Day Trip in Columbus: 2015 Birthday Celebration with Friends

I decided to take a little break from the anniversary trip photos and show you just how behind in photo-editing I am.  These photos were taken in the middle of February...last year!  Yes, I am nearly a year behind!  UGH.  Oh, well.  Actually it's kind of fun to look back to how I celebrated my birthday last year since it is quickly approaching.  Last year was the big 3-0!  And since my bestest friend lives in Cleveland, my other good friends and I decided to drive up to Columbus to meet her half way and spend the day together!

First we met up for lunch at Dirty Frank's Hot Dog Palace, which none of them had been to before and I had only been once before with Antoine.  We got a plethora of tasty treats, including the fried leeks, which are my favorite!  If you're ever in Columbus and like hot dogs, I definitely recommend Dirty Franks.  It's a very relaxed atmosphere, fairly inexpensive and vegetarian/vegan friendly!

After lunch we headed over to the Franklin Park Conservatory for their annual orchid show.  Hmm, I wonder who's idea that was!?  Amanda and I had been to the conservatory once before, but it had been years.  Now, prepare to be inundated with photos of orchids...

An amazing 12 foot tall (or more?) orchid sculpture in the lobby.

One of my favorite types of orchids, and I love it in this soft, coraly pink color.

Look, a photo that's NOT of an orchid!!

Teeny-tiny little orchids.

The other non-orchid photo that I took!

What better way to celebrate your birthday than time with three of your most favorite people, delicious fried foods and hot dogs, and orchids!?  Answer: with all those things plus ice cream!  Yep, we did that too!  No excursion to Columbus would be complete without a trip to Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams.  I naturally didn't document that though, I was too busy eating ice cream and checking out the cute shops with the ladies!  It was a good time!  Such a good time that we have similar plans this year.  Since my best friend, Amanda, and my birthdays are only a month apart the four of us have decided to meet up later in February in Columbus and spend the night this time.  It should be a great time and I'm so looking forward to it!

Life Lately (in Instagram)

 Okay, so remember when I promised to have a real post for you (part 2 of the Mansfield Reformatory) by the end of August?  Yeah, well...it's September now and that didn't happen.  And I'm really not sure when it's going to, to be honest.  We've just been so busy lately, but in the best way possible!  So here's a "life lately" via Instagram to hold you over:

Antoine and I celebrated three months of being married at the end of August, which is just crazy!  Seriously, where has the summer gone? [pretty flowers from Trader Joe's]

 Summertime-Jessica is a total lush, in case you didn't know!  I made a batch of strawberry simple syrup so I obviously needed to whip up some tasty alcoholic beverages: left- strawberry mojito, right- strawberry margarita.

 I had been craving a cobb salad so Antoine and I got all the fixings, including some Amish eggs and tasty Ashland-raised bacon.  It totally hit the spot!

 On the weekends Antoine almost always makes a delicious breakfast for us...but I decided to sneakily make him breakfast on Labor day!  I used this recipe; it was really tasty, but next time I would scramble the eggs firs before putting them in the nests.  

 So many pretty skies lately, these are just two that I happened to capture.

 Work has been pretty busy lately!  Recently I photographed a bunch of items from the Winkler Center that will be going to New York for exhibit.  All the pieces are from the Albert B. Sabin archives and are pretty cool.  The photo to the right is a box of Polio slides; Sabin developed the oral polio vaccine in the 1950s.

 On Friday Antoine and I left work early to drive up to Columbus for a Black Keys concert.  For our pre-concert dinner we got some tasty hot dogs at Dirty Frank's Hot Dog Palace.  It was my first time there and it was so good!  I got a bacon-wrapped "Classy Lady" (cheese sauce and crushed potato chips) and Antoine got the "Slappy Pappy's Super Sloppy" (bacon, coney sauce, cheddar, sour cream, topped with french fries).  We also shared a side of fried leeks, which were awesome!  It was all so good and so cheap (and they have a lot of vegetarian and vegan options!).  If you find yourself in Columbus I would seriously recommend you check it out!  After Dirty Frank's we still had time to kill so we headed over to Grandview so I could pick up some coffee and we could get some ice cream at Jeni's.  Always so good!

Antoine's brother (my new brother-in-law) got us Black Keys tickets for our wedding present.  Awesome gift, right?!  We had a great time, I particularly liked the leader singer from Cage the Elephant's dancing.  It was hilarious and mesmerizing!

