Exploring Ohiopyle

This summer on two separate occasions we took a drive out to Ohiopyle. For one of the trips we also rented a cabin and invited family to join us. We were going to be in town for a wedding at the Barn at Fallingwater and decided to make a weekend of it. My parents, sister, and mother-in-law all came with us which was really fun.

This post has many more photos (enough to require a page break) and an overview of the trip after the jump.

Weekend Packing List

Because Chris and I had nice vacations over winter and spring breaks and because he travels so much for work, we aren't planning any big family trips for this summer. But that doesn't mean that we don't want to get away for a weekend, here and there. We already enjoyed one weekend at Lake Erie and are headed to Cleveland and Ohiopyle for separate weekends later this summer.

Packing for short trips should be easy because you don't need to bring very much. But I often make last minute outfit changes when I am at home with access to my full closet. So I fret over what to bring more so when I know I shouldn't bring very much. From having gone on many weekend trips lately, I feel like I finally have a handle on what I do and don't need for both me and for Emilia (who I also pack for, whether she is coming with us or going to Grammy and Pap's).

I remember reading Martha Stewart's advice to pack based on a deliberate color scheme so that everything can mix and match. It is advice I try to follow but I get stumped picking between black or navy. I realize you can wear black and blue together but I just usually don't. I tend to pick between those and go from there. On a recent trip I picked blues and grays, which helped minimize the shoes and accessories I brought with me. Here is everything I took:

From top L to R: Calypso St. Barths linen drawstring dress, Levis denim jacket, Loft gauze shirt dress

Campers sandals, Longchamp Quadri hobo, Old Navy slip on sneakers

Anthro maxi skirt, Loft tee, Campers sandals, Longchamp bag

 Tankini bathing suit and tunic from Kohls

Ralph Lauren pajama set (current season here), VS night shirt that doubles as a swim cover up

The complete list:
2 lightweight/linen, comfy dresses (one of which I wear to our destination)
1 light jacket (usually denim)
3 pairs of shoes (one of which I wear on the way there)

• dressy sandals or flip flops
• cute flats
• a pair of sneakers

1 pair of pajamas
1 pair of shorts or leggings
1 night shirt that can double as a spare swim cover up in a pinch
1 bathing suit and matching cover up
1 outfit of separates

• maxi skirt plus tee or
• dark colored chinos and a matching striped boatneck  

1 lightweight leather handbag
And of course, travel toiletries, cosmetics, and enough underpinnings for each day of travel

I pack everything into:
1 large weekend bag. Mine is by Orla Kiely Etc. Here is the same one for the current season.

The main things that change when I am packing for a lengthier warm weather trip are that I add in a second bathing suit, a few more dresses, at least one more pair of pajamas (two if I won't have access to laundry), and a cotton cardigan to give myself another layer in case it gets chilly.

I am looking forward to our next weekend getaway!

Spring Break OOTD

This year my family went to sunny St. Barths for spring break. It had been nearly 10 years since my first visit to the island so it was interesting to see how things had and hadn't changed. I already miss the daily dose of vitamin D and fear that my tan will fade too quickly. It is a really beautiful place with incredible, uncrowded beaches and chic French women who look like models but it is expensive and difficult to visit in a lot of ways. I saw plenty of Beyoncé-level yachts and people rich enough to graffiti their Birkin bags. So that was kind of bizarre.

Apologies for the bathroom photo. During daylight I was mostly in bathing suits and cover ups and the evenings were a bit too dark and windy to take outside ones. I will share a bit more about my favorite island spots when I have time.

Details:
Anthropologie dress (I forget the name of this one... But I think it is by Odille)
Tieks flats
Etro sunglasses

Also, today-March 29th, you can get 25% off almost everything at Bloomingdales.com with code: FRIENDS!

