On Tuesday evening, after all of Mio and Dan’s hard work making their snowman, we went out for a little family froyo date before dinner. 🙂
Family Froyo Date
Foodie Love
As self-proclaimed foodies, we love to dish about good eats.
Baking with Mio
Something I’ve always wanted to do with my children is bake with them. Ever since I was a little girl, I always loved baking cakes, cookies, and all kinds of treats for the family. (My mom was much more the cooking type so I did all the baking in the house from an early age.) I always imagined that baking together would be a fun way for mothers and daughters to bond and have fun in the kitchen together, and now that I’m a mom of girls, I am excited about fully indulging myself in such fantasies, whether my girls will like it or not! Mio’s at an age where she can understand and follow most directions, is curious and interested in doing grownup things, and usually eager to help. It was rainy earlier today, and I thought it might be the perfect opportunity to stay indoors and try some mommy & me baking for the first time together! The project? To make red bean buns shaped like Mio’s favorite characters! I’d never actually attempted this particular recipe before, so in hindsight it was probably a little too ambitious and involved for our first collaboration together… but I really wanted to produce something that Mio would love!
Though I of course ended up doing most of the work, Mio had a lot of fun being involved and helping with some of the steps here and there, and of course she excelled in the role she loves most — eating the finished treat! I’d say our first baking experience together was a success. I’m looking forward to many more countless baking adventures together with my sweet daughter(s)!
Five Year Wedding Anniversary
July 26th marked our five year wedding anniversary, and while continue to have daily nausea and am not really able to enjoy food these days, we still wanted to keep with our tradition of going to a nice anniversary dinner to celebrate. My parents volunteered to watch Mio while we dined at Nostos, a delicious local Greek restaurant in Tysons Corner.
I’m so happy to be celebrating five years since our wedding, and a decade since embarking on this journey together! I’m so grateful to have such a wonderful husband; especially these days when pregnancy fatigue and nausea have flattened me like a steamroller, he takes care of Mio when he gets back from work so I can get some extra rest, goes on late night runs to bring me whatever food I might be able to stomach even when I don’t ask him to, and just picks up the slack wherever I am failing. Thank you Dan for being the best husband to me and father to our children, my best friend, biggest supporter, daily foot-masseuse, personal cookie baker and sandwich chef, and just being my favorite person in the world. To many more years together… I love you! ♥
A Weekend in Philadelphia
My best friend Debbie moved up to Philadelphia earlier this year for her postdoc, and I’ve been wanting to visit her for a while now. Dan assured me that he could watch Mio for a weekend while I took the bus up from DC to go hang out with her, so I was able to finally make the trip this past weekend! As much as I missed Mio and Dan while I was away, it was so nice and relaxing to take a break from motherhood for a couple days and enjoy some girlfriend time. I’ve known Debbie since we were freshmen in high school, and my fondest memories are of us hanging out in college together, being roommates and watching movies and just chatting and pigging out on delicious eats. Last weekend felt almost like those good old college days all over again!
I woke up at dark o’clock to go into DC and take the bus from Union Station up to Philly, and got there in the late morning. We promptly headed over to Chinatown to get some dim sum!
After brunch, we got us some bubble teas and walked around some of the parks in Philadelphia and UPenn’s campus.
Later in the afternoon, we went to the movie theater and watched Sofia Coppola’s latest film The Bling Ring. It was really interesting, especially because it’s based on true events and how accurate its portrayal is.
We stayed up late chatting and watching criminal documentary shows like 48 Hours, and reminiscing about high school and college days! It felt like we were in our old dorm room 251 Slusher all over again (except Debbie’s apartment is much much nicer!). We got to sleep in until almost 11am the following morning (unheard of these days as Mio is usually sure to wake me by at latest 8am), and then we went out to get some lunch before I had to catch the bus to go back down to DC.
Many thanks to Debbie for her awesome hospitality and taking me around to eat so many delicious things and see such cool sights in Philadelphia! I felt like we ate so much in a short weekend — my tummy, heart and soul returned to DC full and happy. ♥ Thank you so much bestest!
North Beach
We took our first trip to the beach this summer on Sunday, when we went to North Beach, Maryland, which is part of the Chesapeake and only an hour drive away. (We had originally planned to go to Rehoboth but decided to save that for a whole weekend when we could stay overnight, as it’s a 3 hour drive away.) North Beach was a cute little town and while the beach was small, it was pretty private and ideal for small children in that there were no strong waves and the water remained shallow pretty far in. We felt that it was a really safe beach for Mio to splash around in.
At first, Mio was very upset and reluctant about stepping onto the sand, and just kept pointing at the water saying “ocean!” from our beach mat, imploring us to just carry her over to the water so that her little feet wouldn’t have to to touch the dreaded sand. Once she got into the water, though, she loved it and kept going in and out and splashing around in it with Daddy for about two hours! The Atlantic is so much warmer than the Pacific waters that we’d taken Mio to in California and Hawaii, so this was the first time she could really stay in the water for a long time without freezing! By the end, she didn’t even seem to notice the sand because she’d had so much fun.
After spending a few hours on the beach, we packed up, enjoyed some Rita’s Italian Ice and then headed to lunch at Neptune’s Seafood Pub nearby because we were craving shrimp! All the food there was delicious, and Mio discovered how much she loves sour cream. (She kept dipping every food she tried in the sour cream, and then ended up just scooping it up by the handful with her little fingers. She definitely has her Daddy’s taste buds, because I hate sour cream.)
I love that summer is officially here and I look forward to more little mini trips and outings to the beaches in the area! 🙂