A few months ago, my friend Lauren had a great idea for all of us to get tickets to go to a Red Sox game during their home opener weekend. I think we all know I’m not a huge sports fan (or fan at all), but I never turn down a chance to do something fun with my friends, so I was all in! I can’t say I wasn’t a little nervous about going to an outdoor sporting even in early April, especially with the crappy weather we’ve been having in New England, but lucky for us, Sunday ended up being an absolutely gorgeous day! 
Lauren ended up getting us amazing seats in the bleacher section, just a few rows from the field- well done, my friend. 
Although my college friends and I are in communication via text or email fairly often, it’s not always easy to get us all together in person these days. While not all of us were able to make the game, a good amount of us and our significant others were! It was so nice to be able to catch up with everyone; I can’t say I watched any much of the game, but my socializing skills were top notch 😉 
Post game, we headed to Landsdowne Pub for another drink. Icing definitely happened, which was amazing. 
Spending a sunny, relatively warm Sunday afternoon at the Red Sox game with some of my favorite people was the perfect way to end the weekend! Thanks for setting it up, Lauren! 
Questions for you: What’s your favorite sport? Do you like going to games? Do you get together with your friends a lot?
Tag: SMC
Friday Things & A 25 Days of Christmas Workout!
Happy Friday, B2B readers! I hope you’ve had a good week. Mine has been good… let’s catch up quickly!
- Tuesday- We got so much snow! I went to the post office at 3pm and there was no snow. When I left work at 5:45, there was probably 4 inches. I loved it!
- Wednesday- We had a company holiday dinner at The Palm (it’s in the same building as our new office!), but since I was going to a SMC girls Yankee Swap after, I just had wine and a few bites of the passed apps. Dinner at Jessi’s was amazing!! Honey mustard glazed chicken and cheesy mashed potatoes with a side spinach salad. So good! But even better? Getting together with some of my favorite girls. And presents. I love presents.
I ended up with an Alex and Ani bracelet. It was my first one and I was so excited about it, not to mention the one Nikia chose was perfect for me. Very special!
- Thursday- I treated myself to Cosi for lunch as I got home a little late on Wednesday night and didn’t have the energy to pack a lunch for myself.
SO good. Do you guys like Cosi? Their signature salad is absolutely delicious. It was the perfect fuel to teach my Thursday double, which consisted of the following 25 Days of Christmas workout and then kickboxing. It was so fun!
This workout was awesome. It was a total body workout and I loved that once we did something (besides burpees… there can never be too many burpees 😉 ), we didn’t have to do it again. A bunch of members came up to me and said the same thing, so apparently it was a crowd pleaser! If you’re running short on time, feel free to skip the second round for the various exercises where I wrote “X2 rounds” after the exercise.
**Edited to Add: I was so tired when I was writing this last night that I forgot to say where I got this idea! I was looking through Facebook a while ago and came across this workout and just loved the idea. I took the first few exercises from Aimee’s Fitness Advent Calendar, but the rest were just random ideas I came up with. I also took the chest press & leg lift exercise from Athena, which I learned during her Fall Into Fitness challenge. It’s one of my favorite moves at the moment!
I’m hoping work flies by today because I have after-work drink plans with my sister and my old yoga instructor/friend Alyson, who I love! I think we are going to Granary Tavern, but that hasn’t been confirmed. Saturday will consist of a workout, birthday lunch for my friend Lauren and Sunday will hopefully will be ok weather for the Jingle Bell 5K!
Questions for you: What’s your “go-to” lunch place during the week (if you get lunch out)? Do you have any Alex and Ani bracelets? What are you looking forward to this weekend?
PS- We got new computers for my new company because we finally moved offices and they are tracked a lot more than before, so I haven’t read any blogs this week 😦 I will catch up over the weekend!
Gym Friends, Russell Tavern, Poolside, Tia’s
I feel like the month of July has been so incredibly busy for me between work, travel, teaching, babysitting, etc. that this past weekend felt almost weird because of my lack of plans and the fact that I had, gasp!, free time! What a concept, right? On Saturday, I even felt, dare I say, bored. I know, I know. I should relish in the times where I don’t have much going on, but when I go from being SO busy to being SO NOT busy, it’s hard to know how to flip the switch and be ok with having free time.
Let’s back up, though, shall we? My gym friends, Athena and Ashley and I have been trying to get together for months and this past Friday we were finally able to align our schedules and make plans. I love hanging out with these girls because they “get” me and my love of the gym and teaching and blog blogging so we always have loads to talk about and I always leave feeling like I have more clarity about whatever little issue I might have.
We decided to go to Russell House Tavern in Harvard Square. I’ve eaten there before, but this time was more fun because it turns out I know the manager! He is my old boss, Mr. Shaw’s (I talk about summers at Shaw’s Ridge Farm with Meredith and the rest of the crew) nephew and he used to manage Red Line, which was another favorite of mine in Harvard Square. Anyway! The 3 of us girls grabbed drinks at the bar while we waited for our table to be ready. We all got cocktails instead of wine, what a shocker!
Delish! Friday had been a stressful day at work so this was juuuust what I needed to relax! Tyler came to grab us shortly after we finished our cocktails and brought us to our table. He walked us through the menu and said that sharing small plates was the best option. Um, sharing plates? Duh, that’s my favorite thing to do! Lucky for us, he sent out 3 absolutely delicious appetizers for us to try before we placed any of our own orders.
