Happy Monday (or whatever day it is…) and good morning! Did you have a nice 3-day weekend? I was chatting with one of my sisters who has floating holidays, and she said there was no way she was going to take Good Friday off…because why would she waste a holiday when there’s no where to go? I’m in total agreement with that. Save ’em up for later in the year when we can hopefully get out and explore the city! I’m dreaming up my next trips I want to take, even though I have no idea when they might be. Nate and I were chatting about the trips we hope to take in 2021. I don’t know what life will look like then, but it doesn’t hurt to dream!
Speaking of dreaming…I’m missing my Austin restaurants so much! I’d love to go enjoy a chill Saturday evening at ABGB’s beer garden. I’ve still been getting lots of food to-go and enjoying it from the safety of my home (I follow these guidelines), but I miss sitting in pretty restaurants. A restaurant experience is about so much more than just the food, and I miss the ambiance and hearing the music and watching the other diners. But my family and I are still practicing social distancing (please do the same!) and here’s a little peek at our life at home:
Last weekend we went on a little picnic for Nate’s birthday. We took our Franklin BBQ (y’all! Easiest pickup ever! go order it if you’ve never had the chance to eat Franklin BBQ) and a few beers and enjoyed the gorgeous 70-degree Austin spring weather.
Milo kept reaching for my food. He’s getting to the stage where anything he can grab, he will!
This is my current workout situation at home: I do the Barre Code classes at home right now on my yoga mat with my iPad set up on a little stand. I’ll either take an on-demand class from a big batch of pre-recorded classes, or a live class, which is a very cool new thing they just added in. There are about 7 live classes every day. These are fun to me, because I have to actually sign up ahead of time, check in, and “attend” the class (even though they can’t see me) so I feel like I have more accountability with that. Which I NEED right now! Haha! Anyone else?
We go on so many walks every day. (I feel like I’m listening to ALL the podcasts. All of ’em.) Milo and I walk around our neighborhood while Nate’s working, and then Nate will take Milo on walks while I’m working. Sometimes we’ll also go on a family walk in the evenings or in the afternoons, so it just adds up to lots and lots of miles on our Vista stroller. Y’all, I love this stroller so. darn. much. SO much. It glides easily, is fun to push, Milo’s comfy in it, and it’s easy to collapse. If I had to do our baby registry all over again and just put 1 item on it, it wold be this stroller.
He loves his stroller! I’ll take one of his toys and attach it to an extra pacifier clip so he doesn’t lose his toys by tossing them out of the stroller. It looks absolutely ridiculous, because he has all of these toys and clips and bibs and stuff, but he’s pretty happy during the walks.
We walked past Allen’s Boots (one of the most iconic stores on South Congress) and saw it boarded up, along with almost every other store on that famous tourist street. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss the crowds on SOCO.
See what I mean? I snapped this on a day that would normally be really busy. I’ve never been able to push a stroller up this sidewalk without dodging people left and right. But right now, the street is totally empty. Austin feels a bit like a ghost town. I keep imagining that this might have been what it felt like back when it was a quiet little college town, before Austin became one of the fastest-growing cities in the US.
Nate and I have been getting lots of quality time together! (Haha…too much time, perhaps?) Every evening after Milo goes to bed we’ll make a cocktail or split a beer and turn on a tv show. If you know me at all, you know I’m constantly about 5 years behind on tv shows (I’ll probably be watching Tiger King in 2025.) We just got Disney+ and started watching Mandalorian.
Here’s a dinner that Nate made. Detroit-style pizza with pepperoni and jalapeño, similar to the popular Austin restaurant pizza chain Via 313’s The 500, minus the pineapple.
He also seared these pork chops from our Snack Share box (see a bunch of Austin grocery delivery options here). This was one of those tag-team dinners, where I started chopping and measuring to marinate the pork in the afternoon while Nate was working, and then he took over and finished the meal in the evening while I was working. I think we ate around 8 pm on this night.
Hi pretty latte art! Nate bought himself an espresso machine and has been working on his rosettas lately. Some of them are pretty questionable…but this one was good. Haha.
And this one? Not so good. I think he called it a “sprouting bunny.”
I love organizing my little spaces! So far I’ve “Marie Kondo’d” all of the bookshelves in the house, my bathroom drawers, and a set of shelving near the kitchen. I still have to my master closet, our laundry nook, Milo’s closet, and the pantry. It’s so invigorating to spend 30 minutes transforming a small space and making it more functional.
Well, I’m definitely to the point of quarantine life where I’m baking all the time. I made a batch of peanut butter cookies and some banana bread in one afternoon, and then I realized I had used up almost all of our butter and I had to slow down. Haha.
Sweet little sleeping boy! He’s pretty much out of his SNOO now, and this is one of the last pictures I snapped of him sleeping in it. (PS: see my review of our SNOO basinet here.) He’s sleeping through the night in his crib now. Such a big boy.
That’s a quick peek into life at home! Lots of food and coffee and walks and together-ness. These days are weird, but I’ve gotta say that I’m thankful that we’re all safe and snug in our house right now. We’re getting lots of time as a family!