Scenes from Anna Maria Island

This time last year we were lucky enough to go to Anna Maria Island for spring break. I never really posted about it but because it is spring training now and the area is advertised as a travel destination to Pittsburghers (due to its proximity to Bradenton, where Pirates spring training camp is held annually) I thought I should share our experience.

Since we are big baseball fans, we decided to visit Pirates spring training camp and festivities for the first time last March. We settled on Anna Maria Island as our primary destination. It takes about a half hour to get to either Pirate City or McKechnie Field. My mother-in-law located a cute little beach house to rent about six houses away from the shore on a very quiet block. We flew into Tampa and drove from there which took a little over an hour. We had a great trip and if you go, we especially liked:

Star Fish Company
Anna Maria Donuts
Mixon's Citrus Farm (next to Pirate City)
Eat Here Restaurant
Mazzaros (in St. Petersburg, where we stopped on our trips from and to the airport in Tampa)
Ellenton Premium Outlets (It has an Off Fifth and a Kate Spade factory store)
Ginny's and Jane E's Bakery Cafe
Sandbar Restaurant (try to time it so you are there for the sunset!)

If you plan to stay in Anna Maria Island but also want to visit Pirates training camp or go to games, you will definitely need a car. I would recommend one regardless because although Anna Maria Island is walkable and has some cute little shops and restaurants, the broader area is not very walkable and didn't seem to be served by comprehensive public transit.

The Anna Maria Island beaches were clean, quiet, and uncrowded. We also visited Holmes Beach which was lovely but much busier, particularly in areas that offered large public parking lots and nice, well-kept playgrounds. I can't speak to the area's night life because I didn't explore it but I'm sure it's available. You won't find many tall hotels lining the coast though. The bulk of properties are single family homes of varying sizes. The pace of everything there was pretty relaxed and just about everyone we met was friendly and kind. When we'd walk up and down the shore, many people complimented Emilia's or Chris's Pirates gear and asked us if we were from Pittsburgh. We felt right at home!

Sightseeing in the Twin Cities OOTD

In October, I packed up my family and we headed to the Twin Cities. The reasons were multiple but the most immediate was a conference. I presented and received an award for my dissertation at a small conference focusing on a subfield of my discipline. The timing overlapped with my wedding anniversary so I was thrilled that Chris could join me. And because I still haven't been apart overnight from Emilia (#firsttimemomanxiety), her presence was a given.

The conference was located in St. Paul and Chris took care of the majority of our restaurant and sightseeing planning. Though he often does this for our trips (which is awesome) I felt especially grateful that he did so this time around due to the convening pressures of work, my presentation preparation, and the startup. My only request was to visit the Mall of America. Seriously... I couldn't imagine a trip to the area without it, both as a scholar interested in consumer culture and an American interested in shopping!

While there we loved visiting the St. Paul Children's Museum, Minnehaha Park, the Walker Art Center and adjacent sculpture garden, and the open galleries in Lowertown. Above is an abstract selfie from the Walker.

We visited some excellent restaurants too. Le Town Talk is a diner turned French restaurant. They have a champagne cocktail program that is pretty stellar. We really liked our noodle dishes at Tanpopo in Lowertown. We had a delicious meal at Pazzaluna with family that relocated from Pittsburgh to the area. And we enjoyed the cookies and Italian fare at the Cosetta Market. If you are familiar with Dunn Bros Coffee, it began in St. Paul and although it is a chain we liked it enough to grab our morning cups from them. All places were plenty kid friendly!

Although the conference was held at the beautiful, historic Saint Paul Hotel, we stayed at the nearby Doubletree, which was more affordable and (more importantly for Emilia!) had a pool. We did rent a car which I was very glad about. It meant we could venture much further than otherwise possible. I considered applying to graduate school at the University of Minnesota and although I didn't, I did daydream a bit about what my life would have been like as a student there. I am glad I stayed in Pittsburgh but I quite liked the Twin Cities. I hope we get to go back soon!

