Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Labor Day Long Weekend

Happy Tuesday! Who else is looking forward to a shorter 4-day work week? Just me? ;) We had a nice look weekend here. It was a quiet one since but that's Covid life for you. I worry about what the case numbers are going to look like after this long weekend... Our leadership in MN has asked people to be very careful about decisions they are making in their personal life because they are seeing a lot of case growth from social gatherings, weddings, etc - not from trips to the grocery store where everyone is wearing masks... With some students going back to school in person, I hope people made good decisions about how they spent their weekends but we'll see...

Despite it being a quieter weekend, we still had a good one. The temps dropped and most of the weekend felt fall-like with the exception of Sunday which was warm and humid! But I figure that's one of the last really warm, humid days we'll have so I embraced it. Here are some highlights from our weekend!

Rock throwing:

We live close to a creek and walk by it on every walk we take. Throwing rocks at the creek is a favorite activity for both of my boys! I'm a terrible rock skipper so I usually hang back and take pictures.



Park time:

We went to the park every day! It was pretty quiet at the park since many families go to their lake homes on long weekends. On Monday, we met my friend and her son at a new-to-us park. It was a nice small park and we were the only ones there which was great!


Baking and kitchen play:

I baked with Paul for the first time on Saturday. It went better than I expected! He dumped all of the ingredients in, except the peanut butter, did some of the stirring, and anxiously waited for the cookies to be done. His favorite part was sampling the chocolate chips, hence the chocolate on his face in the picture below! We need to do something low sugar next time because he's been asking for cookies with every meal!




He also spent quite a bit of time playing with the kitchen set that our friends lent to us! He's very into pretend play right now so I think this toy will get a lot of use! In the picture below he's making pasta for me.


Good eats:

I did a bad job of taking pictures of meals we made, but this was one of my favorites. I marinated the shrimp in some jarred pesto that I wanted to use up and then we grilled them in a grill basket and enjoyed them with grilled asparagus and corn on the cob. Yum! I also made a pork taco recipe from my instant pot cook book which turned out good. It was a mojo pork recipe so featured a lot of citrus.


Reading:

And of course our weekend featured a whole lot of reading! I picked up some library books for Paul last week and both were a hit - especially "What Kind of Car Does a T. Rex Drive" since he's so into dinosaurs right now! I finished "Sea Wife" over the weekend, which I burned through in 2 days and started "Saint X" which is sooo good! I also got my first Food Network magazine at the start of the weekend. I haven't subscribed to a magazine in probably 7+ years, but we lured by a prime deal. My mom gets the Food Network magazine and I love paging through it when we are up there so I figured it was a subscription I'd enjoy and get some meal inspiration from.



How was your long weekend?

9 comments:

Carolina John said...

I get a 3 day work week this time! it's nice, but only because of the surgery friday :(

That shrimp plate looks fantastic

Jeanie said...

I am such a shrimp strumpet. I have to do that!

The cookie baking looks such fun, but then it all does. SO nice you could enjoy a long weekend together.

Abby said...

What a perfect weekend!! That meal looks absolutely delicious!! Good for you for taking the patience and time to bake with Paul! I know that it is not easy, but I think that kind of skill and time is so valuable. I will have to send you this IG page I follow where she bakes treats with her toddler - and some of them are healthier/low sugar recipes. She posted this recipe of lentil muffins the other day that looked pretty cool!

I worry about the outcome after the weekend as well in terms of COVID numbers...

You're so lucky to live so close to a creek!! Makes for fun walks with your boys!

Our weekend was super productive. We cleaned out our 2 guest rooms & closets, to get 1 of them ready for the future nursery and the other one ready to be my official "office". Cleaned out the garden. Did a little date night to our favorite Mexican restaurant up the street. And then Monday night we did have some friends over for a BBQ. It is friends kind of in our "covid circle" - and we were outside mostly! It was the 1st time having people over since my bday. Felt good to cook and entertain again...

dailycandy said...

I love your book recommendations. I always pull up my Henn Co Library account and request away when you give a good rating :)

The Lean Green Bean has some good desserts for kids that are lower sugar. Paul might go for some!

I just finished The Stranger and loved it.

Stephany said...

"We need to do something low sugar next time because he's been asking for cookies with every meal!" SAME, PAUL, SAME. My snacking is out of control with this pandemic, haha.

My long weekend was mostly spent packing and preparing for my move, so I'm glad I had an extra day to focus on that! I did sneak away to spend some time in my mom's pool, which was SO nice. On Sunday, I realized I hadn't seen a human face-to-face in QUITE a while and I needed to remedy that, haha.

Grateful Kae said...

That looks like a great weekend! So relaxing. Those are the kinds of weekends I really love- doing a lot of low key things that just leave you feeling refreshed. The cookies sound like fun. And I'm jealous of the creek! Beautiful. Looks a place you'd travel miles to find. We live by a nice park that has a pond too, but it's not as wooded as that creek area.

Our weekend was mostly tied up with a lot of stuff related getting the new hot tub up and running...my Dad was here and built new steps out of our garage too where we had the concrete patio replaced recently. We had a lot of yard work to do too as the concrete guys left quite a mess and we need to re-seed a big area (we extended the patio and required grading). We did do some other fun stuff though.

Gracie said...

How fun you can cook with Paul now! My long weekend was...running a relay for 31+ hours, so not exactly restful, lol. Monday we spent with David's family as his dad had just had surgery and appreciated the company /help. I actually took Tuesday off, too, but for medical reasons - I had to have two more MRIs and my dentist had to redo a filling for the SECOND time. Tiny little filling and he keeps messing it up! At least he isn't charging me for the re-do.

San said...

What a full, fun weekend. It seems like with kids, you always have to have a bunch of "activities" lined up ;)

Jolene - EverydayFoodie said...

Food Network is the only magazine I subscribe to. It renews automatically, otherwise I'd probably cancel, as I have too many bookmarked recipes, recipes torn from magazines, recipes tabbed in books, saved recipes on different apps, etc. that it is overwhelming. I think I need to stop my constant stream of seeing new things I want to make, as I'll never get to them all. That's cute that you and Pablo baked together for the first time <3