Weekending and Louisville blog trip recap

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday:

Friday was good. I subbed as a floater at the junior high and was hoping I'd get out a little early. Many times when I float, I do. No such luck but that's ok. The day was a good one at school and I got to take advantage of a nice teacher appreciation spread. 

After school, I headed home to get a few things done such as start the pizza crust and then I headed out to Aldi. It's a goal of mine to not go anywhere after a day of subbing but sometimes it can't be avoided. Saturday looked to be really busy at home and I knew I wouldn't want to go out on Saturday to grocery shop. 

My brother came over in the evening to watch the Pacers- Cleveland play off game. The Pacers got trounced (at home :(). 

Saturday was all the things at home. I helped Donnie paint the foundation around our house.  A lot of my chores were in the kitchen. I made pie crust for an upcoming meal of chicken pot pie that Alyssa requested. I made another dessert for our Mother's Day meal and a pasta salad. Made them on Saturday instead of Sunday because people were coming over shortly after we'd arrive home from church. I wanted to get as much done on Saturday as possible.

Alyssa made smashburgers for us for dinner. So good!

Donnie bought this huge umbrella since our main table outside is not under cover and on sunny days, it is not a pleasant experience to eat out there.

Due to my lack of physical strength, my role was more of a supervisory one than hands on (kidding- because I supervised nothing. I had no idea how to put it together).

Sunday, Mother's Day, was really nice. So I mentioned going to church- unfortunately not only did we not go to church but we didn't watch the Livestream when it aired (we did watch the service later in the day). We didn't get enough done on Saturday and had to work Sunday morning to get things ready for the Mother's Day meal.

The meal was nice-

But first, the tablescape- I found this non disposable table cloth on clearance after Easter along with matching disposable napkins. I liked the coordination and the 70% off price :)

Donnie grilled steaks for us all. In addition, he grilled some chicken breasts that his brought in marinade. I'd made a pasta salad and had fixings for a green salad. Donnie's mom brought potato salad and Denise brought a veggie tray and fruit tray- the food was so good!! Donnie's mom also brought a tray of Killer Brownies and I made a peanut butter chocolate dessert. 

After we ate, the floral tablecloth gave way to felt...

Bub and grandma

Bev and Larry

The kids and me

Donnie and his mom

Thought I'd add my Louisville Blog trip recap to this post. I haven't written about it yet and feel like I should. Also the longer I go without writing it out, I know I'm going to forget things. Going on a blogger trip and not writing about it is like a restaurant critic going to a Michelin restaurant and not sharing his or her thoughts. No, no, that would not do at all!

I left home early Friday afternoon and headed south on the interstate that takes you into Kentucky- unfortunately, to get to a bridge to take you over the Ohio River and into Kentucky, you must drive through Cincinnati. Never fun with perma construction and lots of traffic and whatnot going on. While I left in the early afternoon which was not rush hour at all, numerous set backs including multiple fender benders meant that I was in stand still traffic a lot. I made it through Cincinnati, crossed the river, and was in Timbuckto, Kentucky (though still on the interstate) when traffic came to a stop once again. Another accident. 

I got to Louisville later than everyone else but I made it. All the ladies were at the AirBnB when I arrived. Have to say it was a unique, but very positive, experience to meet the ladies! A somewhat analogous experience would be meeting a pen pal for the first time. However, we'd not penned personal letters to each other (we'd done some minimal texting but nothing super personal) so it's not like we were pen pals. I had no doubt but that I would like them; however, would they be women whom I'd really enjoy spending an entire weekend with? (Have I mentioned I'm an introvert??) The answer to the former question is a resounding yes!

We chatted in the comfy front room for a long time- obviously what one shares on a blog is a selective amount of information about one's life. It was nice to share and hear about other parts of our lives that aren't necessarily blog fodder! (Not like salacious secrets, rather things about other people in our lives and/or more in depth information about a topic that we have shared a bit about on our blogs.)

Around 9:00 pm, all of us except for Joanne went out to get some food at a Mexican restaurant. Joanne had gotten up super early to catch her flight and was on a different time zone to boot. The food at the restaurant was good and there's something also about eating together that's a bonding type experience. I knew we had many more eating experiences that would include Joanne which I looked forward to.

Saturday morning, Amy came  over to the house. Since she lives in Louisville, it made sense for her to stay at her house. She brought over fruit salad and a breakfast casserole. After breakfast, we loaded into Amy's car and she drove us to some destinations. We shopped, walked, ate cookies and then went back to the AirBnb to get ready for dinner. Dinner was at the neatest place- pics are at the end...

Sunday was a bit more shopping, more eating good southern food(!) and driving to a park to see the river and bridges. I took Tanya to the airport in the late afternoon and could not recall what we did Sunday evening without consulting my photos. I could find none so we must have just hung out! 

Monday was saying goodbye to everyone to everyone except Joanne. Joanne and I went on a walk prior to going to the airport. It's always nice to stretch the legs and I hadn't run or done any exercising except walking the entire weekend. I dropped Joanne off at the airport and then headed home!