Outfit details:
Marc by Marc Jacobs Mareika dress (skirt here, top here, dress from same collection here)
Burberry Brit trench coat
Salvadore Ferragamo My Joy flats
Spanx tights
Longchamp tote (current season here)

End of Summer OOTD

I wore this while we were in Ft. Lauderdale in early August. I will write a bit more about that trip eventually but I wanted to share a summery outfit before Labor Day weekend officially begins. It also happens to be a matchy match outfit with Emilia. I bought both pieces on clearance from the Tommy Hilfiger outlet in Washington, PA. We wore them to dinner one night but I only managed to get a blurry photo.

I used the trip as an excuse to break in my new Celine "Sophia" sunglasses. They were a gift from Smartbuyglasses.com who has an amazing selection of both designer sunglasses and designer prescription eyeglasses.  Thank you, SmartBuyGlasses!

Excuse the halo of hair that happens whenever I go to Florida especially.

Outfit details:
Tommy Hilfiger dresses on both me and Emilia
Celiné Sophia sunglasses c/o SmartBuyGlasses
Chloé flats

Remember, there's still time to enter my eShakti giveaway! 

Holiday in St. Croix

When you manage to finish two doctoral degrees during the first year of being a parent, there's plenty of reason to celebrate. So Chris and I pooled our frequent flier miles, took advantage of the "anyone under 2 years old flies free" rule, and headed to the Caribbean as soon as the fall term ended.

After much debate we decided to go to St. Croix because it was still technically in the US, meaning we'd have one less hoop to jump through since Emilia wouldn't need a passport. It was beautiful! We rented a very reasonably priced villa on the eastern part of the island that had incredible views and a private pool.

We liked the ease of traveling to St. Croix. Unlike St. Lucia, the airport was relatively close to where we were staying so we didn't have a long commute by car after a long day of travels. And unlike St. Barths, St. Croix doesn't require any elaborate additional flight on a terrifyingly tiny plane or a ferry trip to get there. It's a lot cheaper than St. Barths because everything is priced in USD and although you find some inflated island pricing, things were mostly akin to prices you find in a major metropolitan area.

Traveling with Emilia obviously changes our ability to just explore aimlessly, without constraints. We wanted to follow her cues and ensure she could have some semblance of normalcy in schedule. Our villa had a high chair and crib so that helped (though we mostly co-slept). It was surprisingly baby-proofed actually, save for the pool.

Renting a car was necessary for us. But renting a car has been something we've done on every similar trip. With baby in tow, we found ourselves looking for beach spots with more amenities rather than seclusion. Our favorite was the resort beach of the Buccaneer, where we met a lovely family from Italy on vacation. The mom was also still nursing her baby and balancing a career with her role as a mother. It was nice to find so many commonalities with her. It was also great to see Emilia with her little beach friend.

As far as food goes, if you ever find yourself on the eastern part of St. Croix, be sure to check out the La Reine Chicken Shack. It was amazing. I wish we had ordered twice as many johnny cakes as we did. The chicken was incredible too. We also loved the Blue Water Café for both take out options and sit down dinners. They had decent coffee and were fairly close to our villa so we stopped by a few times. We had an amazing meal of local seafood at Duggan's Reef. They put lobster in everything but it still manages to be priced quite fairly. We also had delicious island roti from Singh's Fast Food Restaurant in downtown Christiansted. We didn't get to do any shopping while we traveled but that was just as well. I don't recall shopping much on our last island trip to St. Lucia and have no regrets. We ate and slept very well.

We were all super happy to get away and spend some uninterrupted time together. It was a fortunate thing to get to do and we didn't spend a ton of money to do it thanks to the nearly free flights. Finishing our degrees and surviving our first year of parenting were big deals and it was fun to really commemorate them! I hope we are as lucky in 2014!!

