Anniversary Weekend!

Every time I make plans to go to a restaurant I stalk the menu for weeks in advance. I eat healthy at home so when I go out I want to be really excited and confident about my selections and indulge a bit.  This almost always backfires and I need to stop.  A few years ago I became obsessed with soft shell crabs.  They are in-season late May through the summer which is perfect because during that time is my birthday, Mark's birthday and our anniversary so we have lots of dinners out to celebrate things and lots of chances to order and enjoy soft shell crabs.  That particular year that my obsession was in full swing, I had selected a restaurant with soft shell crabs on the menu for my birthday and was checking the menu daily to make sure it was still being served.  Of course on the night of my birthday dinner the waitress is reviewing the specials and mentions, " also we've run out of soft shell crab".  I was bummed but knew that I had two more dinners out in the next few weeks....until the same thing happened both nights.  No soft shell crabs for me in 2011! You'd think I would have learned my lesson about menu stalking after that experience!

Flash forward to this past weekend. Our dear friend Lisa offered to dog and babysit for the weekend so Mark and I could get away for our anniversary!  On Saturday, we headed to Paradise Springs Winery in Clifton, VA for an afternoon delight!  It was a perfect sunny day and there were lots of families and couples enjoying wine, snacks and music.  We ordered a bottle of Nana's Rose which I think might be my new favorite Virginia wine, and some cheese and baguette.  Yum!

After wine, we drove to our hotel Suites at 249 in Culpepper, VA.  I liked many things about this hotel but one of my favorites had to be the keyless entry!  We didn't have to wait in a reception line or even interact with anyone, we just punched in a code to the exterior of the building and to our room - so easy and private!  We stayed in Verde Suite, since I made the reservation and I love green.

We headed to dinner at Foti's Restaurant and no surprise, I'd been stalking the menu for the past month.  It's a pretty small space and in my opinion a much more casual atmosphere than the "fine dining" label on their website would indicate.  I proposed to Mark that we get the Vanilla Roasted Maine Lobster and Cornmeal Crusted Oysters to start - he agreed with those choices, and I planned to have the Moraccan Spiced Mahi Mahi with rock shrimp and Mark selected the Lamb Tangine.  The waitress goes through the specials and mentions, instead of Mahi Mahi, it is trout and instead of the rock shrimp, it is regular shrimp.  Of course this would happen!  I decided to move forward with the Trout with shrimp and was still excited about our appetizer selection...until I ordered the lobster and the waitress failed to previously mention that was out too.  Arg! In my next life I should be the person in charge of ordering food quantities for restaurants.  Mark suggested the Prosciutto wrapped Duck Confit instead and we went with that.  I have to say everything was so delicious that I forgot I didn't have what I originally intended.  The food here is very flavorful and fresh.  We capped off the night with dessert - I loved my carrot shaped carrot cake!

Next to our hotel was one of the Virginia Love Signs!  I think this is the first one I've seen, which seems surprising but is a nice way to sum up this anniversary post!

Arts in the Park

Yesterday we decided to check out Arts in the Park at Mason District Park in Annandale. Arts in the Park provides a series of kids entertainers at various Fairfax parks between 10-11am over the summer. The performer for yesterday was Mr. Gabe.  I think I've mentioned in a prior post that anytime we can get Mason to sit still for more than 5 minutes - its a miracle.  He was so into Mr. Gabe that he sat and listened for the first 15 minutes so I think we'll be seeing Mr. Gabe again and likely purchasing his CD. Mark and I were so excited about the lack of movement from Mason that we were nervous to talk, touch him, move, breathe too loud,etc.

Anyway, we liked that Mr. Gabe was interactive with the kids and his playlist included songs that everyone knew.  There were probably 75 people there, mostly families with kids under age 8. Since most of the amphitheater was in the sun everyone was mushed over on the shady side.  Since I wasn't sure what to expect, I packed a picnic blanket and that gave us lots of space under a tree.  Nice family activity to start off the weekend!

Blue Apron

A few things...first, this is going to be a long post and second, I can't believe I haven't written anything about cooking yet! When I have the time, I love to cook extravagant meals and host dinner parties and be fancy! That hasn't happened so much in the past 20 months but I still do cook family dinner 4-5 nights a week. I've been in a dinner rut of a rotation of things I know Mason will eat with us so I decided to try something new...I signed up for a 3 meal delivery from Blue Apron, which delivers proportioned ingredients and recipe cards to your doorstep weekly. I got home to a large box sitting on the front step and everything was wrapped in ice packs.

Monday - Vietnamese Chicken Wings - the best meal of the week!

Before:

After - the sauce on the chicken was so delicious!

Tuesday - Squid Ink Linguine Pasta

Before:

After:

Thursday - Summer Soba Salad

Before:

After:

The portions were fairly large and we liked that you could vary the spiciness to your preference.  The Blue Apron meals required a bit too much attention for me to manage this and keep an eye on Mason so since we prefer to have family dinner not sure this is the win for us at the point in time.

Anyway, I loved changing up our dinner this week and I saved the recipe cards so I could easily make anything again. Everything was delicious and easy to follow so maybe in the future! 

