Wonderful Long Weekends

September 3, 2018September 3, 2018 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 7 Comments

A good three-day weekend with the family can put you in the best of moods – don’t you agree?

I had a really nice weekend with our family of four. The weather was pretty amazing and felt like a great way to wrap up summer. Our days involved plenty of outside time, running, baseball, baking and more.

Friday night included some of my favorites – patio beers with B, a walk with FW (we walked to pick up our CSA) AND dinner outside on our porch.

Saturday morning, we took a trip to the local farmers market. There’s one we can walk to, so LM and I ran there while B and FW rode the bike.

We picked up some fruit and meat for dinner.

The afternoon included an impromptu trip to the lake to watch the annual Labor Day air show. We got there just in time to catch the Blue Angels! FW was amazed by the loud and fast planes.

That night, B cooked us a pretty amazing meal that just screamed summer. AND it was all local food – the steak was from the Saturday farmers market, the bunching onions were from the farmers market at FW’s school and the corn and potatoes were from our CSA.

Sunday morning started off pretty perfect as well! B and FW surprised me with bagels. My favorite bagel, an everything, was even warm when we ate on the porch.

They also picked up a local blend if everything bagel seasoning.

We decided to go for a little family run together before it got too hot out. It was out fastest family stroller run since we became a family of 4.

That afternoon, while B did some yard work, FW and I made muffins! He loves these chocolate chip banana lentil muffins.

And then it was time for baseball! We left LM with a babysitter, and FW, B and I went to the Indians game. We stayed for the whole game- I was impressed with how good he was for 9 innings.

Monday brought a lot of fun, too. We started off the day with a trip to the park for a picnic with some other mommas and their kiddos, too. FW loved the playground and I had fun catching up with my friends.

The afternoon included some meal prep grocery shopping and even a 2ish mile family walk. It was 90+ degrees out, so it was a sloooow walk and hot.

And that night was our fantasy football draft! I’ve never played before, so this should be interesting … maybe it will get me more intrested in football?

Some questions for you:

Are you obsessed with everything bagel seasoning too? What do you use it for?
Do you like baseball?
Do you play fantasy football?

I’m linking up with the weekly wraps!

A WINdians Weekend With the Grandparents

October 8, 2017 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 2 Comments

This weekend FLEW by. I seriously feel like I blinked and it was over. Maybe because we had just too much fun?

Our weekend started with an AMAZING Indians game. They are in the playoffs again and B and I had tickets to game 2 of the ALDS vs. the Yankees. Yes, I’m from NY but I’m cheering for the Indians all the way! (don’t worry – I grew up in a Mets and SF Giants household) The game was a good one – it went into 13 innings but we came home with a win!! Now onto game 3 (which they’re playing now … eep!)

Saturday morning I took a short stroller jog with FW. It was a run/walk and we ended up at some lakes again. I enjoy this view 🙂

Then, it was time to head to Celia’s for her birthday party! I can’t believe this girl is two already.

That afternoon my parents came into town! We grabbed pizza in Little Italy after they got into town for dinner.

Another highlight from the weekend? FW transitioned into a big(ger) kid car seat! I cannot believe he’s pretty much officially a toddler. Or almost.

The weekend also included some delicious brunch (avocado toast for me!) at Luna.

And, we headed to the Zoo to watch the animals.

FW was way more into the elephants and the other animals this time!

He was also adamant about walking around on his own. Which means things took a lot longer to get to 🙂

We ended up Sunday with a baseball-themed dinner and a little game watching. Go Tribe!

Questions for you:

Are you watching baseball right now?
Do you like zoos?

I’m linking up with the weekly wraps!

WIAW #27: NOT healthy eats

August 12, 2015August 12, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 14 Comments

Happy What I Ate Wednesday!

Be forewarned – today was NOT a very healthy day. No zoodles. Not many vegetables. AND – beer and ice cream for dinner. Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. Today’s eats are pretty fun, for me at least and really weren’t that bad. It’s not my typical workday where I bring my own food and prepare my own dinner. Nope – I had lunch AND dinner out!

The day started out with an interval run, the last of my training for the Cleveland Rock N Roll Hall of Fame Half. After the run (about 5 miles total), I was pretty hungry and very grateful for this ginormous breakfast from B. Those eggs were massive.

My breakfast – courtesy of B:) Yes, it started off healthy …

I had a snack of some homemade granola as well.

Confession – i made this to share, but I’ve eaten most of it.

For lunch, I had a meeting out of the office. We went to a Vietnamese place – I love Vietnamese food! I enjoyed a cabbage / shrimp salad and fresh summer rolls. My FAVORITE!

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Afternoon snacks included some grapes, a plum and some zucchini (not pictured).

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AND some homemade oatmeal peanut butter cookies (yes, plural) when I got home. Sweet tooth was happy!

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At night, B and I had tickets to see the Indians play the Yankees! Though I’ve lived here 7 years and am now for sure an Indians fan, it’s still a weird feeling when I see them play the Yankees. I was born in New York and lived there for more than 20 years, so there’s a part of me that will always love seeing any New York team play.

