…out in the boonies for a night of mini-golf, a Monsters University and Iron Man 3 double feature, and tons of junk food.
Summer, thou art the BEST.
I am so glad that drive-ins still exist in some parts of the country, and that we are lucky enough to have lived within 30 minutes of one both in Cincinnati and in Rochester.
Life is grand!
{Friday all day work retreat at Village Bakery in the morning – from where this incredible pear raspberry pastry and cream soda hails – followed by India House for lunch, and the afternoon spent at Starry Nites cafe and coffeeshop. Working at a theatre truly is the best. job. ever. And “off-campus” work retreats are pretty amazing too.}
{Rhubarb soda? Be still my heart!}
{Just upstate NY on a Friday night – on our way to our umpteenth furniture shopping expedition…the good news is that I love cows and after weeks and weeks of searching, we’re finally getting close to making a decision on living room furniture that combines style, comfort, and quality – finally!}
{Saturday splashing at the beach on the shores of Lake Ontario}
Not pictured are the two fab chunks of driftwood we hauled home from the beach for our new landscaping project for the townhome, the piles of weeds we sprayed and pulled in preparation for our new landscaping project, the nightly ice cream cones packed with delicious Cincinnati Graeter’s ice cream I consumed, the movies we watched and awesome handmade dish pizza eaten (Moulin Rouge and Open Season), the progress we made unpacking and organizing a few more areas of our office and basement, or a wonderful, fun, and relaxing Saturday night sushi dinner with my old roommate and her husband before their big move to NYC, where they recounted the humorous and wild adventures of their recent trip to the south of France. Winner of a weekend, indeed. And happy belated Father’s Day to all you dads and fatherly figures out there…thanks for all you do and the great men that are you – especially my own dad and father-in-law! You guys are the best!
What did you do this weekend?
{free tickets, excellent seats, beautiful weather on a relaxing night…win-win-win…except that the Rochester Red Wings didn’t win :/ oh well.}
{Cinnamon sugar fry bread and red berry ale}
{fried ravioli}
{at the ballgame}
{fireworks!}
Yes, this summer is shaping up just nicely, indeed.
The last of the vacation pics from my parents visit to the Roc City!
Love everything about summer!!
After Niagara Falls and the Letchworth Falls, our final falls of the trip were close to home…High Falls in downtown Rochester! It isn’t too often you see a waterfall of this nature in the middle of a city!
Not too shabby, right?
And this concludes our falls trilogy…more fun free time pics from parents’ visits and Ted’s first week in Rochester to come!
After Niagara Falls we trekked about an hour south of Rochester to Letchworth State Park (known as the “Grand Canyon of the East”) to check out this awesome park, the gorge, and the beautiful Lower Falls, Middle Falls, and Upper Falls.
{Lower Falls}
{Middle Falls}
{Upper Falls}
Letchworth is a hot spot for hot air ballooning and offers a stunning view of the colored leaves in fall…both of which are on our bucket list. Needless to say, we’ll be back.
Up next: Rochester’s High Falls!
Ready to drool?
‘Cause the past two weeks have pretty much been filled with some intense deliciousness…and I’m sharing it all here.
And it’s been excellent.
{The first day my parents were in town I took them for an evening picnic among the lilac trees in Highland Park. We picnic’d on jalapeno poppers, cheese bread with balsamic dipping oil, shrimp cocktail, salami, fresh mozzarella balls, olives, and my homemade mini Le Cordon Bleu fruit tarts….followed by a long, leisurely walk among the flowers to work it all off. A totally perfect night with perfect company!}
{Super tasty overstuffed NY style deli subs at Harry G’s}
{My French dip sammy au jus with garlic butter and spicy shoestring fries did not disappoint!}
{Shared salted caramel and espresso ice cream at Hedonist Artisan Ice Cream}
{Bunches of farm-fresh rhubarb from Rochester’s outdoor public market! All of this amazing rhubarb for only $5. Be still my heart!}
{Nachos from Blue Cactus in Fairport}
{And afternoon snack tacos!}
{Lemongrass ginger and Irish cream ice cream from Moonlight Creamery}
{The best BBQ chicken I’ve ever had, and incredible cheddar chorizo grits and ratatouille from Sticky Lips BBQ}
{Flavorful Italian cuisine from Bazil on Irondequoit Bay}
{Food Truck Rodeo: Brick-N-Motor’s fab menu}
{Food Truck Rodeo: Pickled watermelon and duck tacos!}
{Food Truck Rodeo: Macarollin’s fare}
{Food Truck Rodeo: The Classic}
{The macaroni of my dreams!}
{Chocolate covered turtle cheesecake on a stick!}
{Week # 2’s bounty of our Community Supported Agriculture share from Peacework Organic Farm: Mizuna, thyme, rhubarb, asparagus, leeks, komatsuna, bok choy, vivid choy, and lettuce. Week # 1 included asparagus, leeks, lettuce, bok choy, carrots, garlic scallions, and oregano.}
{Ugly-looking but crazy tasty Asian noodle dish I made with the bok choy, leeks, and carrots from our CSA share, along with chicken, buckwheat soba noodles, toasted sesame oil, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sherry, salt and pepper}
{My homemade strawberry rhubarb pies!}
I am pleasantly shocked my pants still fit, though I don’t suppose I should push my luck.
