Hi friends! Spring has arrived in DC and the flowers are all starting to bloom.
It’s fun to see the explosion of life through Riese’s eyes – she always reminds me to slow down and notice the little things, like a tiny flower popping up out of the ground, or the little green buds starting to appear on leaves.
We’ve been taking advantage of the weather and getting outdoors a lot more – whether to the playground after school, or on little hiking adventures which Riese never wants to go on but then has a blast once we are out there. 😉
That’s our friend Shane ahead of her in the pic below!
Wes is still a super smiley little guy (except at 4am…) and pretty much up for whatever. 🙂
He’ll be 10 months in a few days and is getting quite heavy now – hiking around with him strapped to me is a serious workout!
You can only kind of see it in the photo below but there’s a Frozen-themed bandaid on his hat, obviously… #RieseWasHere
I’ve been enjoying running more consistently, too!
I’m feeling a little sad running-wise because tomorrow morning is the DC Rock n Roll Half Marathon, and I’m technically signed up for it, but only because it was deferred from March 2020 when it got cancelled last minute.
My friend Kathleen, who I trained with and was supposed to run it with 2 years ago, is going to do it this year, but I’m just not anywhere near where I’d need to be running-wise to do a half marathon right now.
It was the right call for sure because pushing it and trying to ramp up running quickly probably would’ve just gotten me injured (or at the very least just made me really exhausted), but it’s hard to not feel a little sad I won’t be out there to run one of my favorite races with a good friend!
Oh well – there’s always next year, right?
I’m comfortably doing 3 (sometimes 4)ish miles once or twice a week now, though, and that feels like a really good step in the right direction and like what I can handle physically and logistically at the moment.
I’ve been running on weekdays some with a couple moms from Riese’s school, which has been wonderful, and I had a big treat last weekend which was that my friend and long lost running buddy Ashley was in town visiting!
Long term readers will recognize Ashley as my original running buddy from when I first started my blog over a decade ago (!) and was getting into running and racing more seriously!
We trained for my very first 10 miler (<- that’s the first race recap on my blog, from way back in October 2009!), and my very first half marathon (<- recap from June 2010, it was SO HOT and SO hard but I did it), and many other races together!
I miss her so much… she lives in San Diego now.
Great to get out for a run together like old times! We ran along the Mt. Vernon trail in the Old Town area, starting at Daingerfield Island.
We covered about 5 miles, but probably walked 1.5 miles of that. Thankfully she was up for whatever in terms of running vs. walking!
Ashley and I also took Wes down to the cherry blossoms around the tidal basin in DC on Tuesday morning, which was a fun treat!
When Ashley saw she was going to be in town during cherry blossom peak bloom, we knew we had to check them out together! We parked on the street near the East Potomac Tennis Center area, and then walked over to the tidal basin from there which wasn’t far.
We were there mid-morning and there were lots of people out and about, but it wasn’t insanely crowded which was nice – nothing like weekend-level crowds!
Now that Wes takes good long naps in his crib, I’m not usually willing to blow up his nap schedule, but for the cherry blossoms and a visiting friend it was worth it!
He took a short nap in the car and in the stroller (still in the car seat) once we got there, but loud buses and helicopters and such quickly woke him up.
Thankfully he went with the flow and rolled with it and all of us had a nice time!
We did a big loop walking all the way around the tidal basin. I always love seeing the cherry blossoms!
I usually run down to them at sunrise because they are incredibly gorgeous at that hour (and it’s even less crowded), but the logistics of two kids, nursing Wes, and getting Riese ready for school and out the door and all that feels like a little too much for sunrise runs in the city these days.
Maybe next year… 🙂
Until next year, cherry blossoms! I think they are still blooming for a few more days, so if any of you are local and want to check them out – it’s not too late! 🙂
Hot tip: you can check out the @CherryBlossomWatch Instagram account if you want updates on their status.
On to the food!
On the food front, I’ve been enjoying spring-inspired fresh produce, and also having evening light for food photography!
As usual, most of our dinners recently have been courtesy of my ongoing sponsor Blue Apron (<- affiliate link for $110 off across 5 boxes, plus free shipping on your first box).
Here are some of the highlights, starting with these delicious Turkey & Mushroom Lettuce cups with Peanut Soy Sauce!
Matt and I love lettuce wraps so I always select them anytime I see them on the Blue Apron menu! We just usually add some carbs to the mix to make them more filling – to these I added some unpictured brown rice, which also worked well because Riese and Wes ate some of the rice.
Matt and I usually trade off who cooks, and whoever does the cooking kind of gets a mini vacation to be honest because the other person is busy wrangling the kids. 😉
It’s nice to turn on some fun music or a podcast, pour a glass of wine or some kombucha, and get in the flow of prepping and cooking for a bit!
Another recent Blue Apron fave was this One-Pan Greek Chicken Thighs with Potatoes, Lemon, and Feta. Anytime lemon and feta are involved, count me in.
One thing I love about Blue Apron is they introduce us to unique ingredients – for example, have you ever seen/tried Romanesco Cauliflower?
We hadn’t! Here’s what it looks like:
Cool, right? Riese was super intrigued by it.
It was roasted and tasted like normal cauliflower – so, delicious! I always love roasted cauliflower, it’s by far my favorite way to prepare it.
It went with some Dijon-Roasted Trout & Potatoes and a Honey-Olive Vinaigrette that was really good, too.
As you can see Zara (our cat) thought she should have been invited to dine with us… sorry, Zara, that’s Matt’s chair. 🙂
And that’s all I have for you today! I hope you have a nice weekend and I’ll see you back here on Tuesday.
Any fun spring-inspired plans this weekend?
And anyone local (or coming into town) running the DC Rock n Roll this weekend?