Dinner was at the game. I typically go for a veggie burger or a pretzel, but I wasn’t really that hungry after all my snacking. So after having a beer, I went straight for dessert- soft serve vanilla. Can you believe this was a small?

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So yes, my dinner was ice cream and beer. And yes, I’m not proud of it, but I’m publicly sharing it on WIAW. Ahh well – there’s always tomorrow!

Some questions for you:

Do you ever have super snacky days? What do you snack on?
Favorite baseball team?
Ever had beer and ice cream (or insert other not-so-healthy combination here) for dinner? Come on, I can’t be the only one ….

Don’t forget to click on the badge below to see what WIAW is all about. And thanks to Clean Eats Fast Feets for hosting today!

An Extended Weekend in L.A.

September 27, 2013September 24, 2013 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 2 Comments

Seen at a club in LA

NOTE: This is the last recap in a series of my West Coast trip adventures. Miss the rest of my West Coast trip summaries? Read more about them here:

After an amazing time in the Bay Area, we were off on another drive down the coast and ready to spend a few days in Los Angeles as we wrapped up our West Coast adventure. We would be staying with B’s friend (and Best Man), Wing, who moved out West just this year thanks to an awesome job opportunity. And we would also be lucky enough to see my friend and roommate from college, Kate, who moved out to LA right after we lived in Boston together.

So, what did we think of our time in LA? Some overall impressions:

The city is SUPER spread out. I’d heard that it was but seeing it in person made us realize it even more and also put a slight damper on some of our plans as we weren’t able to accomplish as much as we wanted to in our time there because it took so long to get from one place to another. There are tons of different neighborhoods that you can walk in – but to get to and from places, you really do have to drive.
There is SO MUCH TRAFFIC. Again, I’d definitely heard that but as we drove everywhere this really made a difference and also made it hard to get as much done as we wanted to.
The city is not really walkable. I love walking everywhere. Every other city we pretty much left our door and walked everywhere to get some sightseeing in. In LA we really had to hop in the car and plan which neighborhood(s) we may be visiting, and drive there. And we didn’t really know how long it would take because of the traffic. (See #1 and #2)
The weather is awesome. They were having a “cold front” when we were there, meaning the weather was in the low 80s, upper 70s. AKA perfect weather. It was cool in the morning, meaning it wasn’t bad for our run (we had a 15k planned that I was dreading because I thought it’d be super steamy but it wasn’t too bad – it hit nearly 80 by the end but it wasn’t humid), and then got hot during the day but not sticky. Perfect vacation weather 🙂
There’s so much to do. Aside of all the touristy sightseeing stuff that we wanted to do, there’s just so much in general going on, all the time. Comedy shows. Concerts. Great food. Bars. Clubs. And of course – the BEACH! If I lived in LA I would live at the beach, or at least go there as much as possible. And then try to fit in everything else.

Okay, enough blabbering, here are some photos and highlights from our trip.

SO MUCH TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN LA!

Stopping for In & Out as soon as we get in – B’s first In & Out meal!

B’s first In&Out!

Running around the Hollywood Reservoir – we did our 15K without any problems. We found the reservoir, which had some good views of the downtown and the Hollywood sign and was a 3.3ish mile loop – perfect for us, as we were able to do 3ish loops as Wing walked around once, carrying water for us. Yup, he was our awesome water boy!

post 15k run around the Hollywood Reservoir

Going to the beach!

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People watching at Venice Beach

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Being touristy and taking photos of the Hollywood sign

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Taking in a Dodgers game! AND they were playing the Giants so I got in TWO Giants games on this trip. Also, we got the all you can eat seats and feasted on the famous Dodger dogs, plus nachos, popcorn and peanuts. I need a detox after this vacation.

Go Giants!

Coffee at Urth Café (always featured in the show Entourage)

it’s a bird! Urth Cafe goodness.

Brunch from Homegirl Café. I had been wanting to go to this place since seeing the awesome movie G-Dog at the Cleveland International Film Festival. You must read about them and Homeboy Industries if you don’t know their story. Here’s just a short blurb: Homeboy Industries serves high-risk, formerly gang-involved men and women with a continuum of free services and programs, and operates seven social enterprises that serve as job-training sites. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

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Catching a BC vs. UCLA game – sadly, we lost – but it was great to see them play (it wasn’t planned!) on our trip, see their huge stadium and of course meet up with Kate

HUGE stadium – former home of the Olympics in LA!

Kate and me! Former roomies!

Enjoying Dim Sum for B’s birthday brunch – Wing lives in Chinatown and brought us to an amazing place

Birthday breakfast!

And then a really good meal, and beers, at My Father’s Office – I definitely recommend if you hit LA

the boys loved their burgers – I loved my butterfish!

Seeing some amazingly fun comedians at the Laugh Factory – in just one show we saw a TON of comics! Highlights include Dom Irerra (who we’ve seen before), the super cute Chris D’Elia AND the guy who plays Montez on Workaholics!

