Hi friends!
As I mentioned in last week’s post, we celebrated my birthday last week, and I got surprised with this very impressive candle situation:
My mom took me (and Wes) out to lunch at Cafe Milano in Georgetown in DC on my birthday.
It’s a fancy spot and we thought it would be a nice treat for the occasion – plus, they have a decent amount of outdoor seating which is key for these times + rolling up with a stroller!
Wes’s birthday gift to me was chilling happily in the stroller (and then snoozing a bit) while we ate.
Total win, that could have definitely gone the other way 😉 (Big sister was at preschool, in case you’re wondering!)
My mom and I shared some salads to start – one of these is a salmon tartare with avocado and it was super good, but the others were amazing too. Everything was really fresh.
And then I had a shrimp dish for my entree plus some bites of my mom’s pasta.
I was thinking this would come with pasta, too, but I ended up being full enough from all the appetizers that it worked out!
For dinner on my birthday, Matt took me (and Wes again) out too!
We decided to hire a sitter for Riese (there are two teenage girls on our street that Riese LOVES which has been a huge win) since we’d be out a little late for her, and we stuck with the Italian theme and walked the stroller over to the Elo’s Italian pop up in the Live Oak restaurant space in Del Ray.
Cheers!
My dinner date. 🙂
Close up of our appetizer salads because aren’t they beautiful with the edible flowers? That burrata was soooo good.
For our entrees, he got the steak and I got a pasta dish and we shared. Because I always want more than just one flavor/meal!
Wes was a good restaurant buddy again – we take him out a lot so he’s gotten used to it thankfully, and since we always sit outside that helps make it less stressful in case he gets fussy.
Over the weekend on Saturday we did a fun hike + winery visit per my request to cap off the birthday celebrations.
Yes, obviously Riese wanted to go hiking in a dress.
We decided to hike at a nice spot near Clifton called Hemlock Overlook Regional Park – it’s right by a winery so we were able to park in one spot and access both places which was perfect.
It was so beautiful out on Saturday – this was such a nice treat! And Riese only spent about half the hike complaining/wanting to go back to the car so I consider that a win. 😉
After our hike we walked over to Paradise Springs Winery – there were a lot of people there since it was so nice out but they have a ton of property so it didn’t feel crowded at all!
Matt and I got the sparkling rose (my request, obviously) and it was REALLY good. Highly recommend.
And they had a pizza truck – perfect because an early dinner was necessary for all of us after the hike!
Riese ended up having a blast at the winery because she made friends with a group of fellow 4 year olds who were running around in the grassy area, and turns out one of their moms reads my blog – hi, Kalee! Thanks for letting Riese crash your husband’s birthday party and also eat one of his cupcakes. 😉 Loved meeting y’all!
With how hot it was all summer + hectic newborn life + always having stuff to do around the house I feel like we hadn’t gotten out together as a family to do a local weekend outing like this in quite awhile – it will be nice to take advantage of stuff like this more while the weather is good!
I hope you have a nice week, friends – stay tuned for a new recipe coming at you on Friday – it’s a good one you won’t want to miss.
