit for Moosh. He looked very… dapper!
    • We checked out my sisters new place. Well, they aren’t moved in yet. In fact, they are in a temporary location because their new home is being built. But it was exciting to see that they had the foundation and basement done. Moosh loved walking around the property. He INSISTED on walking by himself… which made me very nervous. But he did great. Even though he did take a tiny tumble once.
    • Post-house visit we ventured to the North Market, where we found rockstar parking (thank GOD, cause let’s be real — I wasn’t going to walk a million years to visit this market — awesome as it may be). Here’s what we ate: Pretzel sticks from Brezel; Ari’s favorite bubble tea from Bubbles; lunch from Best of the Wurst; macarons + lavender shortbread from Pistacia Vera; and we rounded it out with a bag of amazing belgian waffles from Taste of Belgium.
    • It was basically a food coma. And it was LOVELY. PS. I didn’t eat all of the food at once; I definietely brought TONS of food home with me.
    • … and then I stopped at The Daily Growler, which is my JAM! Thank you for the CBC Bodhi, friends!
    • Moosh slept for the WHOLE RIDE HOME. That’s TWO WHOLE HOURS. He hadn’t napped in days; but he slept HARD in the car (thanks Mimi, Jimmy, and Shauna!).

Sunday: 

    • We went to Café O’Play on Sunday to get some energy out of the Moosh. Turns out he kinda lost it shortly after we got there (Ohhhh, life with a toddler!). So we all went home for lunch and a nap — and we ALL enjoyed that 2 hour nap. Isn’t that the best thing about Sundays.
    • Last but not least, I cooked a delicious dinner, courtesy of Plated. Wrapped up a perfect Sunday!
    • Yes we are totally boring people. But that’s OK. 🙂

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his first flight.

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So things have been busy around the itsahero world lately. Like, crazy busy. Besides getting a new roof and doing other various home improvement projects, there have been some super fun things going on as well!

Instead of playing catch-up in one super long post, I decided to break this up. So first things first…

Last year the BF bought a Groupon to do an introductory flight lesson from U-Vary Aire in Mansfield, Ohio {about an hour and 20 minutes from our house}. He called to schedule it about 4 months ago, and the first date they could get him in was about 3 weeks ago. Which is just crazy. 

When we went, he was like a kid on Christmas morning! And it was so fun to watch. I even sat in the plane for a minute and thought, “this doesn’t seem so scary after all.” And then I got out and planted my feet firmly on the ground! Ha!

He spent about 20-25 minutes up in the air, and flew it {mostly} himself! He had so much fun that I almost wish I had purchased the Groupon! {Key word is almost…}

Maybe someday. But for now, I’m lucky to get on a commercial flight, let alone one of these!

Fat Tire Bike Ride and Wine Tour.

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A week ago we did our first wine tour — on a bicycle! I found out about this wine and bike tour {called the Fat Tire Bike Ride} on Living Social and figured, why not?

Others I talked to were… skeptical. Drinking wine and riding a bike!? Seems dangerous. I assured them, no, it would not be dangerous. It would be leisurely biking and sipping on some alcohol infused grape juice. No big deal, right? Right.

To start, the wine tour was held in Conneaut, Ohio — which is pretty much as close to Pennsylvania you can get in the upper right hand corner of the Buckeye state. So we packed up our car, bikes in tow, and drove the hour and a half to Tarsitano Winery.

On our drive up there, it started to pour rain. Crazy amounts. But I was hopeful! I told the BF “It will clear up!” Luckily, it did. Right before we got to Tarsitano.

So we started our wine tour with three {or was it four?} tastings. They were all delish, and reasonably priced {$15-$20 a bottle}, but we hesitated to buy bottles at our very first stop. So we told ourselves {and the very friendly workers} that if we made it to the end and still wanted to buy a bottle, we would before we left with our car {we parked at their winery}.

