Pizza night, Halloween party, relaxing

Overall, the past weekend was really quite relaxing… or at least for me. I didn’t spend a lot of time at my apartment since I screwed up and broke my heat. With the temps we had in Boston over the weekend, this wasn’t the best time to break the heat. Needless to say, I spent Friday working like this:

IMG_5542

I was so grumpy and frustrated with myself by the end of the day. There’s nothing I hate more than doing something stupid that ends up costing me money. I was tempted to just stay in and drink wine by myself, but I decided to pull myself together and take someone up on their offer to grab pizza and a drink at Santarpio’s Pizza.

IMG_5546

Totally worth it and I felt much better after! Santarpio’s has totally lived up to its name, too… loved, loved, loveddd the pizza!

Saturday started off with kickboxing and then I got to do one of my favorite things to do in the kitchen: frost cookies!! There is something so relaxing about frosting cookies… and, ok, maybe I love it so much because I get to eat frosting throughout the process. I could literally eat frosting by the spoonful. Anyone else like this?

IMG_5549

For me, holiday’s are not complete without funfetti cookies, so I make a point to bring them to every holiday party that I go to.

Rachel and her husband, Dan, had a Halloween party on Saturday night, so I headed over to my old apartment to hang out with my sister and Amy before going to the party. I reused a costume and went as a flapper.

IMG_5557

Rachel’s apartment was so festive! Everywhere I looked there was glitter and cobwebs and other “Halloween” stuff. I couldn’t help but have some of her famous sangria… my favorite part of every party she has 😉

IMG_5554IMG_5552

It was so nice to go to a house party where you can actually have conversations with people… and snuggle babies!

IMG_5561 IMG_5560

Thanks for a fun party, Rachel!

Sunday was another relaxing day… spent mostly at my old apartment. Since they had heat and I did not, it made sense to go hang out with them. My sister and I also had to plan our Chicago trip, so it made for a good afternoon to hang out there! She made us pizza for lunch… yummm.

IMG_5565

When I left the girls’ apartment, I did my weekly grocery shopping and was so excited to have time to make a real meal! It’s been far too long. I’ll share the recipe with you later this week, but it was delicious and a perfect warm, fall meal to eat.

And here we are… another week! I am happy to have heat back, that’s for darn sure!

Questions for you: What’s your favorite pizza place? Do you love frosting or are you more of a cake person? Do you have a Halloween costume? If so, what were you? What was the best part of your weekend?

Tia’s, Baby Zeke and Maine- Weekend Recap!

Hey there! Has everyone cooled done a bit? I’ll tell ya, working from home on a Monday is ALMOST as nice as working from home on a Friday! There’s something about not having to do food prep and “week prep” on a Sunday night, especially after coming home from Maine, that is SO nice. Sunday evenings are drastically better when that’s the case.

Friday

My friend, Cristina, hosted a Lupus Fundraising event at Tia’s on Friday night after work. With the weather temps at over 90 degrees, I couldn’t think of a more perfect place to spent a Friday evening!

1460Not only did I get to hang out with my college girlfriends, but my friend, Stephanie, was also there! Steph and I went to the same high school and used to Rollerblade down Main street in Sanford in the summers. #classy

1466

1465The whole time we were at Tia’s, we were checking our phones since we knew Sara was most likely going to have little Zeke at some point that night. Sure enough, around 8:30, we got THE text from Amy that we had been waiting for! Baby Zeke Aronson White was born!!!! And boy was he beautiful! I think Danielle and I made everyone at Tia’s cheers to baby Zeke! We are proud “Aunts” of this little boy 🙂

Saturday

I got up and packed an overnight bag since Danielle and I were going to head up to Maine right from the YMCA after my class. Class was sweaty and awesome, but to be honest, my mind was TOTALLY focused on going home to meet Zeke that I can barely even remember what I taught! I hope everyone liked it, though 🙂

We got to Sanford around 1:15 and drove straight to the hospital. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking, but I will say that Zeke is the most beautiful little boy and has a wholeeeee lot of people who are already so in love with him! Sara looked like a beaming mom and it was so sweet to see her interacting with Zeke. She was in labor for about 20 hours with unreal contractions and the kicker was that she couldn’t get the epidural 😦 Sara was fully on board with getting one, too, but things moved so quickly once they broke her water that it was too late to give her the epidural. Poor thing! I can’t imagine how tired and physically beat she was. Anyway, here he is!

14771471

1468

 1472

sara and zeke

(mom and baby! I had Sara send me a pic of her with Zeke when I was writing up this post since I realized I only had pictures of Zeke being held by other people… we were baby hogs!)

happy zeke

(and then she sent me this! I wonder what he is dreaming about that makes him smile?!)

1475

We stayed at the hospital with Sara until about 5pm when we decided to give her and Tim some time to themselves. Once we got home we had a really nice cocktail hour on the back patio with mom and dad.