Nationals Game and Turkey Run Hike

On Saturday I headed to my first Nationals game of the season with the ladies. I find that anytime I go to a game with more than two other people, we never actually watch the game and it mostly becomes social time.  We should probably just meet at a bar but it's nice to be in the stadium. We all met in the BullPen to enjoy pre-game beverages.

I love that the stadium has so many upgraded food options.  Being a Mike Isabella fan, last year I was frequenting his G Sandwich Stand.  For this game I found two new delicious and exciting things:  1) An orange crush cart - great addition and just like being at Dewey! and 2) the salad at the Taqueria  - not your normal ballpark food but I needed something refreshing and light with the heat.

In the end, the Nats lost but great day out with the ladies!

On Sunday it was about a million degrees (again!) but we opted to go for a hike thinking the trees would keep us cool. We love to go hiking on Turkey Run Loop which is about 4 miles and generally takes us an hour.  The mixed terrain is great exercise and Barney loves that he can run down and play in the Potomac.  This ended up being quite a workout in the extreme heat, especially for Mark with Mason on his back!

This weekend was a good mix of friend and family time.  It was nice to do an activity with Barney too!

ClassPass Trial Week 1

I haven't been loving running as much as I did in my pre-baby days so I've been exploring other fitness options. Several of my friends do ClassPass and rave about it, so I emailed to inquire about trial promotions and they gave me two weeks free - perfect! Basically you pay $99/month and have access to a ton of gyms and boutique studios. There are currently 184 participating locations in the DC area. Within each month you can visit each studio (or chain) up to 3 times. My goal over the next two weeks is to try as many places as my schedule allows!

I signed up Sunday night and since then have visited four locations:

Pure Barre was my first stop on Monday! I loved the high energy, music and total body workout. The instructor spent some time with me prior to the class since it was my first time, which was great. The tough part was that the instructor doesn't do the whole class with you and there were close to 20 people so I ended up watching and following other students and probably could have used more help with technique. Anyway, it was a great workout and so fun!

On Tuesday I was still sore from my Barre class, so I decided to just go to a gym and hit the treadmill. Balance Gym at Foggy Bottom is right by my office so that worked out well.  This gym is actually located in the Fairmont Hotel so I didn't have high expectations but this gym is great and not a typical hotel gym. They have a ton of classes, equipment and a saltwater pool. I also liked that they had a massive locker room with showers and hairdryers. I could conveniently workout pre-work or over a long lunch on days I'm in the office - love that!

Thursday I checked out Barre: 60 at Barre Tech and I liked this better than Pure Barre. There were only 3 people in the class so I got lots of help with technique throughout and the instructor did the majority of the class with us. I also felt like there were more ballet movements and use of the actual barre. I also bought some "sticky socks" so I'm a legit Barre student now!

Today I checked out Body Ride at Revolve -what a great workout! The instructor focuses on formation first, pace second and resistance third, so it was really easy to jump in as a newbie. I was happily surprised that there were weight and stretching components to the class. I also liked that it was in the dark with great music and it was easy to zone out and forget that everyone was there except the instructor who was cheering you on via her headset. I was sweating up a storm but couldn't stop smiling through the whole class and all I could think of was Elle Woods, "Exercise gives you endorphins.  Endorphins make you happy."

Great workouts this week and after years of running alone it was nice to have all the encouragement from instructors! Pending the success of trial week 2 I'm leaning towards purchasing ClassPass!

The Beach at the National Building Museum

Today we grabbed brunch at The Liberty Tavern in Clarendon. I love this spot for brunch because we always have delicious meals and great service. Now that Mason eats regular food, I love it even more because it's $8.50 for children to have the full buffet so if he's being picky we have lots of options.

After brunch we decided to check out The Beach installation at the National Building Museum. Similar to many experiences we've had in the past year, I was not prepared for this. There was a hundred plus person line to buy tickets and then another hundred plus person line to get into the Beach. Luckily, a nice employee mentioned we could buy tickets on our phone and go to the advance ticket counter, which had no line. We got tickets within 5 minutes and Mark and Mason toured the other exhibits while I waited 45 minutes on the Beach line.

Finally we got in!

The Beach was basically a massive ball pit with loungers, umbrellas and even a Popsicle stand! What I found most surprising was the number of people who were there without kids. I was thinking this would be a family activity but there were lots of adults lounging and playing in the ball pit!

This was a little pricey at $16/adult but at least Mason was free.

Paint Nite!

The playgroup moms and I took some time for a Mom's Night Out and decided to check out Paint Nite.  I'm not the most artistic person so I was a little nervous but we opted for an easy level painting. It was held in a bar, and wine consumption was encouraged, so that works for me! We also took advantage of a Living Social deal so the activity was only $25 (wine not included).

Anyway, I was surprised at how much fun this was and the instructor made each step very easy to follow. The first step was to paint your canvas with water - nailed it (!!) so that was a big confidence booster! Here is the instructor's model...

Here I am busy at work...

And here we are with our awesome final products...

This won't be on my living room mantle but I'm pretty pleased with myself and would even do this again!  Great social evening activity and so nice to spent time with these ladies away from the kiddos! #Drinkcreatively