This past weekend my brother visited me in Cleveland. The last time he came to see me on his own was more than 3 years ago – I was living in Lakewood, had somewhat just moved to Cleveland and well, it was WAY too long ago. I try to go visit him and stay with him on campus (he goes to Columbia) pretty much once a year – but I’m getting too old for his college lifestyle. The last time I visited him we didn’t go out until nearly midnight – I’m almost 30, which is waaay too old to be going out that late. I had to seriously rally and drink a Diet Dr. Pepper just to pull myself off the blowup mattress in his dorm room.

Anyway, this weekend turned out to be a pretty a relaxing weekend with my brother. We both had work to do (he more so than I – a thesis plus hundreds of pages of reading … oh college!) so there wasn’t much going out. But it was great to just hang out with him and do everyday things with him. I hope he had a good time and it’s not another 3 years before he comes back to Cleveland!

Friday included some working at a coffee shop, some vegan food at The Flaming Ice Cube and some dinner at Noodlecat.

Some of our awesome food from Friday is below (not pictured – appetizers or main course at Noodlecat, pumpkin cookies, my PUMPKING beer, Buckeyes or zucchini bread):

Saturday, B and I started our day by going for a leisurely run outside. I was having a hard time breathing for some reason, but it felt SO good to just be having a relaxing run – no racing. Then we decided to head to Tremont for some coffee and pastries, and holed up in Loop to do some work.

We of course enjoyed the fall colors that are still here and took a few pictures in the park while we were hanging out in Tremont.

Then we hit the West Side Market to pick up groceries for dinner. We bought some butternut squash, chicken sausage, peppers and onions. And made an awesome dinner together of some goat cheese, quinoa and chicken sausage stuffed squash – recipe coming soon 🙂

Saturday night included some more studying (I’m an awesome study helper. Just ask Greg. He’ll probably remember 3 more Russian vocab words thanks to my mad studying skills) and some deep chatting / thoughts about the future and me passing out from a corn bread coma pretty early.

Sunday meant dropping my brother back off at the airport 😦 I was sad to see him go, but am so excited to see him in just over a month for the holidays! After the airport, B knew I was sad to see my brother go, so he took me to Starbucks and then to the park for a fiveish mile walk. It was another great fall day in Cleveland and it was great to walk among the colorful leaves.

Hope you had a fabulous fall weekend as well!