1480

Not long after we poured drinks, Amy and Chris stopped by to do more baby gushing and celebrating!

1484

1486

We all decided it was too hot to BBQ or cook, so we ordered food from the Corner Store (literally right next door) and called it good. While it tasted delicious, I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst stomach ache 😦 Such a fun, impromptu little get together, though! Sara, congratulations on your new little baby boy. I cannot wait to spend so much time with both of you and to be able to watch him grow up!

Sunday

I woke up early (I mean, I was in bed at 10pm, so no wonder why I was up early!) and decided to go visit my very good high school friend, Caitlin. She was due to have her little baby boy on June 1st, but he decided he wasn’t ready to come out quite yet! As I was leaving the driveway, I caught a glimpse of the huge snapping turtle who crosses our lawn each year to get from the brook behind our house to the pond across the street in order to lay her eggs. She was HUGE!

1489

Anyway! For Caitlin’s sake, I hope he decides to grace the world with his presence sooner rather than later! I hadn’t seen Cait in far, far too long, but like always, as soon as we get together, it’s like nothing has changed; the true sign of friendship! She is the most adorable little pregnant lady (she literally just has a basket ball belly!) and I am so bummed I didn’t get a picture of her. Can’t wait to meet her little one!

When I got home from my visit, Dad and Danielle had already done all the potato planting.. bummer! Since there was nothing else to do to help around the house, we took advantage of the sunny (but HOT) weather and sun bathed on the back patio.

1490 1491

We decided to hit the road relatively early so that we could go grocery shopping and unpack and grab dinner (since it was too hot to cook). We walked to the grocery store (about a 1/2 mile away) to get a little exercise since we did nothing all day but relax in the sun! For dinner, we kept it casual and grabbed apps at Not Your Average Joes. I got their special “Strawberry Rhubarb Sangria” which was SO SO SO delicious! And BIG! Look at this thing!

1493I got the Tai Chicken Lettuce Wraps for dinner and they were quite tasty.

1494Filling, but in a light way.. perfect for hot weather!

Well, there ya go! Fun-filled weekend surrounded by friends, family and a new baby!

Questions for you: What did you do to stay cool last weekend? Favorite summer cocktail? Any new babies in your lives? Do share!

Scenes from Saturday

Good morning! I am about to head out to spend the day at the Wellness by the Water Retreat, but wanted to pop in and show you some scenes from yesterday! Enjoy!

011

013

014

015

016

017

018

019  022 023

Feeling Greek

Good morning and happy Monday! Did everyone have a nice weekend? I think we last left off with me sharing our girls night, right? So fun! After publishing that post yesterday, I got very busy with my “Sunday things,” including a Target run, cooking, baking and going for a nice walk.

017How nice was the weather yesterday?! I couldn’t get over it! And I’ll tell ya, gabbing with mom for 30 minutes of my walk definitely helped to pass the time- thanks mom:)

Feeling Greek

With a name like Monique Gagnon, you might be wondering how on earth I could ever feel Greek, right?  Well, last night my sister was invited to her study abroad program’s 50th anniversary at Vlora Restaurant which is on Boylston Street in the Back Bay, and she invited me to join her.  We dined there a few years ago for Danielle’s birthday because she was missing Greek food (she studied abroad in Athens, Greece in the fall of 2009) and have always wanted to go back, so I obviously jumped at the opportunity!

020

026As soon as we walked in, they showed us where to go and gave us the tip to order the Sangria- twist my arm- I LOVE sangria!

021My intentions going into this were to have a couple of apps and then save myself to have dinner at home since I had made a delicious looking veggie sauce and chicken sausage (recipe to come soon!), but after chatting (so nice to meet you, Rebecca) and enjoying some adult beverages, I decided that I should probably just make myself a plate. I mean, I love the food there so my meal at home could definitely wait!

027

025

I had a chicken skewer, some grilled veggies, an Arancini ball (total splurge, but so worth it!), tomato and feta skewers and some goat cheese/honey mixture.  Not pictured were the watermelon and feta bites- holy yum! The most refreshing little treat! Definitely check out their menu because if you like Greek/Mediterranean food, it’s totally drool-worthy!

We got home just after 8:30, meaning we were able to catch Revenge! Anyone else following that? Anyone else think that it’s getting a little twisted now?

Social Media

Are you guys following and “liking” me? If you are- thank you!!! If not, check me out:)

Instagram- @burpeestobubbly

Twitter- @burpeestobubbly

Facebook- facebook.com/burpeestobubbly

I hope everyone has a great Monday! I am working from home which always makes Monday seem a little better. I plan on getting my own workout in this morning/today and then teaching Dynamax at the YMCA.

Questions for you: Are you a fan of Greek food? What’s your favorite non-American style food? Do anything share-worthy over the weekend? I love to hear from you!