Weekend Festivities

Brad and I are very fortunate to have a summer jam-packed with festive activities. On Friday, we met up with Nick and Kassondra for dinner. They were passing through town on their way back from a weekend in Vermont, and we had a wonderful time with them. They even shared their skydiving videos with us!  I didn't take any pictures, but here's a photo from one of our other visits with them:

On Saturday we headed to the Wilkes Barre/Scranton area for a picnic with my mom, aunt and uncle, and cousins. It was our first time meeting baby Miles, and we enjoyed spending time with family. Again, I didn't take any pictures, but you can trust that it was a good time. We had lots of great food and managed to stay pretty cool, even with the hot temperatures.

We made it back to the Lehigh Valley in time for a light dinner and fireworks. Luckily, the fireworks were being displayed close to our apartment, so we just had to walk to the end of the street to enjoy them.

Sunday included church, Fuse, and a Fuse Picnic. Again, I don't have any pictures, but we had a blast catching up with folks, meeting new friends, swimming, and eating.

Sunday evening way pretty low key as we geared up for the start of another week. It's going to be a fun one!

Blessings,
-Nikki 

Friday Date Night + Weekend Picnics

On Friday afternoon, Brad and I headed to the Hershey area for the Dave Mathews Band concert! I had gotten tickets for Brad for his birthday, and we were very excited about the concert. After a quick drive and a lovely (hot!) outdoor dinner, we headed over to the stadium. The band that opened for them was called The Head and the Heart, and was fantastic. Apparently Dave Matthews discovered them at a show in Seattle and invited them on tour. How cool is that?

We had great seats in the stands, close to the top. Lucky for us, there was a bit of a breeze blowing since the temperatures were near ninety degrees.

The band ended with "Ants Marching" and we were able to make it back to the car just as the rain started. There was lightning flashing during the last third of the concert, but we made it back to the car just in time.

After sleeping in on Saturday (since we were out pretty late on Friday), we headed to Brad's mom's house for a picnic. Danielle and Meredith were in visiting from Buffalo, and we spent the afternoon eating, laughing, and lounging by the pool.

After church (and a workout) on Sunday, we spent the afternoon relaxing. We headed to Brad's grandfather's house in the early evening for another picnic. The food was absolutely delicious, and we spent part of the evening hanging out in the backyard. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of either of the picnics, but you'll just have to trust that we had a lot of fun.

Until next time,
-Nikki 

Anniversary Date Night at Bolete

What a busy weekend! We returned from our trip to Mexico and hit the ground running. Thursday night was a baby shower for Keith, Megan, and Baby K (heeyyyy guys!), Friday night was a surprise party for one of our Fuse friends, Sam, and Saturday included a Zumba class, lunch with Brad's mom and step-dad, an afternoon nap, and a date night at Bolete.

Bolete is a great restaurant that uses local ingredients. It was actually named one of the top 105 hottest new restaurants internationally by Conde Nast Traveler Magazine. Brad had been dying to go there, and we were very lucky to receive a gift certificate as an anniversary present.

We started with some oysters (OK, Brad ate those), and I ordered some truffle fries (Chips & Dip according to the menu). Brad had a fried green tomato with lobster salad (I just ate some of the lobster) and some of the most delicious rolls that I've ever had.

Our entrees:

 I had the scallops with homemade gnocchi and non-mushy peas.

Brad had the prime rib with potatoes and greens.

Even though we were stuffed, we had heard great things about the desserts (thanks, Dave!) and decided to give it a try. 

Brad went with the butterscotch pudding--I had a bite, and it was delicious!

I chose the chocolate truffle cake with homemade caramel and caramel corn. It was unbelievable. 

We had a great time, and the food was absolutely incredible. Today was spent at church and Fuse, and Brad is just about to arrive home after an afternoon on the golf course.

Blessings,

-Nikki

From Mud Run to Gala

Happy Monday!

Here's a quick recap of our weekend activities. Friday evening included a trip to the gym and a quick dinner at Paese-Mio, our favorite local pizza shop. The rest of the evening was low-key on the couch, since we knew that we had a busy weekend ahead of us.

Saturday morning was Race Day! Brad and I decided to run a race organized by Faith Church to support their mission teams, and also to honor a member of the church who passed away earlier this year. It was a great race with over 100 participants. The course was very hilly (and wet and muddy from all the rain we've had). We had a good time (OK, I enjoyed being done with the race more than I actually enjoyed running, but you know what I mean).

 This was my favorite part of the morning: a trip to the Emmaus Bakery after the race. This doughnut was almost as big as my head!

Oh, and I did come in second place in my age group (Brad was shocked!)

After an afternoon of errands (including a trip to the farmer's market), we got ready for our second big event of the day: The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival Gala. 

On our way!

 At the event: 

We had a really great time, and ended up meeting some really amazing people. The highlight of the night was a performance by Dee Roscioli, a Lehigh Valley native who played the role of Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway. Very cool!

