Weekends Are Fun

What's a good Saturday without a late start, right? Hah...

By late start, I mean we managed to completely skip breakfast. By the time we were all up and functioning, it was nearly lunch time, so we bypassed any notions of venturing down to Taste of Belgium, and instead made a beeline for Eli's, which Jesse's never had.

.. Until today. Eli's never disappoints! 

eli's!

After lunch, we scratched our brains for somewhere to take Jesse that we've not already shown him. We settled on Jungle Jim's, which became the perfect opportunity to both give Jesse a tour of the place and restock our depleted supply of mocha. Additionally, we left with a new growler, a growler koozie [I didn't know they made those...], some various exotic versions of cheese, sausages, juices and chocolate.

in honor of marianne & ali:
jumex & cameron hughes!

jj spoils!

It wasn't surprising that it took nearly an hour and a half for us to wholly navigate through Jungle Jim's with the frequent stops to browse the various sections, so by the time we got back to the house, we were all ready to relax for a couple of hours before catching up with tentative evening plans.

pretty much the afternoon.....

Fast forward a few hours to when we all woke up from power naps, it was time to rendezvous with Carolina at Mango Tree. Sushi tonight was a deeefinitely a good call!

mango tree!

Halfway through dinner, we finally started making some solid plans for the rest of the evening; Carolina figured out where Nader & Co. would be, which meant a trip downtown. I hadn't even taken Rob down to any of the venues in the actual downtown district, so we figured it wouldn't hurt to try it out.

We met with Nader, Keith, Eric and few others at one of the Irish pubs, then tried out some wannabe-ritzy place about which I'd never even heard [which was a bust beyond belief]. It wasn't long before we came to the surprising realization that we'd actually rather be in OTR. Sure, OTR is fun, but we thought it was due time to switch things up. We didn't count on wishing we were back there. Hah.

So as it happened, OTR became our final destination for the evening. We greeted the typical crowds with a little more patience than usual, realizing that the alternatives at this point were ridiculous in comparison. We landed at The Drinkery, which coincidentally proved to be a miniature reunion for several different people that represent the various different parts of my life in Cincinnati before I started moving all over the country.

I ran into Lora.... love & miss this girl!


lora & me, circa 2009

Then I turned around and bumped into Justin Jeffre, a friend of mine from years ago that has quite the history both in Cincinnati and well, internationally, but that's neither here nor there... haha..



justin & me, circa 2008?ish?

And of course, it wouldn't have been any sort of night without some double trouble [just kidding, they're not trouble]! I saw Regina & Renata for the first time in probably eight years.

& tonight, with regina & renata!

And of course, my lovely friends, awesome boyfriend and visiting guest of the weekend were there with me tonight. It was the perfectly energetic, hilarious Saturday night & I'm thankful for every single minute of it! (:

On that note, goooood night blogbots (:

xo | cmd

Sicky Saturday

Today definitely didn't turn out like we'd planned, but at the end of it all, I'm thankful for my resilient, funny, and likely lactose-intolerant little trooper.

We started our Saturday off with an array of miscellaneous errands. That landed us in Eastgate, where we had a small bone to pick with Time Warner [shocking, I know]. Sydni had no qualms though, and perched herself on a tiny stool in front of a tiny computer with a tiny game on it. She, in all her itty-bittyness, looked a lot like a miniature college student, and naturally that warranted a picture. 

i can't handle it sometimes (:

^ See? My studious little girl, complete with leggings, boots and a thermal vest. It's like I picked her straight out of a Miami University kids catalogue. Don't worry, MU friends, I still love you.. but you have to admit the standard campus dress code is a bit predictable. ;)

Anyway, we checked things off our list one by one, and even stopped for some Orange Julius before moving on from Eastgate to Target.

I'll fast forward through our trip to Target, and absolutely through the ride home after that [at least the picture part, because there are none to document what happened... BUT, I can and will safely say that I now firmly believe that Sydni is following in my childhood footsteps of being just about completely lactose intolerant.

How do I know this? I have an incredible boyfriend who took my car straight to the carwash to shampoo and vac out the backseat as soon as we pulled into the driveway. I busied myself cleaning off what was left of the rejected ice cream [+ sprinkles & all.....] from Sydni, her clothes and shoes. She has never thrown up like this; my immediate instinct as a mother was to call someone, but as I inspected her face, breathing, mouth, eyes and behavior as she was in the shower, she already seemed to feel better. I figured I would give it a few more minutes before I summoned an army of paramedics, and realized she would go through two more, far less intense vomit episodes before her belly finally ceded.

No. More. Ice. Cream.

Poor girl. :(
We spent the rest of the afternoon parked on the couch in piles of blankets, making sure there was no more belly aching to be had. By the time the evening rolled around, she was safely munching on some crackers, and even hopped up to start filling her piggy bank [which was our purpose at Target, earlier]. Rob donated a half a water jug's worth of coin to her collection, which she diligently dropped one......by...... one.... into her new bank. 

super saver!

I suppose four years with no major puking incidents is really not all that bad. Lesson learned, right?

.. Right (:

I promised some dinner in return for Rob hanging back with Sydni for a couple of hours while I made a brief appearance for Carolina's birthday. I'd promised her sometime back that I would at least come by to say hello before the gang headed down to OTR for the evening, so I visited with them briefly at Dancing Wasabi while I waited on my to-go order.

myself. carolina. ika

Happy, HAPPY birthday, Caro! I'm sorry again that Rob and I couldn't have gone out with everyone tonight, but I promise we'll get together again very soon and celebrate the right way.

For now, I'm back home with a boyfriend who has definitely outdone himself today, and a happily snoozing little girl who hopefully has a better day tomorrow.

I'm a pretty lucky girl.

xo | cmd