And that’s not even all of it!
Food fans, you definitely don’t want to miss tomorrow’s post!
;)
{Don’t miss the best picture of the day at the very bottom!}
How can your day not start out awesome when you are instructed to “park in the lot by the red elephants and yellow smile benches”?
Awesome, right?
And this is where it all gets even more supremely awesome. A few months back Meg, Shawnda and I bought LivingSocial deals for an epic sounding hour-and-a-half Aerial Arts Sampler Class at Aerial Arts of Rochester, a studio that specializes in circus arts! As if there was any doubt…RIGHT UP MY ALLEY.
I have been anxiously awaiting this class for weeks! We were so stinking excited!
After all the necessary precautions, waiver signings, safety briefings, proper stretching, and warnings of how sore we would be tomorrow and where (blah blah blah), we were divided into small groups to learn a few basic positions on the aerial silks, the hoops, and the yoga hammocks.
First up…
Aerial Silks
The Hoop
Yoga Hammocks
Clearly, this was just about the most fun class I have ever taken.
The silks were my favorite with the hoop coming in a close second. Fortunately, they offer classes in both (and as soon as I can afford to, I’m signing up!) And I totally saw a trapeze in there as well that I can’t wait to get my hands on!
Running away to join the circus…kind of a dream come true. I have a rather fond affinity for anything circus related.
They did, in fact, warn us that we would likely be quite sore in several spots.
They, apparently, weren’t kidding.
We were physically exhausted after class – I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired from a workout before! It took about 30 minutes for the motion sickness nauseous feeling to completely subside (turns out spinning upside down for extended lengths of time will really mess with your equilibrium until your body gets used to it). My arms felt like total jelly for the next two days, and I have some vicious victory bruises in all kinds of great locations! And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.
Worth it?
Absolutely!
And now it’s time for my absolute favorite photo of the day….
{Graceful butterfly pose: Nailed it.}
First things first: Thanks for bearing with me in my blog absence. I try not to escape from this old blog too much, but sometimes it’s just not feasible to keep up. And, truth be told, I probably won’t be around quite as often for the next two weeks either, but fear not: once we’re all settled, regularly scheduled blogging will resume!
The townhouse is coming along quite nicely. The kitchen is about 98% finished (I have few small fun projects up my sleeve for it yet!), the guest room/office is set up my parents visit this week, our bedroom and bathroom are done, and I have the rest of the place all unpacked, organized, and clean just in time for Ted to arrive with the next load of stuff for me start all over again with. Of course, we have zero furniture in the whole joint except for our bedroom set and a blow up air mattress for my parents, so the place looks super clean and organized…and bare…but, baby steps. We’re getting there and I’m loving it so far!
Onto the good stuff!
On Thursday night I finally tried Dogtown for the first time with three friends after volunteering with the supper program. Rochester is famous for its white hots (and its love of garbage plates, which totally gross me out – click the link to read about them), so even though the menu was packed with nasty garbage plates and awesome dogs (including a Cincinnati style chili & cheese dog!) I tried a plain old Rochester white hot with sweet potato fries…and it was really good. Simple but really delicious. Consider me a convert to the Rochester white hot!
After dinner, I met up with my YP book club group at The Little Theatre for a 9:30 showing of The Great Gatsby. And it was just as terrible as expected. It wasn’t boring or unbearable and, thankfully, it didn’t even feel like it was two-and-a-half hours long. It just wasn’t amazing. The gangta rap music they played throughout the movie (set in the 1920s, mind you) was kind of ridiculous, and the costumes (which I had hoped would be the movie’s saving grace), weren’t that spectacular after all. The acting wasn’t awful, but it was a little cheesy and nobody really stood out as stellar. And while Baz Luhrman’s very eclectic style and across-the-screen-writing and music and camera angles worked for Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, it just didn’t work for Gatsby. I’m glad we saw it; we had fun seeing it together (and, of course, the Book Thieves are always fun to hang out with!), but we’re happy to move on to our next great read!
Friday night Becca and I saw Venus in Fur in the theatre’s Nextstage, which was definitely interesting and thought provoking (and funny). And that was only the start to the weekend… :) Stay tuned!
So, I know some of you are like, “If I see another flower picture on this blog, I quit.” Totally valid. For such an unflowery person, I sure have been overloading my blog with a lot of flowery pictures lately. But with a gorgeous upstate NY spring in full bloom – blooms that stick around for only about a week and a half, might I add – after six long blustery long months of winter…sorry, I’m not sorry about all the spring-joyment flower pictures. That being said: more flowers!
