around town lately + 14 in 2014 update

With some fabulously nice days in the last couple of weeks, it's been great to get out and about to some new and some familiar - but all fun - things around town. A couple of weeks ago Henk and I saw the Costa Rica butterfly show at the Khron Conservatory with some friends, and he loved tracking the butterflies (and all the little kids!) flying around the room. Almost got his mitts on one too, but it was smart enough to escape first.

On Mother's Day we walked down to our new local place, A Tavola, for dinner. It turned into beers on the patio and boxed pizza to eat at home because the wait was so long, but we still had a great time chatting & sipping while Hendrik snoozed, and the appetizer course of arancini (fried risotto balls, yum!) that he did last through before getting a bit squirmy and whiny was excellent.

Also on Mother's Day we made our annual trip to Pipkin's Market, where we get our vegetables and herbs to plant. It's such a pretty and colorful place to wander around too.

Since two of these outings are (again) checking things off my 14 in 2014 list, I thought it was time for an update (since a monthly recap is #14 on the list!). The butterfly exhibit was the first time it worked out for us to participate in a children's playgroup outing with the Resident Spouse Association I'm part of. It was fun to hang out with some of the ladies I do monthly dinners and book clubs with and their kids, and Henk had fun too - so that's another check for #9, try a mom group. And of course our new A Tavola is another check for #5, try 3 new restaurants in Cincinnati. Since we've already been to 3 new places this year it's kind of turning into a monthly thing, but that's quite alright by me.

I also checked off #3, run the Flying Pig half marathon again, and with a personal best by almost 10 minutes. Happy to have that complete. And #1 is finally wrapping up - I'll be able to reveal the new bathroom before the next update time, yay! Still in process are #2, , #4, #12, and #13 (look for two new recipe posts in the next few weeks: BBQ chicken burgers and sweet potato quinoa salad).

What have you been checking off your resolutions list, or doing around town, lately?

weekend highlights: Boca & baby

Monday morning, and there's more snow, more frigid temperatures, and more emails in my inboxes... so let's talk about weekend highlights instead, shall we? First of all: Boca. It was our anniversary date destination last year, and we thought it was amazing, so when they moved to their new location this summer we knew we had to do a repeat anniversary date on our next one in order to check it out - and even more so after all the rave menu reviews we've heard.

An excellent decision. We thought the food was amazing last year, but we might have liked it even more this time... For appetizers we had the famous brussels sprouts and a beet & goat cheese salad; loved them both. I went with two tasting-sized dishes for the entree in order to try more things, since it was hard to choose: crispy gnocchi (with truffles and a divine cheese sauce) and the sea bass (with such a good white wine sauce and yummy bits of bacon, and which actually I thought was a pretty decent size for a tasting portion). Peter had the short ribs, which were perfectly fall-y apart-y and delicious. And all went quite nicely with the bottle of red our waiter came up with (love getting those professional recommendations on wine - they always turn out so well).

We had almost as much fun checking out the building and the decor as we had trying the food. So much gorgeous furniture and lighting and bathroom wallpaper to take in (they're all separate one-unit bathrooms, and they all have different decor, I discovered, after the wallpaper in mine was different from what I expected after seeing Lauren's Instagram). The atmosphere was great, and now we're scheming of when we can find another big occasion to get back there. Our 30th birthdays this summer, perhaps?

Also highlighting my weekend, as usual: this cutie. He amused us with his sweet noises and smiles, his enjoyment of Friday night bath time, and his adorable new outfits that he's just starting to fit into... plus he gave us a couple of monster-length naps that were great for getting things done, and his snuggles were the perfect ending to our anniversary date evening, along with some takeout Graeter's ice cream and some Olympics.

Honorable mentions also go to:

• Wine tasting at Whole Foods with Lauren & Liz on Friday ($5 for tastings of wine/food pairings, plus Hendrik was perfectly behaved in his stroller - I'd do this event again!).
• Getting to spinning class twice thanks to Peter on helpful daddy duty.
• NBC having live Olympics coverage on their NBC sports channel, so we could have it on all weekend and not have to wait for primetime to start...

Let's stave off Monday longer: what were your highlights?

wearing lately: grayscale

This weekend we got a babysitter and headed downtown to try Sotto for dinner again - and it was just as fabulous as last time (you're spared any mouthwatering/jealousy-inducing photos of the grilled bread with creamy mozzarella spread, farro salad with beets and goat cheese, and two types of pastas we tried since it's rather too dark in there for photo taking). A place/meal worth the $25-30 extra that date night now costs thanks to babysitting fees.