Sunday was spent at church, Fuse, and a ladies tea party with some women from the church. Brad was able to spend some time with the Grizz while I was with the ladies, and we rounded out the weekend with dinner and a game of Jeopardy. 

What did you do this weekend? 

Double Date Night + Memorial Day Weekend

We've been really busy this weekend--and unfortunately, I don't have many (read: any) photos to document our travels. Here was our weekend, in a nutshell.

Friday: A double-date date night with some great friends. We had a delicious dinner at White Orchid, played some intense miniature golf (and boy, do I wish I had some pictures of that!), and finished off the night with ice cream. Absolute perfection, and tons of laugh.

Saturday:  We were up early to volunteer at a local 5K, spent some time getting Brad's car fixed, and then headed to Lancaster to attend LCBC and see Nick get baptized. We spent the rest of the evening celebrating and catching up with great friends before heading back to the Lehigh Valley.

Sunday: We started the morning with a run, and got caught in the rain about halfway through the run. We were already soaked, so we finished our run before heading back home. We got cleaned up, Brad prepped a salad for lunch, and we headed to Brad's mom's house for a picnic and some pool time. We spent the afternoon in the sun before heading home to spend the rest of the night relaxing.

Monday: It's only a little after 11:00 a.m. on Monday, and our plan is to spend the majority of the afternoon at the pool.

Happy Memorial Day, and thank you to those who served!

Blessings,
-Nikki

Last Minute Trip to New Hope

After an early morning run on Saturday (which was out longest to date, but not our fastest--I'll take responsibility for that), Brad randomly said, "Do you want to go to New Hope for the afternoon?" Neither of us had ever been there before, so we decided to be adventurous and go for it.

We arrived in New Hope around lunchtime, and immediately set out to find somewhere to eat. Brad had read great reviews about a Cafe Blue Moose, which we were hoping to try. We were sad to find out that they are only open for dinner, so we had lunch at Marcia Brown's instead. Marcia Brown's is an old church that has been converted in to a restaurant, and the food was great.

 

I'm not sure if they have the best burgers ever, but I had a delicious PoBoy!

We spent the afternoon walking around town, checking out the stores and grabbing a snack. 

 Isn't this house gorgeous? Love it!

 

We were lucky enough to spend the evening with some good friends before wrapping up the weekend celebrating some wonderful moms. 

Until next time!

-Nikki

Birthday Weekend Recap

Brad's birthday weekend officially kicked off around noon on Friday, when I stopped by his office with some cake. We already had plans to meet for lunch, so why not have dessert first? Unfortunately, I don't have any photos, but the cake was delicious.

After cake and lunch, we headed over to the Wheeler's apartment to help them pack up their moving van. They're off to start a new adventure in Virginia, and we're very excited for them. We're also going to miss them a lot.

After we helped pack the moving truck, we headed home for a quick shower before heading to watch my first ever lacrosse game.

One of the guy's from Brad's office, Brian, helps to coach a local high school lacrosse team, so we went to check out a game. It was pretty interesting, and it was great to spend some time outside on a beautiful Friday afternoon.

After the game, we headed to That's Amore in Bethlehem for dinner (thanks for the gift certificate, Northwestern Mutual friends!). We started with fried mozzarella...

 I had angel hair pasta with shrimp, scallops, crab, and topped with a crabcake:

 Brad enjoyed pasta with veal-wrapped shrimp:

...and we both had enough left over for dinner on Saturday! Speaking of Saturday, we spent the majority of the day at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets. Brad loves to shop, so that was his choice of activity for the day. Because I was such a good sport (I really don't enjoy shopping as much as he does), I finished up the afternoon with this:

Do you remember the time that we went to Target and somehow ended up with an iPad?  Yea, this shopping trip was kind of like that. Brad was able to find a hoodie, gym shorts, socks, and new shoes (I had to talk him out of buying cologne, since that was one of his birthday presents). My big purchase? Five mini-sized bottles of hand sanitizer from Bath and Body Works. It's strange how things work out, isn't it?

The rest Saturday was pretty low-key, with leftovers for dinner and a movie on the couch (hey, at least it wasn't Jeopardy, right?). Sunday morning (Brad's actual birthday) started with a trip to church, but Brad wasn't feel very well and we came home after the service. After some extra allergy medicine, a nap, and lunch, he was feeling better. We took a trip to the gym and snuck in another nap before heading out to dinner.

We had made reservations at the Glasbern Inn, a local farm-to-table restaurant. We had a delicious meal together and celebrated Brad's 31st birthday.

