baseball

weekend wrap up // July 10th thru 13th

July 17, 2014 by Rachel Leave a Comment

GUYS!! This weekend was amazeballs. Seriously.

Thursday —

After work I met up with some friends at the Nauti Vine Winery for my friend Cristin’s birthday celebration. Cristin and I nearly accidentally stumbled upon this winery a month or so back during a girls night out. The location is beautiful — it’s located on Portage Lakes in Akron. Super scenic for being in a (near) city setting!

We laughed SO hard. SO much! My soul needed that. Fo sho.

Sidenote: When you go to a winery, it’s generally not safe to order their house-made beer. (The exception in this case being Cellar Rats brewery from Debonne). The beer was terrible. The laughs were awesome (and so was the wine — of course).

Chad & Ari were at a family function with our Denver family that night and we ended up getting home pretty much exactly at the same time (which means late night #1 for Moosh!).

Friday —

Friday I would love to say that we slept in. But that totally didn’t happen.Well, at least not for me. I woke up early to get a workout in and get some cleaning done. … and then Moosh slept til like 10:00 am. Aaaand we rushed out of the house to meet my cousin Maryssa to go bridesmaids dress shopping. For those who don’t know, my sister is getting married this October. I put off dress shopping until the last possible moment. But I’m happy to report my dress has been ordered for the last couple of weeks. And now my cousins’ dress is ordered too! Woo hoo! Mission accomplished! And it feels SO good! Gah!

Moosh, Maryssa, and I went out to BW3’s post-dress shopping where the food was bland but the service was hilarious. Our server came running out of the kitchen screaming “We got Lebron! We got Lebron!” Hahaha! He was like “Did you hear?” Yes, dear… my husband sent me a text right away.

Post-B-Dubs, Moosh napped for 2-hours (TGIF!). And then I took him to Babies R Us for a baby-registry extravaganza with my BFF. Moosh & I didn’t get home til super late (again). But he was a complete champ (again). And he slept in until 9:30 Saturday morning.

Saturday —

My mom and I went up to Lincoln Park in Tremont for Yoga Rocks the Park CLE. The morning provided beautiful weather for a beautiful practice.

Scott Sulper from Cleveland Yoga led our vinyasa practice for 60-minutes. The practice was warm, sweaty and fun!

The view from my mat….

… was awesome. Beautiful, bright blue sky and a giant tree above me.

It was great to connect with my fellow bloggers… Alicia, of Poise in Parma (left) and Jill, of The Year of the Phoenix (middle).

and my mom! Family + friends = what dreams are made of!! <3

Props (and thanks) to my husband for some post-yoga fuel of grilled chicken, grilled asparagus, and quinoa!

Saturday afternoon, Chad & I went to Whiskey Island for SC4k Luau on the Lake while my mom hung out with Ari. They spent some quality time together visiting family and we took selfies.

It was our first visit to Whiskey Island and we totally loved it! Only thing we regret is not bringing a chair! Oops! Lesson learned!

And again it seemed to be a mini-blogger meetup!

Kimberly (Smitten in CLE). Alicia (Poise in Parma). And me!

Kimberly (Smitten in CLE), Alicia (Poise In Parma), Charlene (Life in The CLE), Anna (Anna In The Raw), and me!

Matthew, Jen (Why CLE?), Me & Chad! It was our parents-day-out without the kiddos! Jen & Matthew have a teeny tiny 8-week old-ish baby at home, and we left Ari with Mimi for the day! It turns out Mimi & Moosh had TONS of fun on their own. They went to see some family and went out to dinner — just the two of them!

We snacked, we laughed, we cheered Alicia on in the limbo contest! … and we still beat Moosh & Mimi home from their adventure!

I didn’t tell Moosh that we stopped at his fave ice cream place, Mitchell’s in Ohio City on our way home from the luau! Their strawberry jalapeno is incredible PLUS it’s sourced locally! 🙂 Double win!

Sunday —

Moosh finally slept in! Thank GOODNESS! But this mama didn’t have that luxury. Nope. I went for my long training run and I rocked it!! Post-workout Moosh finally woke up and we all headed to the Indians Family Social Suite versus the White Sox!

The family social suite was awesome. Moosh was kept super busy with toys and coloring while the rest of us watched the game. PLUS it was another mini-blogger meet up! I finally got to meet Brad from Cleveland Food & Brews!

And this view! The view from the suite is awesome!

#Moosh! He thought the whole experience was kinda cool. Plus he got to meet Slider. Soooo there’s that.

…. and then we all needed a vacation from too much fun. Thankfully, today is our first day of our staycation and we have very little planned (woo hoo!). PS. I say that now, but I KNOW I’m going to make a ton of plans for the next 6 days! Ha!

life lately.