The occasion also called for a good date night outfit of course - but cold weather evening out ensembles can sometimes be tricky for me because it's a little harder to feel fancy in layers and shoes that can include warm socks.

blouse: Loft (similar) | cardigan: Banana Republic | jeans: Old Navy | booties: Sole Society | necklace: Baublebar

I thought the formula of layering a fine-knit cardigan over a flowy blouse (not too bulky) plus suede booties worked well, and doing it all in grayscale (made extra easy by the color-blocked cardigan) helps it feel classy too.

While I love how easy grayscale is for sophisticated dressing, it's even more fun for cute baby dressing. Hendrik has about the best remixable wardrobe ever, including lots of great mix & match pieces in gray & white. Just a few of them:

Aren't the little shoes the cutest thing ever too? He got them from my mom for Christmas and they go with all his outfits of course.

Sharing on Style Elixir's Style Sessions and Pleated Poppy's What I Wore.

pre-baby bucket list recap

Now we're down to just one week left to the due date... holy smokes. People keep asking if we're ready, which I guess we could say yes to - we've done the classes, the hospital bag is packed, we've got the car seat installed, and we're VERY eager to meet this little guy. But that's about as prepared as it's possible to be I guess - not sure we can ever be fully ready for the major life changes and difficult things and overwhelming parental love we hear our headed our way.

But at least we can also say the pre-baby bucket list is pretty much done!

Here's a recap of the fun we've been having in the spirit of savoring the things that we love to do together and appreciating the great things about the final days of being just the two of us:

30 before 30 update

Making some progress lately on that 30 before 30 list! Good thing too, because there were 19 items left with under a year to the big birthday - now down to 15 (ish, since a couple others at least have progress) after doing these 4 in the last couple of months:

First up, the most fun of the bunch - I've been wanting to see my first Cirque du Soleil show for forever, but as with things in life, they can come to town (or nearby) and life just stays in the way enough that I never get around to buying some tickets... until it was time for babymoon, but we needed something nearby - so I let the arrival of Totem to Columbus (just 1.5 hours away) make the destination decision for us! Accomplishing two in one.

And it was SO FUN. Can't even describe the craziness of some of those acts - the chorus line of sky-high unicycle riders tossing bowls from their feet onto each other's heads, the acrobats flipping from one 2x4 balance beam/trampoline held up by pairs of strongmen to another. Definitely we will see another of these shows whenever we get the chance.

Another thing I've been wanting to do forever: putting in "graduate-level navigation", as Kayla calls it, since I saw the tutorial on her blog - a navigation bar with rollover effects. Part of what takes forever about things like this is once I want to make one blog design tweak, I want to do it all... I'm not exactly loving the overall design yet, but go mouse over the items that navigation bar and check out what I accomplished!

Quite proud of this - I started with Kayla's tutorial but then managed to figure out an even quicker way via some BloggerSentral instructions and this awesome site that produces HTML code for image maps. Now that I know how to do it, I have big plans for making all my buttons change color with rollover. Just need to come up with a more satisfactory design for everything first.

Also in the blog category, one of my goals was to invite guest bloggers to contribute - and what better time than to take a little blogging maternity leave. I'm excited to have all the above ladies lined up to share some great posts with you after the baby arrives!

Here's another huge one that I've been working on for a while and finally finished up this weekend: cleaning out the basement. I finally got started on it toward the end of the summer because it was a requirement for any nesting activities - the extra linens, etc. that were living in the guest room needed to go somewhere if it was going to become a nursery.

It was a major job, but after 2 huge carloads of Goodwill donations, $100 worth of consignments, 3 new shelving units and 5 new storage bins, several trash bags, and many hours of organizing, I've got all the non-baby stuff cleared out of the guest room and a cleaned out basement, reorganized and rid of all the excess stuff that we really didn't need to be storing. I even finished it off with vacuuming/mopping the floor. Feels good! (And as a reward for all the hard work, I let myself pick out some fancy Martha Stewart labels at Staples for all my bins. I love them.)

weekend: indulgences

How was your weekend? We had this perfect fall-like weather after some grossly hot and humid days last week, and the chance to wear jeans for once got me feeling so good that I just indulged in a bunch of other things all weekend long...

