Hey Baby! Wanna Take A Ride? Part One

Yay! A Post about traveling! Since summer vacations with the family are around the corner, I thought I’d share some tips and tales of traveling with our little one! This is a four-part series, so stay tuned!

Road Tripping:

When Em was six months old, extended family offered to share their lake house in Michigan with my parents. Em and I were invited to come along since the backseat wasn’t taken.  Heck ya we were going!  Here’s what I learned along the way. A few photos first.

Lake House View

All Smiles! Let's Go!

Okay! Onto the tips and tales!

• Highway rest areas are your friend, use them often, like every 2-3 hours often. Picnic blankets are great for everyone including baby to stretch out on. 

This picnic blanket is great- it zips up into pillow.

• A tote bag full of tricks and at the ready is always helpful. Mine included: books, a small stuffed toy, teething rings, wind up toys - good for the restaurants, snacks, squeezable pureed food, extra pacifier for the Chicago traffic- whatever your baby likes, think out of the box.

• The diaper bag had: a thermometer, infant Tylenol, lots of diapers, extra pacifiers, wipes, diaper rash cream, sippy cups/bottles, changes of clothes for baby and mom, swim diapers (great as a diaper back up or the hotel pool.) It was packed!

• If traveling to stay with family, don’t hesitate to see if they have baby items you can borrow.  Bouncy chairs, pac n’ plays, etc.  It’s less stuff you have to haul. 

Borrowed Toys Are The Best!

• Same goes for hotels along the way.  Use their cribs and or pac n’ plays.  Just always bring your own sheets, for the hotel ones are always way too big and ill-fitting.

• If bathing baby in hotel bathtub and there is not a non-slide bath mat, make your own with a wet towel placed on the bottom of the tub.  A non-slideable baby in tub will follow.

• Pillows on the bed surrounding the baby makes a great baby jail and make shift baby chair.

Pillow Fort!

• Little one was still breastfeeding; pumping in the car wasn’t as hard as it seems, and makes Nebraska a little more bearable.  Just always cover up, unless you want to give the truckers a show and make your dad really uncomfortable. 

• You will take tons of pictures of the baby sleeping, because nothing is more adorable than a sleeping baby.

Seriously cute right?!

• And my last word of wisdom...the baby will poop 20 minutes after you get on the road, without fail…every time…always!!! So keep those diapers and wipes handy. * see above!

When Easter Gives You Ham Make...Ham & Bean Soup!

Well Easter has come and gone.  This year was super fun for all of us. Em enjoyed not only the thrill of hunting eggs, but also her surprises from the Easter bunny (Oh Tangled and Frozen... you thwarted me in my effort to keep the princesses at bay!)

I cooked the traditional Easter feast of ham, potatoes au gratin and asparagus.  There's one slight problem though... I got a ten pound spiral ham for three of us! So in this post I am going to share with you my favorite leftover ham recipe.  I've known it all my life, it's a family recipe. (Mom, please don't be mad that I'm sharing it and please don't leave in the comments that I'm doing it wrong. Love you!)

Ham and Bean Soup With Dumplings

1 onion diced

3 carrots diced

3 celery stalks diced (more if the hubby really likes celery)

3 garlic cloves minced

1 can diced tomatoes

2 14.5oz cans low sodium kidney beans rinsed

2 14.5 cans low sodium navy/northern beans rinsed

2 cups diced ham

32 oz chicken stock

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 tablespoons Italian seasoning

2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon granulated garlic (divided)
2 bay leaves

1 egg

1/3 cup of flour
salt and pepper to taste

In a large dutch oven over medium to low heat sauté the onions in the olive oil until translucent. About 3-4 minutes. Add carrots and celery and continue to sauté another 3-4 minutes. Add garlic, cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant. 

Add tomato paste and cook until all of the veggies are coated and the paste has turned rust in color. 
 
Add the diced tomatoes and delgaze your pan a bit with the liquid from the tomatoes. I had the ham bone left over so I threw it in. More flavor man!

Stir in ham, beans the chicken stock, worcestershire sauce, ketchup, Italian seasonings, and granulated garlic. 

