Atypical Memorial Day

Happy belated Memorial Day! I have really been slacking on the blog posts lately so am pretty late on this one. I've been really tired and going to bed early every chance I get, and the days have been filled with trying to wrap things up at work and frantically getting everything ready for the baby's arrival. She is coming verrrry soon.

This wasn't our typical Memorial Day weekend, which usually involves pools and beaches and fun with family & friends, but it did feel great to get so much accomplished, and we were still able to squeeze in a BBQ and a fire with some good friends.

Among the absolutely gigantic list of chores and errands Matt and I put together for the weekend (amazingly, all of which got done), big items included furnishing the new patio, finishing the baby's nursery and planting our garden.

 I decorated the room in pinks, browns and greens, with lots and lots of owls. I love the way it came out! It's cute but not too cutesy, and girly but also warm.

As for the garden, this year Matt built raised boxes (4 in all) instead of doing our usual square plot with a fence around it. We didn't want to keep the fence up now that we have a nice large patio, but need the plants to have some kind of protection from Butters and other little animals. I love the way his boxes turned out; they add a lot to that little corner of the yard. And I can't wait for fresh heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, strawberries and all the other goodies to start cropping up.

Saturday was actually Matt's birthday, so after a long hard day of work around the house, our little family headed out for a Mexican dinner followed by some ice cream. They were his only two birthday requests. Not hard to make that boy happy!

Sunday we participated in our big neighborhood yard sale, and had some friends over to sell their stuff with us. It was actually pretty fun to hang out all together on the front lawn while the kids played and we tried to sell our wares. I think we all caught the sales bug - it's quite the little excitement to negotiate with yard salers and actually make money selling stuff you're planning to get rid of anyway. Matt and I made a nice little bundle of cash, and are planning to use it towards a new farm table we're buying for our kitchen area.

Sunday evening more friends arrived for some snacks and a fire on the new patio to celebrate Matt's birthday. Not a bad little holiday Sunday. :) I did wake up Monday morning feeling completely wiped out though, so after a few errands, Matt made me relax on the patio couch while he worked on the yard. He's so good to me.

I'm halfway through a new dystopian novel, Halo, and loved laying in the sunshine reading in the afternoon, dozing off here and there. Can't remember the last time I did that!

After Mexican food and BBQing all weekend, I wanted something fresh and light for dinner by Monday night. I had a bunch of red and golden beets sitting in the fridge, so I roasted them off and made big salads for dinner, which we ate outside. On the plate:

- Mesclun greens dressed with flax seed oil and pear white balsamic vinegar

- Red and golden beets

- Goat cheese

- Dried cranberries (I found organic unsweetened ones at ShopRite!)

- Toasted walnuts

- A drizzle of aged truffle balsamic glaze

Soooo good. Dinner may have been veggie-filled and healthy, but we quickly ruined that with a quick trip to the playground so Riker could play and then soft serve cones at our favorite ice cream shop. I forgot to snap a pic, but my small chocolate & vanilla twist with chopped peanuts was fantastic. Just the way I wanted to end the holiday weekend.

After such a busy weekend of chores, I am feeling a little tired but also now, for the first time, ready to have this baby. If she comes tomorrow, we'll be ready. Eek!

How was your holiday weekend?

Chamomile, Pear & Blueberry Smoothie (Recipe ReDux)

I have a new smoothie recipe for you this morning - one with an unexpected ingredient. I'm a huge coffee lover and really enjoy the daily morning ritual of sipping on a hot mug (or these days, iced cold mason jar) of rich dark coffee. But I also enjoy my fair share of tea.

Although I enjoy drinking herbal teas before bed or making all kinds of crazy flavored iced teas for daytime, I honestly never have cooked with tea before. So when I saw that this month's Recipe ReDux theme was about cooking with tea, I was a little stumped. But then it hit me. Why not replace the usual milk or coconut milk in my morning smoothie with some brewed tea instead?

Tea packs a bunch of health benefits, so drinking it in the morning with breakfast can give you a nice boost. This is also a great way to incorporate tea into your diet if you like the idea of tea, or want to get the health benefits, but don't really care for drinking it on its own.

I used chamomile tea in this smoothie, and it added such an interesting herbal, lemony flavor to the smoothie. I have tons of different fruit teas at home so I see more experimentation in my future. Use whatever kind of herbal tea you have on hand and see what you like best!

Chamomile, Pear & Blueberry Smoothie

Makes 1 serving

Ingredients

1 frozen pear (I peeled, chopped and froze mine overnight)

Small handful blueberries

1/2 cup cooled chamomile tea (I also brewed this the night before so it was chilled by morning)

3 Tbsp. plain yogurt

1 tsp. honey

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy!

An InLinkz Link-up

Family Moon

Well, we're down to less than three weeks before baby girl comes. Ah! For a while I'd been thinking about planning a little "family moon" for Matt and I to spend some quality alone time with Riker before things get a little hectic with a newborn in the house. Then I got a great surprise at work. My boss planned a corporate retreat for our company, and invited all our families to come up and spend the weekend with us after our work duties completed. Talk about an offer you can't refuse!

Our retreat and family fun getaway weekend was at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY, which is just about 2.5 hours away from home. The perfect little weekend trip.

Mohonk is an absolutely gorgeous rustic resort nestled high up in the mountains, with about a million things to do. It was built in the 1800s so has great history and architecture, not to mention beautiful scenery and delicious food.

It rained all day Friday so we were stuck inside most of the time, but with daily 4:00 tea & cookies in the lounge and a spa-like huge indoor pool, that didn't really matter. Riker is such a little fish, I think we were at the pool at least three times throughout the weekend.

Thankfully the weather got beautiful on Saturday, though, so we got to spend a ton of time outdoors. Spring has finally sprung!

Some of the highlights included touring the 150-year old barn, feeding fish at the lake, seeing a birds of prey demonstration with enormous eagles, and taking a row boat out on the lake to go fishing.

Going "fishing" is probably an overstatement. All Riker really cared about was pushing the button on the reel and then reeling the line back in over and over again. Ah well, whatever makes him happy.

We also did a little hiking and a walk through the hedge maze, and had a gourmet picnic lunch overlooking the lake. I can't get over how pretty the grounds are.

I have to say, though, one of my favorite parts of the weekend was actually when Riker took a nap. ;) When we're at home and Riker naps, it's my time to get as much housework done as I possibly can in 2 hours. I don't often use the time to relax, and on the rare occasion that I do, I always feel guilty that I'm not doing laundry or some other chore. But at Mohonk, when Riker napped I obviously could not do chores, so I sat on our hotel room veranda and read a book while enjoying the sunshine and serene water views.

It was so peaceful, I could've sat there all day.

After our stay at Mohonk concluded and we were headed home, we stopped at a restaurant in town we'd been told was a must-do for beer lovers, Bacchus. I obviously couldn't drink beers, but Matt was excited about the huge selection and he tried a couple of sours he'd never had before. I was excited about the Ahi tuna tacos with jicama & green apple slaw. Oh and house made sweet potato fries with horseradish dipping sauce.

Uh, yum.

It was such a perfect weekend away with my family, and I'm glad we got a chance to relax and spend some quality time together before the excitement and whirlwind begins in a couple of weeks. It was also nice to get to hang out with my coworkers on a social basis rather than in a work setting; it's not often we get to do that, and I think it makes work so much better when you know your office mates on a personal basis.

Now that we've had our fun, the next two weekends will be cah-razy trying to get everything ready for the baby's arrival. I have a list about a mile long of things to do before she arrives, so here's hoping she stays put until my due date of June 10. Fingers crossed! :)