A note about Tarsitano: More than for the wine, I am anxious to go back and try their food. Apparently they require reservations because they are always so busy. Which wouldn’t be unusual except you should see how this place is located literally in the middle of nowhere in the smallest town in the world. Seriously. The smells of the homemade pastas and breads have been the subject of some serious food envy ever since.

{at Markko Winery}

When we left Tarsitano for the next winery, I realized that I might have been mistaken about the terrain — we weren’t riding on trails; we were riding on dirt roads. Very, very hilly dirt roads {which had just been rained on}. And we were sharing these roads with cars {well, pickup trucks, mostly}. And I left our helmets at home {What? I thought we would be on trails, not roads!}.

Our second stop, Markko Winery, was about 2 hilly miles from the first. It was… an interesting place. It looked like a shack, but the vintage riesling was to die for! Seriously. But it was also $30 for a bottle. So we passed. With the intentions of coming back if we didn’t find something we liked better.

{frizzy hair between winery 2 and 3}

Our third stop was Buccia Vineyard. By the time we made the lengthy ride to this place, we were ready to relax for a while. And the wine was incredible. Seriously. We had our two tastings each, we bought a few additional tastings, and then decided to share a — very full — glass. 

It was about then that the head started to get to me and I started to feel pretty good and relaxed! Shortly thereafter I ran into Becca from Peace, Love, and Bagels! Except, at the time, I didn’t realize it was her! Well at least I figured it out later, right?

We enjoyed our wine, chatted with some fellow winos and bikers, and watched a not-so-exciting game of cornhole. And debated whether or not to buy a case of wine from Buccia. Seriously there wine is so good! But we only got 4 bottles. {We have tickets to a wine festival they will be at in August, so I’m not worried if we run out!}

{sipping on wine and eating some chex mix. Notice the dirt on my legs}

Our last stop on the bike and wine tour was a place that didn’t exactly live up to it’s name — Biscotti’s Family Winery. I don’t know what I expected. Well, I lie. I hoped for biscotti. But what I got instead was concord grape wine and some watermelon to snack on! 

The wine was fruity and delicious, and after my tastings, the thought of riding 10 miles back to our car was exhausting! So the BF took a shuttle back to our car while I sat at the winery with our bikes and had a glass {or two} while I waited.

By the time we both were in the car, I was exhausted. From head to toe — exhausted.

It was fun; it was muddy; it was sweaty; and I would do it again next year! Maybe next time I’ll bring a helmet!

weekend wrap up.

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What a weekend! Thursday afternoon I realized that I had long ago requested to take Friday the 10th of June off. I debated whether to cancel the day off last minute {considering I really had nothing going on that would require a day off}, but after further thought I decided WHY NOT take a random day off for no reason!? So I did just that!

{image}

And actually I got a lot done on Friday. So I’d say it was a success. Plus, we were able to get in to see an early(er) movie than we planned! {I work until 6PM every day, so we usually aren’t able to make it to the theater until 7PM at the very earliest}.

We saw a movie I like to call X-Men Beginnings {not to be confused with Wolverine: Beginnings, which is what I call the last Wolverine movie}. Being a comic book hero nut {without the reading of comic books part}, I, obviously, love, love, LOVED this movie! Seriously. I loved it. 

However, we had yet another bad movie theater experience. Sigh. Just before the movie started, a young couple brought in their newborn {legit, newborn, people. a NEWBORN} along with their two children under the age of 5. Actually, I think that one of them was probably 3 and the other 4.

And this movie had some pretty intense violence as well as some questionable language. Not to mention that two kids cannot be expected to have their attention held by anything for any significant amount of time at that age. And the newborn? All they do is scream and cry. And that’s all that the baby did. Scream. and. cry. For two hours. 

And the toddlers? They ran around the movie theater; talking; screaming; ruining the movie for those of us who either: a) decided to hire a babysitter for our night out; or b) made a conscious decision NOT to have 3 children. Just sayin’. 

But back to the movie.

It was amazeballs.

