columbus

weekend wrap up //

April 23, 2015 by Rachel Leave a Comment

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. 🙂

Shauna + Jimmy // Pre-Festivities!

October 21, 2014 by Rachel Leave a Comment

Truthfully, I’m a little behind with life right now. We’re a full week out after my sisters wedding, and life is just starting to return to normal. Our house still isn’t organized yet, but I’m working at it little by little. Moosh has been sleeping for 13-hours a night AND napping for 3 hours each day. It’s safe to say that last weekend totally wore us all out.

Truly, however, the wedding festivities started about a month ago — at my sister, Shauna’s, Bachelorette Party. We planned a fairly low-key Bach party in Columbus. We started out the day at The Candle Lab on the Short North, for some candle-making.

After our candle-making, we made our way over to a restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner. There were a LOT of us all packed at the world’s longest table. Ha! It was fun, though. And, as normal, the two sisters ordered the exact same meal (grilled cheese — we are so predictable!)

I love that the restaurant brought her out a giant piece of chocolate cake (like that’s what a soon-to-be bride wants! Ha!!). But we all stepped up and helped her out with it. 😉

After dinner we snapped a couple of pre-drinks pictures of the whole group (not everyone was going to head out for the bar crawl). Looking at the picture in the upper lefthand corner it’s now incredibly clear — there were a LOT of us! 🙂 Thanks for showing up, ladies!! The rest of the night was full of fairly lame, and equally awesome, mid-to-late twenties nonsense! That’s right — we’re OLD and we’re OK with that! 🙂 That means we were eating Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream and street pizza by 11 PM and in bed by 11:30! Don’t worry – we still had fun. Just old lady fun. Which is the best kind of fun — and the only kind of fun I know these days! LOL!

Fast forward a couple of weeks later… And it’s already time for the wedding! The rehearsal? Easy-peasy! The rehearsal dinner? Not-so-easy-peasy. Because Mister-toddler-in-tow is difficult when he doesn’t nap. However, the rehearsal dinner was nothing short of amazing! Dinner was at Barley’s Brewing Company in Columbus. Hamburgers, hotdogs, baked beans, and the worlds largest cheese plate!? [It should be noted that our family LOVES soul food/ PLUS house-made IPAs!]

Ya know what’s fun about weddings?? Crazy things happen. Like making your dad drive you to the only 24-hour Kroger in Downtown Columbus for a giant bottle of champagne and orange juice (because you were a horrible matron of honor and forgot to get mimosa fixins’ for your sisters big day!).

Chad, Moosh & I ended up getting a little bit of sleep the night before the big day, but hotel sleeping with a toddler is the worst thing on the planet. In fact, Moosh slept for about 3 hours in his pack-n-play before crawling into bed with us. Which means we didn’t sleep much at all.

Coffee was a MUST the day of a wedding. Wedding days (whomevers it is) are L-O-N-G! So I marched right into my sissy’s hotel room armed with coffee and a giant (like seriously giant) bottle of champagne and OJ!

The part of the bride getting ready? Easy. The part of getting myself ready AND making sure Moosh and the mister were ready?? StressFUL. Worst. But let’s not focus on that. Let’s focus on the pretty robes and pretty hair, shall we??

I’m still recovering from this part of the wedding weekend. So much running around and so much fun; I haven’t even had the energy to begin writing about the ceremony! That will be next!

weekend wrap up

May 14, 2013 by Rachel 3 Comments

It’s been a busy, busy, few days, y’all!

Saturday morning Ari + I drove 2.5 hours to Columbus, bright & early, to visit with my sister and my parents. When we arrived we ate a little breakfast and headed to the German Village to pick up some yummy macarons and lemon tarts from Pistacia Vera.

The macarons were amazing! Beautiful and delicious!

After hitting up a couple of other places, including Columbus Brewing Company [hello — if I’m in Columbus I’m going to try and locate some Bodhi!], we went wedding dress shopping.

My sister and her fiance are getting hitched October 4th 2014 [the eve of my 30th birthday!]. And even though it seems a little soon to be wedding dress shopping, she is beyond relieved to have chosen THE dress and to be done with it! One less thing to worry about!

Ari did so well running all kinds of errands with us. He even stayed awake through most of dinner. But on the way home, my napless baby went crazy. Well, until he fell asleep. Luckily he slept most of our drive home.

On Sunday we planned to celebrate my first Mother’s Day by having a low-key day and then go out for a late lunch.

Buuuut that didn’t happen. I had an errand to run Sunday morning, and afterward I went for a 3-mile run. Followed by a super cranky Babycakes. I can’t blame him. Our Saturday was full of travel and it threw his schedule way off; but he was pretty much a nightmare all day Sunday.

Oy. My nightmare.

Thankfully, going to the sitters on Monday seems to regulate his schedule and put us all back on track. Who would’ve thought that we’d be looking forward to Mondays??

But Monday was pretty much just as crazy for us. We celebrated Chad’s birthday as a teeny family after work. We ate dinner, opened presents and ate lemon tart [instead of cake!].

Hopefully by the end of today we’ll all be back into our regular routine!