October 2, 2013 by Rachel 1 Comment

Life has been crazy lately — but in a good way. I realize I’ve been awful about updating our fun day-to-day workings, but I’m not at all sorry for that. 🙂 So here’s what we’ve been up to:

Ari & I visited my sister and brother-in-law in Columbus for a couple days. We wandered around downtown and shopped, ate, and drank yummy beer.
I’m not gonna lie, it totally sucks not having my mom and sister nearby. And to make matters worse? All 3 of my sis-in-laws are out of town too. So I majorly lack girl time. But these impromptu trips to Columbus (TWO of them!!) were totally worth the drive.
Oh, and we shopped. I love, love, love buying handmade and local!! Seriously, if there’s an addiction I have, it’s that. More than Etsy, more than Pinterest, there’s buying from local vendors. OBSESSED.
I’ve been going to bed either drastically early or way later than I should. Try like 8PM or midnight. Oy. My struggle to find balance in my life is evident EVERYWHERE.
I had a weekday morning off so I went up to Cleveland Yoga for a 6:30 am class with some of my favorites. As much as I adore Yoga Bliss here in Akron, I so easily find myself in a comfortable routine and feel the urge to change it up and challenge myself. Hence returning to CY for a class.
I ran the Akron Marathon Relay and loved all 42 minutes of the 4.8 miles! I not only exceeded my goal of running under 9 minutes per mile (woot, woot 8:45!) but I had my parents, amazing husband, and #BabyAri there to cheer me on! They watched me take the hand-off from the relay and then walked over to watch me finish and hand-off to the third leg of the relay!
Too bad as soon as I handed off I threw up.

This is a post-throw up pic. I’m just happy. Happy to be done throwing up and happy to be done running my ass off.
I went to another Wine & Canvas event. This time we painted the Cleveland city skyline, as seen from out on Lake Erie. It was totally fun, yet again. I mean, I don’t consider myself to be a very crafty person, but something about a glass of wine and painting during a stressful week is so therapeutic!
I’ve been busy planning Ari’s party. Well, that’s kind of a lie. Because I start thinking about Ari’s party and then I panic, shut down and stop thinking about it just as quickly as I started. Pretty much the furthest I’ve gotten is sending invites out and buying this variation of his smash cake:
Luckily I ordered his smash cake from Pure Delite, which is a gluten-free and vegan bake shop, well ahead of his allergic reaction to eggs simply because it’s a healthier option to a traditional cake. Well, good thing I did!
We visited the local apple orchard and the farmers market. I know it sounds strange, but going to the farmers market totally feeds my soul!
The three of us had the chance to go to an Indians game in an incredible suite. It was Ari’s second Indians game, and his first in a suite (the last time we had tickets just behind 3rd base). I swear this child will be spoiled by awesome locally sourced organic food and only going to sporting events where he has awesome seats. Ha!
Ari learned to climb stairs on his own. So… yeah. There’s that.

(ugh)

Life has been nothing short of amazing lately. And I’ve been out enjoying it rather than blogging (regularly) about it. I am trying to post more often, but if you want to catch me daily, be sure to follow my Facebook page, my tweets, and follow on Instagram!

But, yeah, I’m not sorry about being busy. And I’m not sorry about living life and ignoring my blog. See that little guy? He’s about to be ONE. And things are finally fun. So I’ll be busy for a while 😉

proud to call ohio home.

July 12, 2010 by Rachel 8 Comments

In the wake of all of the LeBron drama, I figured I’d let you all know about the awesome things that Northeast Ohio {Cleveland AND Akron} have going for them:

1. Cleveland Browns, Cavs, and the Indians. Yes, professional sports teams. They may not be winning sports teams, but they are professional sports teams. Some places {clears throat — Syracuse} aren’t lucky enough to have a single professional team.

2. The Flats. Lots of people keep themselves entertained day in and day out in the flats!

3. Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Not to mention the Akron Art Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. I’ve visited zoos in other cities, and I don’t think Cleveland realizes what an awesome zoo we have. It is huge!

4. Fantastic restaurants. Not only is it home to Michael Symon’s Lola, but also to Jonathan Sawyer’s The Greenhouse, Melt Bar and Grilled {which was recently featured on Man Vs. Food}, Chrissie Hynde’s Vegiterranian, and my personal Akron fave, Crave {which is where BF took me on our first date}.

5. We are within short driving distance to Cedar Point and Kalahari. I’ve not yet been to Kalahari but have been begging BF to take me. We are also a short car ride from Put-In-Bay, a great weekend destination.

6. In addition to fun attractions, we have an awesome hospital system right at our fingertips. The Cleveland Clinic is incredible.

