City Fleaaaaa!

I woke up with an especially ambitious spirit this morning, and took off on a run to begin the day. 

Yes, I did that on purpose, and No, I'm not ill. In fact, Rob even jumped in on the last lap, much to my pleasant surprise. Thanks for supporting my crazy ideas of morning fitness, love ♥. 

it's a happy day to feel happy :D

We cleaned up a bit [& by that, I mean changing clothes; don't pretend like I took a shower.. that's silly] & headed downtown to meet up with Becky at CityFlea513. I love this time of the year for this specific reason, and although I don't attend every weekend of Flea, I do love drinking it in yearly. 

photo cred: insta@mrs_falhaber

photo cred: insta@thecityflea

& quite possibly my favorite shot that I've seen so far [as my phone was buried in the bottom of my cotopaxi this entire trip >:(... ]

photo cred: insta@timeandagainshop

The best part of CF513, besides all the crazy cool and crafty vendors, was running into Lauren & Sara, two sisters who I still hold dear after nearly 14+ years since our silly college days. They now run Mixie Studios, and have the most adorable collection of unique goodies for you, so if you plan on CFlea513'ing at any point this summer, make sure you go see them.. and BUY SOMETHING! 

sara [lauren not pictured :( ] 

For the sake of throwbacks, a bonus: 

haha.. oh boy. circa.. 2007. 

Fortunately, La & Sa still look pretty much the same.. beautiful as ever, and even more fortunately, I finally figured out what eyebrows were and that they should be left on your face. Sheesh. 

Anywho, it was a beautiful day to be out and about, and although Rob & I had every intention of the additional jazz festival in the evening, we both awoke from "short naps" about 4 hours after sitting down on separate sides of the room, and by that point well.. 

Happy Saturday, blogbots. I hope you're able to get out there and enjoy it! 

xo | cmd

BOOM. Saturday.

Rob & Kyle are here [I still can only half believe that, for some reason..].
Kyle has never been to Cincinnati before.
Erego, Kyle has never had Taste of Belgium for breakfast before.

Don't worry... we fixed it.

a round for the table, please!

It was a no-brainer this morning when we finally got moving; Kyle never having visited Cincinnati before obviously meant he'd never had the full TOB experience [aka, chicken & waffles, from TOB]. We met up with Catie & Andy in the drab, half-sputtering weather downtown at TOB and introduced Kyle to this magnificent course. They sat us at the kitchen table, which is even more interesting for any trip there.

Plus, this awkwardly-statured gnome?

catie: "nice gnome?"
kyle: "too bad that's not a syrup dispenser"
catie: "that'd be genius. here's what it would look like if it were."

... It really doesn't take much to entertain us. (:
After breakfast, we all parted ways, partially due to the weather being monochromatic and... blah.. and the other part of it being that we just wanted to relax. We knew there would be a long night ahead of us, so we all headed home. At mine, we parked ourselves on the couch and watched Iron Man 3, this time without the descriptive services turned on, thank you very much.... Haha.

We hung out at the house for most of the early afternoon, and finally pulled ourselves together near dinner time. Rob wanted to show Kyle Newport, so we went off in that direction, of course taking a detour/pitstop up to the overlook.

kyle & rob | overlook @ eden park | cincinnati, oh

kyle on the wall lookin' at kentucky
overlook @ eden park | cincinnati, oh

We decided on dinner at Bar Louie Newport, joined by Catie & Andy, and afterwards back up to Norwood to Nader's place. His house is once again the common meeting grounds. Lauren met us there, and the cluster of us made a united decision that we wouldn't miss Oktoberfest two nights in a row.

Listermann Brewery it was!


oktoberfest!
nader. andy. kyle. rob. catie. lauren. cori
listermann brewery | cincinnati, oh

these girls! ♥ [+ photobombing rob in the back]
listermann brewery | cincinnati, oh

favorites (:
listermann brewery | cincinnati, oh

ermagersh.. cerggert! ;)
listermann brewery | otr - cincinnati

After Oktoberfest, it was probably the most comfortable decision to head into OTR, to the usual digs.. with the usual people.. PLUS VISITORS! I love that Rob & Kyle are here this weekend!

What I love even more, is how [& we just realized this this weekend] much alike Nader & Kyle are, not only in stature and eerily enough facial features, but in personality, too. They are just about the white and brown version of the same person. I guess everyone's got one, huh? Haha.