Scenes from Cleveland Part 2

We picked our Cleveland hotel based in part on location but mostly on whether they had an indoor pool. In doing so, we sacrificed fancier digs for family-friendly amenities. But it was worth it! We were eager to take Emilia swimming for the first time and knew it was going be too cold to do so outdoors. Inside, the water was plenty warm and although she was suspicious at first, she clearly loved it! We took lots of videos and photos to commemorate the occasion, since she turned six months old during our visit. You can see her splashing me below.

 

Swimming wasn't our only goal for the trip. In addition to our visits to the museum and West Side Market, we were excited to try a few restaurants!

While there, we visited the Great Lakes Brewery, the Greenhouse Tavern (thankfully made our reservation just hours before this piece was published), Bonbon, and the Flying Fig (both the restaurant and the market).

 

As you can probably tell from the photos, we wore Emilia everywhere, including the restaurants (minus brunch at the Flying Fig, where she hung out in her car seat carrier, because we were leaving town afterwards and thought she might nap more easily.  She didn't and we wound up passing her back and forth in between bites. But that's ok!). I loved the food we ate everywhere we went! And next time, in addition to visiting at least one of the Michael Symon restaurants, I hope to revisit our favorites from this trip.

On our way home we decided to stop at the outlet mall in Aurora where I bought a full coverage outdoor swimsuit for Emilia and tried on this Marc by Marc Jacobs dress. 

It was marked down a ton but the pleat details in the front and back of the dress made for an unpleasant side view.

Overall, it was an amazing trip. We've gone to three places in Emilia's first six months: DC, New York, and Cleveland. And it has been so fun to try new things with her! Even the old things we do feel new again because of her, which is pretty awesome.

Scenes from our weekend in Cleveland (part 1)

Chris just started a new job and while this is fantastic news for our family, it also means that our schedules have become a little less flexible. Naturally, he has to accumulate vacation time and is beginning from scratch. But that doesn't eliminate our shared travel bug! We decided that in the meanwhile, we would utilize any long weekends we could to take short trips. Our first voyage was over Memorial Day weekend, when we drove up to Cleveland to eat, shop, and explore.

We visited the newly remodeled Cleveland Art Museum, which is pretty fantastic and free to the general public! While there, we saw so many wedding parties taking photos, which always makes me feel a little wistful. As a spectator, I was reminded of the strangers who wished me well and snapped photos from the patio outside of Heinz Chapel, while I waited to walk down the aisle on my own wedding day.

Chris put his art history degree to use as he took Emilia on her own private tour. It was fun to compare her reactions to the art on this trip vs her previous museum visit at the National Gallery of Art (when she was two months). At six months old, she was less into impressionism and cubism. She was more into portraits of women and girls. She still liked the mobile sculptures of Alexander Calder. But she also appreciated multisensory and multimedia pieces.

 

We loved the West Side Market, where we shopped and had lunch. Because it was a Saturday on a holiday weekend, it was very crowded. Thankfully, we opted to wear her rather than try the stroller. She loved looking up at the architecture of the space in the main terminal.

There was certainly a lot to see!

 

We took a break to eat our hand pies from one of the vendors. We also gave Emilia a break from the Ergo so she could stretch her legs.

We ate at some amazing places too. I can't wait to go back!

Outfit details
Me:
Tory Burch Warren ruffle trench
J. Crew anchor dress
Old Navy leggings
Lucky Brand Emmie flats
Marc Jacobs Mercer hobo
Norman Childs glasses/Etro sunglasses

Chris:
Vince sweater
Marc Jacobs jeans (note that these are way cheaper in the mbmj store than online for some reason)
Vans slip ons
Lifetime Collective sunglasses

Emilia:
Osh Kosh cardigan (similar hoodie set she also has here)
Tea Collection dress (same in another colorway here)
Old Navy leggings
Trumpette socks
Handmade hat

By the way, I'll be drawing the Shabby Apple Giveaway winner later today and contacting them via email. The winner will also be posted in the Rafflecopter widget. Thank you to everyone who entered and to Shabby Apple for providing the prize!