Let's March To Try New Things

We tried quite a few new things this past weekend! It's easy to do the same ol' same ol' but we made a point to try a new coffee shop that has been on my try list for a while now, new activities, new movies, restaurants, and a new hike. Bonus that it was another three day weekend for the minis and me! The highlight of our weekend was the tour of the state Capitol building. Here's the other highlights:

Freedom Blend Coffee has been on my try list for months. I really love their story mission (read about it here). The inside of the coffee shop was cozy, the coffee pretty good (my raspberry mocha was made perfectly), and their food/treats satisfied us all. The first thing anyone tells me when I mention this place is "oh, but that neighborhood!" Yeah, it's not in the best area, but truthfully, it's not terrible. The building is gorgeous and new. We will definitely be going back, especially since the minis approved too!

 Max approved of the hot chocolate

Our next stop for the day was the Women's March at the State Capitol. We didn't get to attend last year, but we made the extra effort to go this year. I'm not sure how much the minis took away from it, but I wanted them there to experience everything. I hope it's one of these things that in the years to come they'll remember it and relate to the March. Of course, they had more fun playing in snow piles and with friends than listening to the speakers (I kind of predicted that one).

Towards the end of the March, we decided to go into the Capitol building to take the tour. It was easily the best part of our weekend! To read more about it, check out details here.

I was amazed at the decorative details of the Capitol building.

It was a gorgeous day, so we decided to do some walking, shopping, and eating in the East Village after our tour.

A Moscow mule and grilled cheese was my treat for the day. This was our first time eating at Quinton's. It has typical bar food, good drinks, and the minis approved (and went out of their comfort zone of the kids menu favorites).

"Mom, take a picture of the dog peeing on me!"

Swinging at eating cupcakes at Molly's Cupcakes.

I put on my blogging shirt when we got home that evening because, as usual, I spent the night writing. Of course, I always have to have multiple things going at once and watched movies while I wrote. I actually got a good amount of work done.

Coloring before bed.

Sunday we saw not one, but TWO movies at the theater! We opted for a relaxing morning at home, complete with homemade pancakes. We took the minis to Flix Brewhouse for an early afternoon showing of The Greatest Showman. The movie was fantastic!

Shopping at Target and watching the game...and watching the game when we got home too.

Sunday night Hubs and I had a night out to see The Post. I rarely choose to go to movies for date night because there's usually hundreds of other things on our Want To Do List, but I was dying to see this movie. It was eerily foggy out and we got home just in time for thunderstorms to start. Needless to say, I slept really well as it rained through the night.

Monday was a fantastic day! We didn't do a whole lot, but stuck around home and did things. The minis played while I slept in a bit (I came down to quite the mess), we cooked and did weekday meal prep, we baked cookie sandwiches, and the highlight of the day: a "hike" in the rain/drizzle on the bike trail near our house. It was a great and somewhat relaxing Mom and Minis Day after our busy weekend.

Harrison learned the hard way the joy of cutting an onion, "um, mom! My eyes...it's getting really hard to see now." I gave him plenty of warnings about cutting onions, but it didn't stop him from slightly panicking when his eyes got watery.

The rules of our hike/walk: jump in as many puddles as you want, play in as much mud as you want, but don't slip on the ice. We covered it all successfully. 

The part that had us in stitches: Elizabeth saw several backyards with playsets and no fences. She suddenly took off running into someone's backyard yelling, "oh mom! Can we play at these parks??!!?" I had to quickly grab her and explain to her that those were people's backyards. "But there's no fences??" She was thoroughly confused and completely a city kid.

Our new wall hanging we scored at Raygun over the weekend.

No more three day weekends in our immediate future, but the next couple of weekends are FULL of fun! We're eagerly counting down the weekends until Florida!