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Hanging out with Kate and experiencing some of the Culver City nightlife

Hookah bar!

What a great trip! Now, it’s back to real life and back to the grind. Getting back to work after any trip can be stressful, but just knowing and remembering our amazing two week West Coast adventure will hopefully help with the struggle of getting back into things. Here’s to a GREAT weekend!

Some questions for you:

Which of the cities I visited have you been to? Which is YOUR favorite?
When was the last time you saw your college roommate?
Favorite LA restaurant?

Home Opener Baseball Dessert: Cookies and Cream Truffles

April 8, 2013December 6, 2013 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 4 Comments

Today is the Tribe Home Opener! I’m super excited that baseball season is back and am looking forward to walking to many games this spring and summer. Last summer, my friend Devin and I had a friendly competition going to see who could see the most games, and though we both lost count, I’m proud to say that B and I probably hit up at least 15 games.

In honor of Opening Day, last year I shared a list of some of my favorite baseball desserts – so this year I decided to share a new one: Cookies and Cream Truffles! Just buy a red edible color marker and these can easily become baseballs for any Opening Day or Home Opener celebrations.

Indians baseball cookies and cream truffles_labeled

Baseball Home Opener Dessert: Cookies and Cream Truffles

Here’s what you need:

1 (16 0z) package of regular Oreos (don’t be tempted by the double stuff ones – I hear they don’t work as well)
1 (8 oz.) pkg cream cheese, room temperature (aka nice and soft)
Chocolate for melting – I used vanilla candy melts but you can probably use chocolate chips as well. These would be good with vanilla or regular/dark chocolate.

Here’s what you do:

Put all the Oreos in your food processor. I may have eaten a few (quality control) so all 16 oz didn’t actually go into the food processor … but you get it. Blend them well until they are very fine crumbs.
Add the cream cheese, one quarter at a time, into the food processor with the crumbs. Mix well until you have a dark mushy (but delicious) blog in the food processor. When that happens, roll the mixture into small one-inch balls. Place the balls on parchment paper and freeze for approximately 1 hour or so, or until hardened.
After the balls are hard, melt your chocolate and then dip the little balls. I like to use a fork and tap it against the side of the bowl to remove the excess chocolate.
Place the dipped balls back on the parchment paper and let cool/dry.
Enjoy!

Feel free to decorate (while wet) with sprinkles or Oreo cookie crumbs. I waited until mine were dry and then drew baseball stitching in honor of the Indians Home Opener. Go Tribe!

Decorate them as you wish – I put red baseball laces

And I dare you not to sing this while making them:

Red, White and Blue Dessert Inspiration for Fourth of July

June 29, 2012June 29, 2012 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 5 Comments

Next week is the Fourth of July! I can’t believe we’re already nearly halfway through summer and it’s time to celebrate Independence Day. Can you? Usually, Fourth of July means spending the evening with B’s family, BBQ and beers, and watching the fireworks over Lakewood Park. This year, however, B and I won’t even be in the country! But that doesn’t mean I can still leaf through baking magazines (or Pinterest) to still find some drollworthy recipes! Here’s a list of some of the things I’d make if I were around:

Red, White and Blue Trifle (from Betty Crocker)

Flag Cake (apologies for the photo -it’s from my Tumblr – I made it last year)

Red, White and Blue Cheesecake Bars (from Recipe Girl)

Patriotic Oreo Pops (from Makoodle)

Firecracker Cookies (from Cookin’ Cowgirl)

Red, White and Blue Chex Mix (from Betty Crocker)

AND

Patriotic Rice Krispies Treats! (from Lil Luna)

Do you have any fun plans for Fourth of July? What are you making?

Wordless Wednesday: Weekend Collage

June 20, 2012June 19, 2012 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

I had such a great weekend – from a homemade Italian meal (thanks to Gallucci’s) Friday night, to Marine Week festivities (including checking out their live invasion of Lake Erie) and a Saturday night on the rooftop, to a Sunday Indians game with friends (thanks to Cari for the photos and Devin for taking/asking people to take them) and then Fathers’ Day celebrations. It was so much fun, but I’m still too tired to write about it. So instead? A semi-wordless Wednesday post with a photo collage instead.

Baseball Dessert Inspiration for #OpeningDay!

April 5, 2012April 8, 2013 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 1 Comment

Today is Opening Day! While I won’t be at the game again (I was lucky to go to the Home Opener a few years ago and sit in the Social Deck), I will be dreaming of baseball and summer games – peanuts, cracker jacks, giant pretzels and beer!

To get me in the mood for baseball, I decided to bake something baseball-y. Well, I decided to, but then was tired after my 8-mile training run and went to bed. Woops! Anyway, here are some of the recipes I looked into – maybe later in the season. It’s never too late to enjoy a baseball cake pop!

Baseball Cookies and Cream Truffles (from me!)

Baseball Cake Pops (from Sweet Designs)