The restaurant and the grounds were beautiful, and the food was delicious. Approximately 80% of the food that they serve in the restaurant is from their farms and greenhouses, which is really impressive! We each started with a salad, and then split this appetizer of meats, pate (I didn't eat any of that!), nuts, bread, and some kind of fruit foam:

I had chicken with vegetables, mashed potatoes, and huckleberries:

 Brad went for the pork tenderloin and pork belly:

We also each had dessert, of which I apparently failed to take a picture. We strolled around the grounds for a few minutes after dinner, and even managed to catch a glimpse of these guys on the way home:

Overall, it was a great weekend. My apologies for the longer-than-normal post. There was just too much that I had to mention!

Until next time,
-Nikki

Weekend Review

We had another great (but not long enough weekend) here in the Nelson household. After a home-cooked dinner and some cutthroat Jeopardy on Friday, we started our Saturday morning nice and early. I was filling in for a Zumba class, and Brad spend his time at the gym doing another crazy leg workout (I'm not sorry that I missed that!).

We didn't waste any time getting ready, and headed to King of Prussia to meet these lovely folks for lunch.

(This is a recycled photos from our last trip to Philadelphia.)

Matt and Shannon met us for lunch, showed me around the King of Prussia office of Brad's company (quite impressive), and showed us the new townhouse they'll be living in after their October wedding. It was a great afternoon with great friends. 

Brad can't seem to take a trip to the Philly area without stopping at the Nordstrom Rack, and I (tried) to patiently wait for him to shop. I was pretty excited though, because guess where our next stop was? 

Oh yes, it had been way to long since we had taken a trip to Trader Joe's. Now we're fully stocked and ready to go!

Sunday included church, Fuse, an afternoon run (followed by a nap), a visit with the Grizz, and a going away party for some good friends. We're going to miss the Wheeler's, but we're very excited for them to begin their new adventure!

Until next time,

-Nikki

Week in Review

Remember when Brad went to California and Nothing But Nelson wasn't updated for a while? Well, that's kind of what happened again. Brad was able to spend most of last week at a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, enjoying views like this:

I didn't do too much while he was gone, so there wasn't much to report on. Luckily, my work schedule was much busier than usual, so the days the Brad was away went by quickly. I did have the opportunity to teach a private Zumba class, which ended up being a lot of fun. I went to growth group on Tuesday, and Wednesday I worked late after taking an afternoon trip to Jim Thorpe. Brad came home on Thursday, and we enjoyed dinner at home and caught up on Castle.

Friday was our "date night" which turned out to be a typical Friday night: a trip to the gym, dinner at Paese-Mio, and ice cream at Premise Maid. We attempted to watch an episode of Psych when we got home, but ended up falling asleep and waking up when it was over. What a wild Friday night!

Actually, McGee was the only one getting crazy around here!

This morning included a run outside--we're starting to get ready for the race in Milwaukee. Here's to hoping it goes better than last year.

Enjoy your weekend!
-Nikki

Day-long Date

Man, this week has been busy! Brad and I were lucky to have something going on almost every night last week, which didn't leave much time for anything else. We were able to enjoy dinner with friends from church on two separate nights, and had meal with Brad's coworkers at a local restaurant. We managed to squeeze in a couple of trips to the gym, but date night was pretty low-key. We had good intentions of going out for dinner on Wednesday, but with everything going on we decided to grab dinner from Wegman's and enjoy a quiet dinner at home.

We didn't have anything in particular planned for Saturday, and we were able to spend the entire day together. We started our day at the gym, completing this crazy leg workout.

Saturday ended up being a beautiful day, so we headed to the park across the street before a quick walk before heading back to the house.

We decided to head to Bethlehem for lunch, which we enjoyed at Horns. (You can read about our first trip to Horns here). Brad had a pork-belly sandwich, and I enjoyed a meatball sub. We also shared a side of fries with truffle oil, parsley, and sea salt. They were seriously some of the best fries I've ever had!

After lunch we made a few quick stops (including a trip to DSW) before heading home for a quick nap. We enjoyed a light dinner of leftovers before heading out for our second adventure: The Hunger Games.

I recently read the first book of The Hunger Games series and was interested to see what the movie would be like. We both found the movie to be rather entertaining and were glad that we had the chance to spend the evening together.

Sunday included the usual: Church, Fuse, and a trip to the gym. Now it's time for dinner, and later, an episode of Cupcake Wars. I hope you enjoyed your weekend!

Blessings,
-Nikki

Easter Weekend

Brad and I had a busy Easter weekend. Here are some highlights from our adventures:

Dying Easter Eggs! This was take two of our date night adventure. Take one didn't go so well (FYI: there is no TCBY in Bethlehem, and EuroYogurt is NOTHING like Menchie's)

 Post-Easter Egg coloring adventure AND workout Saturday

 Before heading to Brad's Grandfather's house for an Easter meal

 Saturday also included a trip to Sweet & Sassy with this cutie

 The spa area, just for little girls

 Before her haircut

 Picking out the nail polish color

 The manicure

 After her haircut!

Dressed for Church on Easter Sunday

...and a picture of sweet little Lydia that Kathy and Jeff sent, just because I'm a proud aunt. :)

Until next time,

-Nikki