7. Cleveland Yoga. By far the most amazing yoga studio I have been to. The community and the practice are so strong!

8. BF and I and {most of} our families and friends live here. What else could a girl ask for?

But really Northeast Ohio is just a great community with great people and plenty of things to do and see. I’ve been here and there and everywhere, but I’m still proud to say I’m from Northeast Ohio.

just trying to enjoy a baseball game.

June 13, 2010 by Rachel 11 Comments

Friday night we went to an Akron Aeros baseball game. We received free tickets from one of BFs friends, so we invited my sister and her friend, and one of my bestest friends, C, and her boyfriend, T.
We had pretty good seats {which pretty much just means I could actually see what was happening} in a pretty packed crowd. There was a family behind us with two small children. The whole bunch was there… grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, uncles, and a three year old and probably 5-ish year old.

At first I was all, “awe, they are taking the little ones to a game! How cute!” That was, until the peanut shell spitting started.

Let’s be clear. This is a minor league team. The rows of seats are very close together. But these children were chewing up peanuts, and spitting the shells in my hair/on my back and on C’s back. And the parents? They. Laughed.

Only after the laughing did the parents say “Don’t do that,” and then continued to laugh more. Way to reinforce not to do something when you think it’s FUNNY.C and I were visibly irritated. We were wiping the chewed peanut shells out of our hair and off of our backs. But I still let it go. Just kids, right?

That’s what I thought. Until the ~~devil children~~ children started to walk back and forth from Grandma {who just thinks EVERYTHING is “So cute!”} to mom and dad… using our hair/backs/clothes as ways to keep balance. Then the screaming began. Not your normal “I’m-at-a-baseball-game” screaming, but possessed-by-the-devil, screaming at the top of their lungs. In. Our. Ears.

BF could tell I was getting annoyed. And he didn’t try and calm me, as he usually does, because I think he realized I was within reason.

But then the one devil child, whom not surprisingly the mom let open the sippy cup, decided to dump the sippy cup contents onto my back/lap as well as BFs back/lap.
I can’t even say that this was the worst of it. Cause then the parents didn’t even apologize. They had the balls to say, “Don’t worry. It’s just water. Mostly. …and juice.” and continued to laugh at their devil-childrens antics.

BF, who always keeps his cool, was irritated. And then the dad said “If you want you can spank him,” to us.

I was furious. Furious! How could these people be so non-chalant about their children being downright awful in a place so public? Again, I understand that when in public settings, it’s impossible to have your children behave like little angels. I give the benefit-of-the-doubt to parents with children who just refuse to behave. But these parents didn’t even attempt to put their children in line. They thought it was funny. Cute, even. I was so disgusted. I did not go off on these people, but I felt that I had the right to say something. This morning I am frustrated that I let it go.

What do you think? Was I within my rights to say something to their horrible parents?

So much going on

April 24, 2009 by Rachel 2 Comments

There is so much going on within the next few weeks, it’s ridiculous.

-tomorrow BF and I are going to the Indians versus the Twins game. I love going to live sporting events… the energy, the outdoors, the hotdogs, the beer! All make for a wonderful experience! Plus it’s “fireworks” night. BF seemed very excited about this part. And, in theory, I’m excited about this part. There is something cute and slightly romantic about fireworks, I suppose. The only problem is that I am slightly frightened of fireworks. Oh well. I’ll deal with it and just make him ‘keep me safe.’ 😉

-I’m also supposed to hear about the job tomorrow… EEEK. Could make or break me.

-Saturday I am volunteering at the Akron Zoo for their Party For The Planet in celebration of Earth Day. I am handing out information on Earthwatch Ohio, which is a non-profit group focused on sustainable living. I’ve (somehow?) convinced BF to join me. We are supposed to have BEAUTIFUL weather this weekend, so, if nothing else, I will get some sun. 🙂

-Next Friday May 1st, I have Girls Nite with two of my favorites. It’s Margarita Nite at All Fired Up! in Akron. It’s BYOT (Bring Your Own Tequila)! They provide the snacks. We are going to spend the evening drinking margaritas, painting pottery, snacking, and chatting. Sounds pretty fantastic to me! 🙂 I’m very excited.

-Shortly there after (the 13th) is BF’s birthday. I’m not quite sure what I”ll be doing that day, mostly because it’s a weekday and both of our schedules may be pretty hectic.

-Then I will be dropping him and his mother off at the airport. They are going to Denver to visit family. I don’t really want to talk about this. I’m not really happy about it, for many reasons.

-When he gets back, we will (or at least should be, if all goes as planned) going on our big camping/whitewater trip! I’m pretty pumped.

But most of this depends on the “big news” I will hear tomorrow. Sooo doing my fair share of praying for this.