Scenes from a weekend #48

Late October is one of my favorite times of the year. Along with everything that makes late Autumn lovely  – the crisp air, the trees changing color, the perfect running weather – the end of this month brings Birthdayversary. Fran’s birthday, followed two days later by our wedding anniversary. (We had limited time for wedding planning – luckily he didn’t feel like his birthday was being slighted by getting married so soon afterwards). This year Fran took Thursday and Friday off, so we had a long weekend of fun as a family.

We kicked it off with some birthday celebrations:
It’s possible Roman was more excited about his Daddy’s birthday than Fran was. And Fran is an only child who really takes full advantage of celebrating the hell out of himself on his special day.

Fun fact: When you let a small boy who only occasionally eats dessert have a slice of chocolate cake after dinner, said small boy will be singing to himself in bed a good hour after lights out and you will be woken up at an ungodly hour the next morning.

We did lots of fun stuff over the weekend:

Got ourselves an afternoon babysitter for Gone Girl. First movie we’ve been to in such a long time, made even better when we ended up in a theater with reclining armchair seats. a) I am officially ruined for regular movie seats now, and b) While perhaps an odd choice for our anniversary weekend, it was a great movie and did justice to the book.

Taking advantage of a quick stop at Barnes & Noble for a story while we were there. Something about construction trucks. I had to sing part of it. That could be why he looks a little shell-shocked here.

The rain can’t stop us, baby!

Recovery is key. “My leggies are sore, Mama, so I’m going to do some rolling now.”

We also had a lovely anniversary:

We went out for dinner (sans Roman), with our friends Maggie and Pat, whose wedding we attended on our 6th wedding anniversary! This is the second time we’ve done a joint anniversary celebration – we love sharing our special day with such great friends.

Of course there were workouts, since I’m feeling so great finally:

An evening run in Prospect Park felt great, still taking it easy, but the pace was a little faster than I’ve been running. (I’m not checking my pace during my run, which is a good way for me to really, actually take it easy on an easy day). The light from the sunset was just beautiful.

Hit the gym for some strength training, as well as a 40 minute treadmill run. I wasn’t feeling super energetic, so I incorporated walk breaks (and HGTV, natch).

I also tried out a prenatal yoga class, since I bought a new student special 3 pack at the yoga studio last week. It felt great to open up my hips, but it was a little too gentle for my liking. I think I’m going to stick to making modifications in the open classes until I get to the point where I want the gentle option.

Speaking of feeling good – remember how I told you someone made a rude comment about my belly being ‘too big’ for how far along I am? And that I freaked out a little and went back to photos of my pregnancy with Roman to try to work out if I was crazy enormous this time? Well, I unearthed a photo of myself back then at 16 weeks, taken in my neighborhood, so on our way back from the movies on the day I hit 16 weeks we made a detour to replicate the photo:

I felt so relieved when I got home and saw the two side by side. It also explains why I’ve been complaining so much about the size of my boobs to my girlfriends when they ask how I’m doing. (They’re not helpful when running, people). And I need to remember that people say the craziest things to pregnant women, as if the fact their bodies are changing dramatically and quickly gives others carte blanche to say whatever comes into their head.

One final awesome part of the weekend was a little triumph in baking. I am not a baker, I prefer the kind of cooking where you throw things together and see what comes out of it. But we had the last few apples left from apple picking, so I peeled them & cut out the yucky bits, with the aim of baking some kind of apple dessert. I figured if I screwed it up, I was only wasting apples that were on their last legs anyway.

My crumbly apple thing* turned out great.

*tm for that recipe name is pending.

I layered apples, a little cinnamon, then baked them for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees. I then used a mix of my favorite familia Swiss Museli as well as this Off The Farm cereal that was in the gift bag from FitBlogNYC, kneaded with some butter, layered over the cooked apple. Drizzled  a little maple syrup on top. Baked again at 400 for another 10 minutes. DELICIOUS.

Do you have a favorite time of year?

Do you like running in the morning or evening? I love morning for getting it done before the day begins (and refueling with breakfast), but I do love the light and the cooler temperatures of the evening.

What can you bake that’s easy?