The whole auditorium lit up by cell phone light before the encore. Craziness! 

We're going camping with my sister, brother-in-law, bestest friend, and her boyfriend in two weeks so I got this basic but large pour over (since Antoine doesn't drink coffee so we didn't have anything to make coffee with for camping, except a small French press).  Also, delicious coffee from Stauf's, one of my favorite Ohio roasters!

The prince on his pillows and some of Antoine's clothes.

This weekend and last Antoine and I did a fair amount of antiquing and walked away with some goodies I'm very excited about!  [this photo is from one of my favorite booths at Heart of Ohio Antique Center]  

That's all for now.  I'm going to try my hardest to get my photos edited sometime soon (i.e. this week or next).  I haven't really taken any photos since Mansfield, but I know I'll take a ton when we go camping!

Cheese & the Hot Dog!

I woke up today and for a split second I genuinely thought it was Saturday.  Isn't that the worst ever?!  I also woke up in a fog like I have been most of this week...not so fun.  But the weekend is nearly here and I'm hoping for lots of time to veg with Antoine.

Since it's Friday and I have a knack for sharing gifs on Friday I thought I'd post this little gem; Cheese gingerly eating a hot dog!  See, when we went over to my sister house to grill out and relax in her newly finished backyard/patio-area Antoine had the brilliant idea to bring along the lone hot dog in our fridge for Cheesy.  You know, as a special, holiday treat!  After the humans ate their dinner, Antoine threw the hot dog on the grill for a minute or two and then I got my camera ready.  I expected Cheese to flip out, but he was ever so gentle and polite about receiving this delicious, July 4th snack....

What can I say, he's a class act!

I hope you Friday (and mine) goes by quickly and you have a wonderful weekend!

Pierogies and Hot Dogs

Cleveland really has become my favorite Ohio city when it comes to food!  You've got fun comfort food places like Melt Bar & Grilled and Lucky's Cafe.  You've got a slew of Michael Symon spots (of which I've only been to Lolita, but it was pretty awesome).  And then there's Sweetie Fry, which definitely doesn't disappoint on the sweet treat front.      

There's also a plethora of deliciousness within Cleveland's own West Side Market.  Located just south-west of downtown Cleveland in Ohio City is a chaotic haven for food fans known as West Side Market.  One of the best parts of West Side Market, in my opinion, is Pierogi Palace...and my sister will wholeheartedly agree with me on this.  Their homemade pierogies come in a wide variety of flavors ranging from traditional potato and cheese to creative bourbon chicken, bbq pork and peanut butter/banana. My favorites are the loaded baked potato and the bbq pork.  So tasty!  And, the best part, they're not too bad calorie-wise and they're really filling.  I highly suggest you check Pierogi Palace and the market out the next time you're in Cleveland, though a word of warning...the market on a Saturday is not for the faint of heart, that place is crazy packed on the weekend!

After a quick stop by the market to stock up on pierogies, you can continue driving further west for about 5 or 10 minutes and find a little unassuming dive bar called Happy Dog.  And there you will find awesomeness in hot dog form.  Oh, and about a million different things to put on top of said hot dog (or veggie dog)!  Don't believe me, here's the list of 50 or so toppings!  And the best part, you can pick as many as you want and it's only $5 for the dog.  And for $3 you can get a basket of fries or tater tots with any of 19 different dipping options. 

Happy Dog magic, complete with delicious dogs (and veggie dogs, so says Amanda and Aaron), awesome toppings, a great beer list, righteous tots and fries with some pretty kick-ass dipping options.  Of their sauces, my favorites are the roast garlic aioli, the bacon balsamic marmalade and the Brazilian chimichurri.  So good!

A close-up of Antoine's dog, complete with bacon, blue cheese slaw, grilled onions and a fried egg.

My dog with bacon-balsamic marmalade, grilled onions, brie, bacon and blue cheese slaw.  Yum!

Happy Dog also serves up some great live music.  Sometimes you can find great local musicians there, like my wonderful cousin Christa, also known as Uno Lady, or her talented boyfriend Tony Cross' band, Little Bighorn.  I highly recommend Happy Dog and my talented musical family members, if you're in Cleveland you should check them out!

Also, Happy Friday everyone!  Does anyone have some great plans in the works?  I'm planning to hit the gym for the first time since my ankle injury and maybe get some reading in.  And hopefully enjoy the wonderful weather we're supposed to have on Sunday!