Sipping at Southern Tier

This has become one of our favorite go-to places when we’re in Chautauqua.  We stumbled across the Southern Tier brewery a few years ago and have marveled at their continuous expansion.  This Thanksgiving weekend, Greg and Megan treated themselves to Southern Tier ski hats.  So stinking cute those two!

Browns Game and Family Traditions

My husband has been a Browns season ticket holder for a few years now and we love going as a family.  The first year, we only had two season passes, so we would take turns for who went each game.  Then we upgraded to three seats, which ups the odds of who gets to go and who sits at home.  During this game, it was just us girls and we had so much fun.  Great weather, great view, great time with my girls. And lots of sun - as you can see from B squinting!

Turkey Trot 2014

A tradition I simply won’t miss.  My first TT was Thanksgiving 2003.  This would be my 11^th.  Some Turkey Trots I ran with Greg, some alone, a few with B in the jogging stroller, I even ran during the pregnancy (only the 1-miler), and most recently, a few with Megan completing the 5-mile distance with me.  Whether she understands it or not, she’s locked in from here going forward.  Her reward is a calorie free day of eating and a venti Starbucks post-race.  Hello, Thanksgiving Day tradition!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Brrr! It was cold and icy!

Learning to Ice Skate

I signed Bridget up for her first ice skating lesson.  We live in the snow belt where winter sports are big.  Meg learned to ice skate at 5 and I even learned to ice skate with her.  They have this neat little event for the kids called Friday Night Skate and Meg grew up loving this evening with her friends.  I figured it was time for B to learn to skate as well and, in the next year or two, she would also be enjoying FNS.

                                                                  
It was so cute watching her skate out there pushing the cone for balance.  By the end of the first lesson, she had shed the cone and was (timidly) forward skating end to end.  So proud of my little doodlebug!

Popsugar - Who Knew?!

Meg had received a Popsugar subscription as a birthday/Christmas present last year and had been trying to convince me that I needed to subscribe as well.  I finally broke down and now I’m hooked.  I’ve been enjoying the first of my six-month subscription and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be giving Popsugar subscriptions as Christmas presents this year.  I mean, seriously, who doesn’t love receiving mail – especially when it’s cool little fashion finds?!

And the 21st Birthday Celebration Continues

Let’s be clear.  She’s getting older.  I am not.  She may be 21, but I am just 21 and change (a lot of change….but who’s counting, right?).

For her 21^st birthday, we originally planned to go to Vegas (similar to Rory and Lorelai who went to Atlantic City and played 21 when Rory turned 21.  If you don't follow the Gilmore Girls, then can we even be friends?).  But Meg’s been to Vegas a few times already and it wasn’t as exciting to her to celebrate her big birthday there.  Instead, she asked if we could do Napa and enjoy wine and good food.  Are you kidding me? That’s a dream trip, right?  But before we could square away the plans, she changed her mind and asked if we could instead have a weekend trip to Gervasi Vineyard and invite a few of her college girlfriends to toast the big birthday.  Turned out to be a perfect choice.

The girls arrived and we enjoyed a bottle of wine in the lobby of our villa before going over to dinner.  It was nice to just unwind from our drives and catch up.  Dinner was strange, to say the least, because our waiter went into panic mode not knowing who was 21 and who was not.  Instead of simply handling this by “carding” everyone, he just panicked and didn’t come back to our table for over 20 minutes.  Seriously? This was not the wonderful experience I was hoping we would all have.  Eventually, we managed to get our food, but we only saw him one other time to check on us.  Pretty crappy server experience (although the food was delicious) so thank goodness the rooms and the lobby would soon make up for that.

After dinner, the girls opened their goody bags.  When you’re a little kid, every mom gives out goody bags to the kids before leaving a birthday party.  You usually got stickers, or bubbles, or a small toy.  For these girls, I had to be a little more clever.  Each got a face mask, lipstick, face wipes, champagne, and hair bands and other little girly things.  What I didn’t expect is that they would all bust out the face masks, don their robes and have a slumber party! What a great evening of face masks, robes, wine and cupcakes and doritos (a little know fact: doritos have no calories when it's your birthday).  We then broke out the games and played Headbanz for adults and had the best evening!

Happy 21st Birthday, Pumpkin!

Even though she's away at college, there was no way I was going to let her celebrate her 21st birthday and us not be together.  So I planned a little surprise.  I texted Meg that I had her favorite coffee drink waiting for her at Kofenya and she just had to run up there, tell the barista, and it was my way of making sure we shared a coffee drink on her birthday (she thought I was in Cleveland).  She showed up at Kofenya, thinking she was just "picking up her coffee" and instead, I surprised her by actually being there.  Best part was hearing her scream, "Mom!" across the coffee house...and then we both hugged, cried a little and sat there just like Lorelai and Rory at Luke's Diner enjoying coffee on her birthday.

I can't believe you're 21...time moves way too fast.  Love you, pumpkin!

Another Halloween Race in the Bag

I love our little tradition of running a Halloween race in costume.  B and I have been doing this since our first race in 2010 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with me pushing B throug a hilly 10k race.  This year, we ran the Brecksville 5k Trick or Trot race and B was amazing.  We both made our costumes this year - she was Batman (Batgirl!) and I was Robin (oh, the irony, I know).  Best of all, she scored her first PR by besting her previous 5k time by 2 minutes!  So next year, the goal is to break 39:xx!