Favorite indulgence: Peter unexpectedly had Saturday morning off from having to go in to the hospital to round, so we of course had to make use of the chance for a breakfast date. Then I did the same with my lady friends on Sunday while he was working... and am clearly enough of a regular now that I didn't even need to tell the waitress my order the second time. (I'm no longer embarrassed to show up there twice in one weekend and be recognized by the staff. So I like my National Exemplar breakfast!)

Friday I allowed myself a little fun browsing in the midst of some necessary errands. How adorable are this sweater and onesie at Old Navy? The little guy and I could coordinate!

Saturday and Sunday afternoons I did a little reading in the sun... instead of cleaning the bathrooms. Really liking Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions.

And for the gorgeous wedding of one of Peter's co-residents, I splurged on getting my hair styled at the salon (actually, it wasn't really that much) so I could feel fancy wearing the same black dress that everyone's already seen several times (aka my only dress-up option at the moment).

Also at the wedding, enjoyed my half glass of champagne poured for the toasts (I'm well into in my 3rd trimester and was at a table full of doctors who had no issues... so judge if you want, just don't comment.) And isn't this table setting lovely?

That was nice. Now back to the realities and practicalities of Monday...

weekend: babymoon

As of today, only 6 weeks left to my due date... so we thought this weekend was a good time to fit in a little pre-baby getaway. Planning a quick trip out of town is nice for any couple at any time - so refreshing to spend time together away from regular life stuff - but especially nice for us right now with Peter's weekend work schedule of late. So I planned a few fun things for us in Columbus, a short drive from Cincinnati, plus we even enjoyed two of the pre-baby bucket list items: sleeping in and going out for breakfast.

Though our babymoon was only about 24 hours long, it was pretty perfect:

The big event (and why we picked Columbus) was seeing this Cirque du Soleil show (and checking off one of my 30 before 30 items). It was so. much. fun.

The big tent was set up not too far away from downtown, where we stayed at the Hilton, which was fabulous. Loved all the original artwork around the hotel and the modern design, plus waking up to this ceiling was fun. Peter's idea of fun: lounging on the bed and checking on tennis/football games for a bit before the show.

In the evening, we walked a few blocks to the Short North district, which we hit on the gallery hop night. So rarely are we in the happening place, homebodies that we are - it was kind of crowded, but fun to check out the popular area.

Our first stop was Da Levee for a dinner of yummy cajun food along with fun people watching while sitting at their front window.

I had the jambalaya; Peter had a poburrito (po'boy/burrito combo with chorizo). Then we walked around a bit and stopped at this really great store with fun vintage and new vintage-inspired stuff - and found a great old classroom map for baby's room.

After a leisurely sleep in and a little reading in bed, Sunday's big event was a stroll down to the Northstar Cafe, where we arrived with perfect timing - walked straight up to the counter to order (the ricotta pancakes for me; bacon, eggs, and a biscuit for Peter), snagged an outdoor table that opened up right after that. By the time we left, the line was out the door... It was a perfect morning to sit outside, and the food was great.

We had such a nice time together, it of course would have been nice to have a bit more time to spend away, but the quick trip and only 1.5 hour drive meant that we also had plenty of time at home to do other weekend things like chores (Peter: work reading; me: vaccuming), working out at our ideal times (Peter: during the Lions' game; me: spinning class), and catching up on our DVR, which was also nice.

My only regret for the weekend was that while it was only a few blocks from our hotel, we didn't get any of the famously delicious Jeni's ice cream - when we finished dinner, their line was out the door and around the corner, so we decided not to wait that long. We did find ourselves a giant ice cream sundae to share while listening to live music outdoors on our walk back to the hotel though, so in the end, not really all that disappointed...

How was your weekend?

p.s. in other news: on his 50th birthday, a big shoutout to my dad, who has given me his sweet tooth (and made me lots of great cakes), my love of Kate Atkinson and Tana French books, many excellent memories and travel adventures, all the things/opportunities/advice a girl could ask for, and a great example of how to love and raise my own child. Wishing I could be there to celebrate the occasion in person, but I'm sticking a little closer to Cincinnati these nearly-full-term days...

weekend: fancy feet

How was your weekend? It was a good kind around here - lots of relaxing (like most of Sunday afternoon with my feet up... ahhh), but also lots of fun stuff with plenty of occasions for debuting some stylish wardrobe additions and heading about town with fancy feet:

• Friday night: after picking out a new nail polish, pulled out these peep-toe flats to show off my fresh pedicure and head off to some tasty al fresco Vietnamese dining with Peter. 

