Well, the unofficial end of summer has come and gone. Another glorious, perfect, just-what-I-needed three-day weekend is in the books. It was filled with fun, (lots of) food, drinks, friends and great weather. While I refuse to believe that summer is coming to an end, we sure celebrated as if it were.

Friday started out with a 10 mile run before work. I finally found someone as crazy motivated as me to go out for a double digit run during a weekday. Don’t get me wrong – Nicole and I won’t be doing 10 milers every Friday, but a few here and there? Why not.

Friday night was pretty relaxing. B and I didn’t have concrete plans, so we opted for patio beers and pizza.

So much meat on the pizza. (and so blurry)

Saturday morning B and I opted for a 4 mile run, before relaxing with some coffee and a croissant before picking up our CSA. Oh yeah, there was cheese inside that croissant.

 

And no Saturday would be complete without a trip to the West Side Market.

Saturday afternoon we got a chance to hang out with our friend Eric, who was in town with his wife for a wedding. We went to Eric and Julia’s wedding earlier this summer, and it was great to see the newlyweds in Cleveland!

Brian and Eric. They were roommates in Boston and Eric is seriously one of the nicest, most considerate guys I know.

 

Oh yeah and the last time Eric was in town? 2008 Labor Day Weekend when BC played Kent State at Browns Stadium. How’s this for a throwback photo?

Anyway, dinner was at one of our old favorites – Noodlecat! We hadn’t been here in a while and feasted on steam buns and of course, noodles.

Sunday morning, we invited Eric and Julia over for a champagne brunch in our apartment. We rarely do brunch so B was pretty pumped. He made some eggs and bacon from our CSA (farm-fresh bacon and eggs are pretty amazing) and I prepared an overnight french toast bake. I’m going to be sharing the recipe because it was super tasty, but also delicious.

The rest of the day was pretty relaxing and productive. I got in a run, a cross training workout, some meal prep, some work and more.

Monday we had off. It was so nice to sleep in and go for a relaxing run with B and his sisters. We ended up doing around 4 1/2 throughout the flats, Tremont and a few other fun neighborhoods.

After our run, B and I met up with his brother and sister-in-law and our niece and nephew to watch the air show. Every Labor Day in Cleveland, the air show comes to town and people flock downtown to watch the planes. We had a great viewing spot and enjoyed part of a picnic with the kids. Then, we met up with some friends who have a rooftop to watch the Blue Angels. They put on a pretty good show and it was a gorgeous day.

Monday evening, I was pumped to have enough time to cook dinner and dessert for a great end-of-weekend meal. We had gotten some great hot peppers at the market on Saturday, so (inspired by B) I made some homemade spicy tomato sauce. Using that, we had a meatless Monday dinner – stacked baked eggplant with spaghetti squash. And mini blueberry cakes for dessert. A perfect end to a perfect weekend.

Some questions for you:

• How was your long weekend?
• Do you like spaghetti squash?
• Do you enjoy meatless Mondays? What’s your go-to dish?
• If you had to choose – French toast or pancakes?