After the movie, we were starved and decided to go to our favorite restaurant, the Chowderhouse Cafe. We didn’t have a reservation, so we were definitely taking a chance. Usually you have to have a reservation, or you will never ever get a table. I got the clam chowder and a baked cod sandwich. As usual, it was delicious!

{us. notice the crazy “ive been drinking & biking hair}

We had big plans for our Saturday. We drove up to Conneaut {a small town in the very northeastern corner of Ohio} to do a wine tour on a bike! There is so much to say about this that I think the post is going to have to wait for another day. But it was a blast! 

Post-wine-and-bike, we stopped by the BFs moms house to grab a bite to eat and catch up. We didn’t end up making it home until after 9:30. I was exhausted! 

On Sunday we slept in {much needed!}. We were both so sore from riding our bikes for the first time this summer. 

We eventually climbed out of bed to do some yard work, but my productivity pretty much ended there. 

memorial day weekend recap.

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I know another week has come and gone, but this past week was so busy that I haven’t had a second to breathe, let alone talk about our awesome Memorial Day weekend! It was crazy busy, but fun!

Friday night we had reservations at the VegiTerranean — Chrissie Hynde’s {of the Pretenders} restaurant in Akron. Our food was absolutely amazing! 

{me and my veggie chicken scaloppini, a close-up of BFs risotto, and BF with his risotto}

After dinner, we met up with my parents and went to Rockin’ on the River to see Journey cover band, Frontiers. It was fun, but we were surrounded by incredibly drunk people, so we left early.


On Saturday we went to a Memorial Day party on the west side of Cleveland. We had fun, we ate, we laughed, we drank; and then we went to Trader Joe’s — cause obviously that’s the next logical and fun thing to do! Well, that and we needed to restock our freezer with Trader Joe’s stuff. 

{PS. The city of Akron is in desperate need of a Trader Joe’s. So Trader Joe’s, if you’re listening, please get on that. Thanks}

On Sunday we didn’t have a whole lot planned, but ended up not relaxing at all.

We went to a matinee to see The Hangover 2. I’ll say this about the movie itself: It was funny, but not nearly as funny as Bridesmaids. And then I have this to say about the girls in the back row talking the whole time: You are the most rude whores on the face of the earth. Do you think that those couples left because they didn’t like the movie? No. It was because you said every single line of the movie BEFORE it was said in the movie!! Thanks, Regal Cinema; that’s exactly why we never go to your theater anymore. END RANT. {Sorry, much needed.}

My movie experienced was kind of ruined by these chicks. Grr.

After the movie, we decided to get a few things done around the house and then go work out. That was pretty much the extent of our Sunday. But the real fun was on Monday!

Part of BFs birthday present was a tandem hang gliding flight. My dad has been hang gliding since before I was born. I have done a tandem flight before and pretty much grew up on the ‘airports’ where they hang glide from {obviously the term airports is used loosely, considering these are pretty much open fields}.

So early Monday morning we packed up the car and drove over 2 and a half hours to a field southwest of Columbus! My mom and dad met us down there and my sister, who lives in Columbus, met up with us too!

Photos of the BF from his big adventure 🙂


After spending a few hours on the air field, the BF, my sister and I went to grab a late ‘lunch’ at the Grandview Cafe {FYI their hot dogs are incredible}, followed by Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream. 

It was our first time at Jeni’s and I’m pretty sure I sampled every single flavor. To top it off they have ice cream macaron sandwiches!! It tasted as amazeballs as it sounded. Some of Jeni’s flavors include Cherry Lambic Sorbet, Queen City Cayenne, Backyard Mint, and Goat Cheese With Red Cherries! Crazy flavors, but oh-so-amazing.

With our bellies full, we drove the two-plus hours home and spent the rest of the evening (like, an hour) relaxing. 

The nice, long, Memorial Day weekend flew by. And then my four-day work week both dragged on and flew by. And now, here I am, Sunday night of the following weekend, wondering where the heck the time has gone! It’s June 5th already!