Weekend Preview

It's Friday night after working 6 days in a row, the weather was absolutely perfect, and it's Mother's Day weekend.  I couldn't ask for more than to have spent the evening out with Matt and Norah, walking around downtown and sampling some ice cream from Washtenaw Dairy.  Norah found the softest little golden retriever stuffed animal at a new shop I'd never been in before (La Belle Maison), picked it up, and immediately kissed its little face and said "Puppy! Hiiiii". Love her so.   I plan to spend every minute of this Mother's Day Weekend soaking in my favorite two people in the world!  

Norah sampled Matt's coffee ice cream and my Caramel Pretzel Crunch (which was a new flavor for me and was Awesome!) and I'd say she was happy with our choices, too! 

She wasn't ready for the fun to stop when we got home, either. We grabbed the sidewalk chalk and headed out for the last hour of sun before bed. Norah mostly wanted to eat the chalk (umm, Pica?) and run down the sidewalk. We met a new neighbor, Hilary, who was trying to study for her nursing course, and kindly let Norah and Lainey interrupt her studies for a few minutes. Norah took her water bottle and dinner fork right off the table and took off running the other way, and my darling dog did the "whoopie shuffle" on the grass right next to her lawn chair! Nice to meet you, we're the a-hole neighbors with no boundaries :) 

I am really looking forward to soaking in all that we love about Ann Arbor this summer, and making the most of every evening and weekend in this place while the weather is mild and my girl is growing in front of my eyes. 

I think tomorrow we are going to walk through the Peony Garden in the Arb (like we did on our wedding day) and then who knows?  Sunday, Mother's Day, we don't have any plans but all that I care about is spending it with my lovely family! Wide open weekend, here we come!

Happy Mother's Day weekend to all the wonderful mamas out there! You shape the world by raising the people you grew inside you, and that is no small feat. A more meaty post on that topic to come. 

Our town

Yesterday, Matt and I took Norah all over downtown Ann Arbor for the morning. We both kept remarking how much we enjoyed spending time in this town, and how much Norah seemed to be enjoying doing all of the things that we did throughout the day too.  I hope that someday, we can find a home that fits us and we can live right in the middle of the place we both agree feels like home.

We started with brunch at Cafe Zola, our favorite place to have a great cup of coffee, wonderful breakfast, and one of the coolest places to go for atmosphere. We've been there enough that our server asked us why it had been awhile since we'd been in, and she was really being entertained by Norah, who was being completely charming. She consumed most of my berry smoothie, a good portion of my lemon poppyseed coffee cake, and wasn't about to let any bacon go waste. That's my girl.

Then, we walked down Main Street and checked out some of our favorite shops, and read the menus on the doors of several restaurants we've never tried. It seems that the food scene is always evolving in this town, and every few weeks there are new restaurants or things to try. We browsed through Mark's Carts down Washington St., and having a "street food" scene in Ann Arbor is something new and very cool.  Lots of variety packed into a small area with 7 or 8 food vendors who set up shop on the weekends.  I'll say there is a new list of food items I need to sample from there alone! Umm, Grilled Cheese with 3 types of cheese and tomato and bacon, for $7? Yes please :) 

The sign outside of Grange, a restaurant we have yet to try, but sounds delicious! 

 Norah knows her way around the Ann Arbor Public Library better than I do, since she and Daddy go there for story time and play groups on Mondays a lot of weeks. We checked out all of her favorite places there, and she showed me around. 

Little girl was all flair in her dress and pink shoes, but she was all about playing with the trucks and tractors in the play space. 

Plotting her next move, scoping out the fish tank! 

Peeling books off the shelves and running through the aisles with wild abandon...I hope she always feels this excited about reading!

Stopping to do some coloring and tracing shapes

Then we stopped in at Robot Supply and Repair, which is a cool shop with toys geared towards robotics, but also and primarily is a place for creative writing workshops for youth, tutoring, field trips about storytelling and bookmaking, and best of all many of their programs and activities are free of charge to the public. Seriously, cool place to check out: http://www.826michigan.org/.   

The window front of Kilwin's Ice Cream Parlor is always filled with freshly made caramel apples and other candy confections. So tempting, but we only stopped for a picture this time. Maybe when Norah has a few more teeth :)  

We wandered through Downtown Home and Garden, one of the Ann Arbor shops I forget how much I adore until I find myself in there every once in a while. They have fresh flowers and garden starters, seed packets and lawn tools, patio furniture and gardening supplies.  On the other side of the store, they carry kitchenwares and unique finds for the home, and it's always fun to browse around and see what is new. 

We went to the Farmer's Market, but mostly they had flowers and potted garden starters this week, which we aren't in the market for this year in our rental condo. We did talk a lot about what we would like to do with a garden when have property of our own, and what we would grow. I think, this year we are going to try a half share of a CSA through Tantre Farms, and see what we think of eating seasonally and locally this summer. My goal is to try not to purchase much in the way of other produce from the grocery store, but use whatever comes to us in our weekly box from the farm. It could be interesting, and I'll certainly post updates here with the things we get and what we decide to make with them! 

Norah loved hanging out with Mama and Daddy all day and was charming and sweet for the entire morning out! 

As soon as we were home, sister was cashed out. I ended up snuggling with her in our bed instead of putting her in her own crib, because I just wasn't ready to end the wonderful morning spent together as a family. I love days like this, doing nothing much but making memories and sharing "Our Town" with our daughter. Many more to come, little miss!