Taking a (spring) break

I needed a break - from work, from travelling, from eating out all the time - and I finally got one! I asked to take a week or two of vacation between projects, a little spring break to recover from the past six months of travelling. I headed to Kutztown for a few days for a little country living and time with my family.

After spending some time with my friend Katherine, I decided I needed to make a change in my eating so I am trying out pescetarianism. I also want to eat more clean, so it was nice being home with my mom who is also eating clean. We headed to Echo Hill, where I loaded up on quinoa, farro, steel cut oats and some candy for the boys.

We then headed over to the Rodale store to check out how they transformed an old garage into a quaint little store. 

Ideally, my mom and I would love to open an organic living store. This week I am planning to start on our business plan and check out some store fronts in South Philly. While at Rodale, we stocked up on organic catnip, soy candles and healthy living books (on sale for $5!).

On Tuesday night we headed to church to help my Grandma make chocolate covered candies, something she has been doing for 30 years. Volunteers make all the candy and the church takes order from individuals and stores around Kutztown, bringing in a huge profit to the church.

I was responsible for making milk chocolate covered peanut butter eggs, which was torture since I gave up sweets for Lent this year. I wasn't the best at it but it was still a fun little night with my Grandma, mom, Aunt Hallie and Uncle Larry.

My parents are getting a new kitchen this spring so Wednesday night their contractor, an old family friend, came over to review plans.

I just happened to have the dimensions of our kitchen on hand so I gave them to the contractor for a free drawing of kitchen options. The results were awesome and we are now in full kitchen planning mode. Stay tuned for more updates...

First draft of the new kitchen! yay!

I headed back to Philly on Thursday afternoon to spend the weekend with Andrew. The weather was beautiful and I was so excited to spend Friday with my favorite baby Aris and his lovely momma, Lauren.

love :)

Lauren has been such a good role model for me and it's been so nice watching her learn and grow over the past six months. After spending time with her, I always get excited about having babies :)

Big boy can sit up on his own!

We finally got our Pottery Barn couch! I love it - it has so much more space and is super comfortable. 

I was a little freaked out that it was too big for the space but we finally got the old couch out of the house and it now feels comfortable. My sister got our old couch so we had to load it on the Civic and drive it across the city to her apartment. Ridiculous.

Dan rode on the back of the car, holding up the couch.

After the couch madness, we had a very Philly Saturday with friends, enjoying the beautiful weather. We headed to the Yards Brewery in the Fishtown/Northern Liberties area for a free tour!

The tour was very cool, I would definitely recommend taking the it if you are in Philly and love good beer!

On Sunday my whole family came in from Kutztown for family dinner at our place! It was the first time they had all been to Philly to see our new house so it was so nice having everyone over.

I am home again this week and planning to continue with kitchen planning and spend some much needed time with my husband :)