• Saturday morning: pulled out the maternity shorts (that'll be appearing a lot this summer) with a bright cardigan for a lovely outdoor brunch and a little shopping with the ladies - the best kind of morning to have while Peter was off at the ENT department golf outing.

• Saturday night: got all dressed up in a ruched dress, sparkly belt, and heels for the ENT department graduation dinner downtown with Peter and his colleagues. 

• Sunday morning: another fun belt ($5 clearance!) in blues was perfect for our pre-baby boy photo session with Jacqueline! Can't wait to see how they turn out.

• Every 2nd day: been breaking in my next pair of Nikes, but just at spinning class for now - after a week+ of pelvic ligament pain/discomfort (darn pregnancy hormones) and laying off all dog walking/running, I think I'm finally feeling a bit on the mend, hopefully back to walking this week and, fingers crossed, running after that. Yay. I've really missed my runs and usual active state, but it's been nice to at least be able to bike in the meantime.

• Sunday afternoon: this one's more like "fancy free" - we're not always good at allowing ourselves total relaxation, but we did this weekend, including plenty of time with my feet up with my latest read.

Sharing on WIWW at Pleated Poppy.

weekend: good times

It was a pretty low key weekend, but that's how we like it - still plenty of good times:

• Started the weekend little early with a nice mani/pedi on Thursday (quite pleased with this perfect coral I picked, plus a fun gold party finger).
• Which got me all ready for Friday's date night - pretty sure every weekend should have a pizza time, especially if it's pizza with fig, bacon, olive oil, and balsamic like this one from M (which we actually got to enjoy for dinner 2 days in a row because we had so much left over after accidentally filling up on starters like the purple cauliflower gratin with brussel sprouts, pinenuts, spinach, and cream - yum).
• Got in my usual Saturday morning run, though the weather wasn't really pleasant as one would hope for a spring weekend, so we postponed the garden planting - especially in light of the frost warning! 
• Did get to read plenty about gardening though, finishing The Language of Flowers for book club (liked it quite a bit). 
• And Sunday we did our favorite way of spending quality relaxing/reconnecting time together: breakfast at the National Exemplar. 

p.s. if you were wondering about that running tank: it actually is in my wardrobe... At 17 weeks, I don't really fill it out yet, but I'm still quite proud of it - and that my new little running buddy just accompanied me for a total of 16 miles in the 16th week! Said running buddy will be joining me in person in October; in the meantime my everything-else-buddy and I are really excited.

(Also: this revelation should answer several questions [that perhaps nobody was asking]: why I had so many winter blues [hormones!], why I skipped some days of blog posting/commenting [tired!], and why my more fitted shirts are not looking quite so flattering [um, uterus growth]).

weekend: Porkopolis

This weekend's highlights were all about a Cincinnati tradition: pigs!

First we started with some pork, finally trying out Eli's BBQ - we've been hearing for a while that it's great, but when we saw it made the 2013 Cincinnati Magazine top 10 restaurants list this year and the weather turned nice, we finally got around to it. We were waiting for the nice weather, because while they have a bit of indoor seating, the main thing to do is BYOB and sit out at the picnic tables. So fun.

And the food definitely was great - I had the pulled pork sandwich, and Peter had some super meaty and big ribs. I had trouble sharing mine to even let Peter try it. We also tried the mac & cheese side, and luckily when we came in someone told us about ordering it "dirty" - that is, with some pork crispins on top. Very good idea. The other great thing about Eli's: it's a super cheap dinner ($5 for my sandwich!).

Next up, the Flying Pig race, another Cincinnati tradition. Last year I did the half marathon, but this year I tried out a different event - the 4-person marathon relay. I did the first leg, which was just about 7 miles.

It started as quite a nice morning, a great running temperature with a fittingly pink sunrise just before we started, but by the time my friends in the half marathon were done, it was starting to get a bit rainy and we were all shivering (hopefully not too miserable for some marathoners out there!). Still lots of fun - they all had PRs, and my relay teammates and I all had a good time.

It was nice to get to participate in the event without training for a whole race, and by finishing my portion before my friends in the half marathon, I was able to cheer them on. It was fun to be a spectator for a while, since it's such a huge event in Cincinnati - 19,400 people in the marathon, half marathon, and relay (which all start together), and many thousands of spectators. Everywhere you go for the rest of the day you see people with Flying Pig t-shirts and medals.

So that's what we were up to here in Porkopolis. How was your weekend?