Cincinnati Date Night

I had a bad attitude at 2:00 PM today, and it was nobody's fault but mine.

 

Today was a gorgeous day outside: crisp fall temperatures that didn't bite, bright leaves everywhere and a cloudless, sunny sky. And we... spent the entire day inside, doing nothing. Like I said, it was my fault for not forcing us out of the house, but for some reason we ceded to lounging around. Most days, I wouldn't have complained much, but largely in part due to the fact that Rob is just visiting these days, our time together is limited and I felt like we'd wasted it somehow. I was being dramatic, sure... but I suppose the rest was probably a good thing for the city tour we were about to randomly take.

Halfway into the afternoon, we pried ourselves off the couch and did what we each needed to transform back into functioning human beings worthy of public exposure. I had scratched my head for a few hours on somewhere to go; we both agreed we're burnt out on the OTR routine, so I was super excited when it hit me to take him up to Mt. Adams.

city view tavern | mount adams, oh

We had dinner at the City View Tavern. I .. love that place, mainly for its simplicity, but also because it both is and isn't a part of the Mt. Adams landscape. It's up there, overlooking the entire downtown area, but without the overwhelming amount of people straining to fashionably one-up each other.

this is my kinda view (: | mount adams, oh
boyfriend + night lights of the city

my love.

Once we finished dinner, I decided to show him around to some more places he's not been. I had far less trouble this time thinking of the next stop for us: Rhinegeist Brewery.

hello, rhinegeist!

This place is special because 1 - you'd never guess that it exists if you are simply strolling by, and 2 - when you can incorporate live acoustic music, cornhole, ping pong and hula hoops in one open arena space, then you've pretty much won over my little soul for an evening out (:

his & hers.. & some live jams!

Definitely a fun little spot!
And.... moving on! We decided we were okay with having a pretty tame night, and we didn't want to travel too much further in between stops, so we caved and headed over to the regular digs to see who we could find.

We found Keith at Neon's within the first five minutes we were there.

pretty lights & happy people @ neon's!

The three of us drank up some good old OTR people watching from the Eli's corner of Neon's before heading over to the Drinkery to meet up with Nader & Co. We found them in the front row of a mini crowd, jamming out to Magnolia Sons, a 10 (or 11?)-person operation that was rocking out on the stage. They were pretty good!

Here's a clip that sadly sounded way better in person than it does on the clip :( .. but hey, they're pretty good and I have to say I'd go see them again the next time they're here!

& thennn... we found the fun little photo booth they had set up...
That's all of us in the back and sort of in the middle, along with some of the band members. These guys were a BLAST.

fun fun fun (:

After all that excitement, the night for us pretty much ended - we want to be up early for church tomorrow without feeling sluggish, so Rob and I bowed out after everyone trodded next door to Japp's [no, thanks, not tonight] and are now back. Looking at the evening, I'm glad we took it easy today. (:

There's always a reason... haha.

xo | cmd

It's Uhh, Raining... Let's Cook.

Andi told us yesterday that our area would be under a flood warning until sometime on Friday. We had a hard time initially believing that since there wasn't a cloud in the sky when she said it.

..... We live in the midwest. Why would I have thought the weather would be temperamental??! It rained today. It rained a lot today. I came across a few pictures from friends who live down on the air force base; apparently there are several places in the area that look this way today. My thoughts go out to everyone who's been affected by flooding. It's been one heck of a week.

whoa. flood.

It was a craaazy busy day at work, which is no surprise. We managed to capture Linda in a moment of song, though, and that definitely brightened the day. It's a shame we never caught footage of her and I doing a duet on this song, but I really don't enjoy videos of myself all that much as it is, so this was just fine ;)

Work aside, I made a stop at the store to grab a few things and headed back to the house. Rob got off work early today, so he was already there. I made a start into dinner, as promised yesterday: stuffed peppers. It's been a long time since I've made these, and it's a different recipe than I'd used before, so I admit I was a little nervous. They came out just fine though; I have to admit, I was pretty proud of them ;) 

potatoes & peppers... yummm

Not too bad! And to follow it up, cookies! One of the guys at Rob's work was selling cookie dough for his kid, so we opted for a random baking session to round out the evening. I've gotta hand it to him, this boy's quite the baker. Oh, and SHOUTS to Kanice for the awesome ninjabread men cookie cutters! We put them to good use!

ninjabread men!

We had some photobooth fun, too. [//edit! I promised to add a few of the photobooth goodies. It's more like, a couple - two exactly, to be precise. Oh well. You'll be okay]

what...? 

.... you thought these were gonna be normal? ;) 

xo | cmd

HBD, JENNICA! | Things of a Saturday (:

It's birthday time, again!

Happy birthday to my lovely lovely Jen!!! 

♥ you jennica! | happy birthday!

Ohhhh... I miss you, friend. I'll see you sooooon. :) 

So yeah. It's Saturday, and our original plan was to head to the zoo after I picked Sydni up. Howeeeeever, it was a little colder than we'd originally planned. Couple that with the fact that none of us really got moving until about 1pm, we opted out of a trip over to STL. 

Instead, we took a mini-jaunt over to the park for a little bit. 

wintery girls! 

butterrrr hahah

I've learned that the easiest way to get Sydni out of the park is to offer her food [testament that she's mine... duurrrrhhh]. That being said, we promised her a home-cooked dinner and left the park at go time with little to no contest.

For my butter-lovin' friend Marianne, this was the message I sent as a pre-courser to dinner itself: butter and a pepper. I personally believe those are two of the greatest combinations anyway - fresh food & butter. Success.

After a quick stop at the store to get some shrimp [I was on a war path tonight for some shrimp.....], we headed back to the house and started in on the deliciousness that resulted from the mixing of fresh veggies & butter... & pasta. 

Yumm....

shrimp bow-tie pasta (: 

So that puts us here.... now.... on the couch vegging out. Marianne... Rob.... Syd... and myself. We're party animals watching Nacho Libre and discussing how Marianne's official role in the dinner dynamic of my house has become Butter Intake Coordinator. 

Love. 

fun with photobooth? yes.... (: 

Ohhhhh, Saturday. It's supposed to snow tonight/tomorrow, so we'll see what that does for the getting-outta-the-house situation.... 

For now... zZzZzZ.

'Nite, ya'll. 

xo | cmd