We tried the Smoked Pigs Tail Pierogi, Crispy Poached Farm Eggs and Fiore Di Nonno Burrata. Holy.Yum. The pierogi was my favorite, but the fried poached egg was a close second. Many thanks to Tyler for sending these out to us!!
Food blogger in action! Loved that I wasn’t the only weird one taking pictures of my food 😉
After we finished those, we decided to order a couple more things: Braised Beef Tongue Meatballs and the crab cakes. Again, both of these were outstanding! I never thought I would eat a beef tongue meatball and enjoy it, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it!
I could have finished there, but since we still had wine and more conversation topics to cover, we placed an order for a flatbread pizza. I forget what we ordered, but it was awesome!
All in all, it was a really great night! Good drinks, great food and even better company! Can we get the next girls night on the calendar soon, please?!
On Saturday, I got up early (like 6:45am early, which is really early for a Saturday!) and headed to Brockton for the Color Me Rad run. I’ll do a full recap on that later- it was a blast!
Shortly after I got back, though, I found myself feeling bored! I had showered and cleaned and it was only 11am. I decided to go to the Somerville Pool, and while it’s not necessarily the nicest place to be, it beat packing up and heading to the beach.
Laying by the pool for the afternoon helped to not only pass some time, but helped to force me to relax! But, just as I was starting to get antsy, I texted my friend, Jessi, she said she was around and would love to get drinks. Perfect! While I waited for Jessi and her friend, Kathleen, to pick me up, I poured myself a glass of wine that my friend, JP had sent me! Last week, he sent me the sweetest “Moe Care Package”, equipped with some of my favorite things!
J.Lohr is one of my favorite Chardonnays so I couldn’t wait to open it!
Shortly after I poured this glass, the girls arrived. We headed to Jessi’s apartment in Charlestown and had another glass of wine while we figured out where we should go. She got these adorable Kate Spade wine glasses for her birthday and all I have to say, is I am very glad I didn’t break it!
We decided to go to Tia’s since they have the best outdoor bar area. The food isn’t great and I think it’s overpriced, but if you’re looking to just get drinks outside on a nice evening, it’s definitely the place to be! I ended up running into an old friend, so I caught up with him for a while- I love how Boston is small enough where you can run into people you know in random places! All in all, it was a really great “spur of the moment” night out!
Questions for you: Have you ever been to Russell House Tavern or Tia’s? What’s your favorite outdoor bar in Boston? Do you tend to order drinks/cocktails or wine/beer when you go out?
Pampered Chef Party in NH, Apartment Hunting, Poolside, Lakeside
Hey there! I am currently en route to NYC for a quick work trip (I’ll be back tonight). How is your Tuesday looking?
Last Friday night, I got together with most of my St. Michael’s girls at our friend Nikia’s new house in New Hampshire. She and her boyfriend recently bought a brand new home in the country and WOW was it beautiful. Seriously, I couldn’t even believe it! I am so proud of all that they have done to make it “theirs”.
We got together both to see the house and to attend a Pampered Chef party. Has anyone been to one of those parties? I love Pampered Chef kitchen stuff SO much. You’ve seen the stones on my blog quite often.
The host created these delicious, healthy pepper strips that were a huge hit. They were so easy, too. She combined some ingredients, mixed them with a Pampered Chef seasoning, placed a scoop on each pepper strip and baked for 7 minutes.
I ordered a few things, but told the host to get in contact with me in Sept/Oct so I could host a party at my new place!
It’s always a fun time getting together with my SMC girls, but we missed you Kelly and Jessi! These girls are my rock- seriously we all just “get” each other, even though we are all pretty different. That’s what makes it so fun, though!
Thanks for an awesome party, Kia!
On Saturday, I woke up, packed up and headed out to see an apartment at 9 before teaching my 10am kickboxing class. Even though the apartment is a basement level, I really liked it! The ground goes at an angle so the back of the apartment is not underground at all and there is a door from the bedroom that leads out to a back patio. Everything has been recently renovated and the landlord is awesome. I have a few questions, but I think I might take it- eeek!!
After my class, I headed north and met mom and Danielle at the Mahoney’s pool. Pure bliss, if you ask me!
Mom had a whole cooler full of goodies, which I quickly dug into when I got there since I was starving!
Shortly after we finished, the other Jean and Colleen and Emma showed up! Look how stinkin’ cute she is in her little bathing suit!
We even brought her in the pool. She was loving the water and splashing her hands around!
We left there around 4 so we could head over to Sara’s house on the lake to get some Zeke snuggle time. Boy are we lucky to have so many friends with access to water!
Zeke gets cuter and cuter every time I see him!!! And he is so GOOD. Literally just sleeps and eats… barely ever cries.
Sara looks phenomenal. Seriously. A beaming mom for sure! I got my mommy multitasking practice in
Haha. It’s easier than you may think 😉
We took the boat out for a nice stroll before heading home.
Dad had hamburgers, hot dogs and corn on the cob ready for us upon our arrival. How’s that for fantastic service? Per usual, we had a blast laughing and joking and drinking wine!
Questions for you: Ever been to a Pampered Chef party? What’s your favorite kitchen tool? Do you prefer a pool or the lake?
Burpees to Bubbly 