The weekend was such a fun one! Some of my favorite moments were when we sat around chatting and getting to know each other better. I am not one who craves constant activity. When in a different city, I like to check places out that are unfamiliar to me and unique to the area. But I don't need to always be busy and on the go. Sitting around and talking with people you like, want to get to know more, and don't get to see often is always a good idea!

Thanks to Marilyn for organizing the trip including finding the AirBnb, Amy for coming up with a great itinerary for our time in Louisville and for doing a lot of the driving, Jenn for driving Marilyn and her from Memphis to Louisville, and the two ladies not in driving distance, Joanne and Tanya, for going through the hassle of air travel just so we could all spend a weekend together. Also, thanks to everyone who brought snacks for us to munch on- I know Amy and Joanne went to Trader Joe's and bought items and Marilyn and Jenn brought food items. I brought a tray of Dorothy Lane Market Killer Brownies and some Laura's sugar cookies (I feel like I've talked about these items a decent bit; I wanted to share their goodness with my blog friends!). Oh and Tanya was so sweet and gave us each thoughtful gifts from Texas. 

Pictures: 

Friday-

The group with me and then without me when I took a pic with the gift that Tanya gave us

The AirBnb

This window was so pretty- it's in what I would call the front room of the house and it's where we did most of our sitting around and chatting.

Saturday:

This is where we shopped first. My pictures don't depict it (because I didn't take many at all) but the place is huge.

And cute...

Just a pic of us looking all cute with fascinators...

Jenn offered to take photos of a group of women- one of whom had taken our picture. The ladies were from Texas and one recognized Tanya from when they served on the PTO together when their kids were in elementary! These women were fancier than we were- they were in town for the Derby (I think? That would have them in town a whole week earlier than they'd need to be there.)

Then we did some walking around and shopping at some other spots in the city.

We stopped in this cute hotel to use the restroom and we chatted on sofas and chairs as well until we got more energy.

There was maybe a Derby in exactly one week :)

We worked up an appetite for cookies in the afternoon (we had no lunch this day as we didn't eat breakfast early).

For dinner that evening, Amy took us to the neatest place! We left the city- but didn't go far at all. Our destination was Heritage Farms. Part horse farm, part farm to table restaurant, part store to buy on site created products and other KY products, and part art walk. Uh, could a property be any more cool?? I think not! 

Inside the restaurant- there was a large bar but there were also areas where items were for sale and there were small rooms with many historical items pertaining to the horse farm. It was fascinating!

One room had a large coffee table style book all about the property's history. I could have looked at it for hours- it was huge and full of luscious photography. It cost $95 and I definitely didn't like it enough to spend that kind of money on it. But admire it, I did. 

My dinner portion of homemade pasta with some sort of pork (it looked like bacon but was called sausage) was small but I wasn't that hungry so it was no big deal. Did appreciative the generous heap of Parmesan!

The bathroom had these fake hens and piped in chicken/hen(?) noises. Different!

We got to meet the owner of the place when he came to our table to introduce himself. Had we not gotten to meet him, we could have gotten to know him via social media. At one place in the restaurant was this very unique item. It's a live display of @steveredglasses Instagram follower count. Oh my! Every ten or fifteen seconds it would update. That's quite a... choice. And I don't mean the choice to follow him or not on IG (though, that is, of course, a choice). I mean the choice to display a near live updated follower count. 

I like how he has room for a follower count in the millions but not the tens of millions!! Come on, @steveredglasses, dream big!! I guess he could get a new counter if it looks like the count is going to in the tens of millions??

The IG follower live counter display was not the only unique item about the place. After dinner, we went on a walk at back of the property that was in a woods following a creek path. The walk was set to music and many lights were on display. It was neat but I would have loved to do the walk in the day time- you could hear water gurgling and I really wanted to see the water not just hear it. 

Sunday morning, we went for breakfast at the Biscuit Belly. So good!

BBQ brisket on a biscuit- yes please!

And a Coke Zero to boot (I had to strategically place my drink here to "hide" the bad word- this is G-rated blog- I won't have any of those words displayed even if it's an adjective in a business's advertisement, lol)

Then we went to a very pretty shopping area

So many cute Derby items!

We parted ways with Amy after shopping. Amy gave us instructions on how to get to a neat park along the river where we saw bridges and a Lincoln memorial. 

Shortly after that, we went back to our AirBnb and I took Tanya to the airport.

On Monday, it was time to say goodbye to everyone who was still at the house. Marilyn and Jenn were headed south to Memphis while I took Joanne to the airport and then went straight home from there. Joanne and I did go on a short walk before we left for the airport. I love to move a bit and getting to see more of the city was nice, too. 

My drive home was much better than my drive to Kentucky. I was glad to be home and grateful for the wonderful memories made in Louisville. My lil' bunny and my KY cup will hopefully always remind me of the trip :).