.. never met two un-related people who are more
similiar head to toe and inside-out.
rheinhaus | otr - cincinnati, oh

i. love. these. people.
rob. cori. kyle. catie.
rheinhaus | otr - cincinnati, oh

I have some downright knockout people in my life, and I'm so thankful for them. I didn't get to see all of them tonight but it's a healthy start (: It's been a whole day into this and I'm still a little off from the surprise of Rob coming out to see me. What I did to land this guy, I'm not sure, but I've never been anything but myself so I'll just keep doing that and hope he sticks around ;).  

can't get enough! ♥

So that's how we did an unplanned Saturday in Cincinnati. It wasn't entirely eventful, but I think we all had a good time, and that's all that matters. Next time, maybe I'll be able to actually plan some sort of outing (:

Anyway, we're done for the night .. even moreso than this entry is backdated :p

xo | cmd

513 City Flea | Findlay Market | Camping



 PRIORITY #1: BREAKFAST!

eggggggggcellent ;)

Ya'll should already know exactly what I made for breakfast this morning. If you don't, well... it's Saturday, and Rob's here, so as tradition is starting to have it, it was the usual slow-scrambled eggs, potatoes and fruit. I realized this is the first real meal I've cooked from scratch in the new place, too. Nothing like great company and homecooked food to start the day.

With breakfast down, we were off towards Market & City Flea.

First stop: Market! We swung by to say hello to Mike & Becky, who were "working," haha. No, I'm kidding. They really do work, hard, too might I add, but they have a blast doing it, and I think that's awesome.

While we were waiting, we managed to, after a few discarded captures, get one of my favorite pictures from the entire weekend...

i'm in love.... with this man.

I absolutely adore that picture, so much so that it's now going on the permanent side roll to the right. Haha. Just sayin. I'm one lucky girl.

Anyway....
Becky was able to break away for a little while and get some vendor prospecting in with us down the road at the 513 City Flea in Washington Park. It was so stinkin' hot outside and the crowd was enormous, so we didn't stay too long, but it was a blast and I'm glad we went! 

513 city flea | washington park | cinci, oh

One reason I really wanted to go after Elisa reminded me about this yesterday:

sara & lauren : sister team of mixiestudio

dpsa 2006 | lauren. sara. corin

Sara & Lauren! It's been a liiiiitle while since I last saw either of these pretty gals, since I've been away for so long.. but long story short: they now have an adorable operation, Mixie Studio. You should check it out if you have some time. It's so. stinkin'. cute. (:

And for the sake of throwbacks to the babydays of DPSA ... haha.. I had to toss that one in there, for the sake of hilarity and how much we've grown since then.

Oh, and Becky bought some Italian marble coasters [*note to self, purchase some of these in July at the next 513!]

I took Rob to Eli's, since I'd promised a trip there. The place as usual was packed, but worth it, and I'm glad we were able to make it out.

We headed back to the house to mellow for a little while.. It's camping time now; we've just finished up pitching tents and looks like we're in for a fun night. I love my friends.

first camping trip together (:

Life is good.

xo | cmd

Lightly Bittersweet :?

Farewell to a bittersweet day.

First, I must wish a far-off birthday wish for an old friend of mine :) This pretty mama just had TWINS just a few months back and she is fabulous. I aspire to be as cute in the event I find myself post-birth of doubles. From the days of Filipino fiestas at UC - I always had a blast with this gal.

Happy Birthday, Lauren! 

lauren! | filipino dance troops @barrio

[I adore birthdays!]

On the more somber side, today was the scheduled 'going-away' dinner for Nancy. She accomplished the task of coercing the dinner plans outside of what's more traditionally done for those of us who move on; we found ourselves at the Edwardsville Wasabi. I hadn't been, but after tonight, I'll be back. In spite of the food allergies from some of our party, we still managed a 6-roll sushi boat, 2 orders of shumai, 4 orders of edamame, 4 orders of potstickers, and 1 round of red bean mochi. Plus drinks. Plus some chicken teryaki. Haha. Hey... if you're gonna eat, go big or go somewhere other than Wasabi :).

nom nom nom....

It's gonna be a bittersweet next 2 days before Nancy heads out the door for the last time and off to her next endeavor. I'm not gonna think about that right now; it compels me to do something wild like forget.... 

....to.....

..... show up to work tomorrow?

No? Darn. Well, I'll save that outlandish idea for another day. :-x. 

Oy. Anyway, it's midweek. Happy Wednesday! 

xo | cmd