Then sprinkle in the baking soda. The soup will bubble up and foam, but it's supposed to do that. Then bring to a simmer and let it cook all day! - The baking soda takes the gassiness out of the beans, I guess.

20 minutes before you want to serve its time to make the dumplings!  I know this might be a bit weird but go with me on it. I think these might be the favorite part of the soup for me.

First, pull out the circa 1986 (or older) orange tupperware bowl with a handle thingy and add an egg. Wait! You don't have an orange tupperware bowl thingy circa 1986? Must just be me. Then grab any medium sized bowl and add an egg.  

Next add 1/3 cup flour salt and pepper and the remaining granulated garlic.  With a fork stir the egg and flour until combined. 

Dough mixture will be wet and kinda sticky. 

The using two spoons add drop the dumpling mixture into the soup in teaspoon size balls.  You will want to turn the heat back up to a low boil while the dumplings cook.  

Cover and let the dumplings cook for about 15 minutes and you are all done! The soup is ready!

You can serve the soup with just about anything, crescent rolls, garlic toast... but for me I'm all about the plain saltines. 

A few side notes- this soup freezes really well, is better the next day and if you need it to be gluten free just don't add the dumplings.

Happy after-Easter and I hope that this soup ends up on your menu soon. (I'm working on getting a printable available so stay tuned!)

Needing Some Reading...

After some really nice warm spring weather we had a stupid spring storm arrive earlier this week...grrr. That snowy storm really got me thinking about my summer reading. I've been in a bit of a reading dry spell lately so I was looking forward to getting back into it.

With this in mind, I thought I'd share my favorite authors and books to help you get ready for your upcoming summer reading.

I won't lie, I am a southern belle at heart and most of my favorite authors hail from the south. 

• Mary Alice Monroe
• Sweetgrass
• The Beach House
• Swimming Lessons
• Beach House Memories 
• Time Is A River
• The Summer Girls
• ~Actually there isn't a Mary Alice Monroe book that I don't like. They're all good! She puts a ton of research into her books. 

• Dorthea Benton Frank
• Sullivan's Island
• Pawley's Island
• Shem Creek
• Porchlights 

• Patti Callahan 
• Driftwood Summer
• Between The Tides
• Coming Up For Air

• Karen White
• On Folly Beach
• The Memory of Water

• Kathleen Grissom
• The Kitchen House

• Lois Leveen
• The Secrets of Mary Bower

Now for the guys out there reading this or for some reading material thats isn't all chick lit here are some other recommendations that really made me, and the techy hubby have a good laugh.

• Tina Fey
• Bossypants

• Drew Magary
• Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir Of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood

• Mary Roach
• Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

All of these books are available on Amazon. Mary Alice Monroe, Dorthea Benton Frank, Patti Callahan Henry, and Karen White all have new books coming out early this summer. Wishing you all a happy spring and summer of reading.

"Hi Mama!"

This past Thursday morning in our household was both stressful and funny, well funny after the fact. Thursday mornings we have Kindermusik so usually its a scramble to get out the door for some reason anyway. I should have known I was doomed. 

Like I mentioned earlier I have a very smart 2 year old daughter, Emily.  I needed to shuttle some dirty laundry from the upstairs to the downstairs.  With that I had Emily hang out in my bedroom while doing so. This was not the first time I had done this; she also hangs out in there while I make an attempt to bathe. She has books and her coloring easel, and it's been toddler proofed. She's usually pretty content.

Well, after bring the laundry down I came back up only to find the door...LOCKED!! I don't even remember our bedroom door having a lock on it!!

Ok.... not... to... panic! Emily and I talked through the door- she was doing fine and had even managed to turn on the TV.  

I found the little latch unlocker thingie for the hole in the door knob on the outside that I thought would work. Tried that for five minutes...no luck. I then asked her to "turn the little knob thingie" and various other directions for her to unlock it. No luck.

Time to call the hubby at work. His response was half trying not to laugh at me and the other half trying to help me fix the problem.  Try a hex key he said...no luck.  

Next it was calling the next door neighbor to see if her firefighter hubby was home. No such luck.  Do you see a theme here??

So I started to take off the door knob when the neighbors firefighting hubby calls me back.  I had gotten the door knob to this point:

I texted him the picture of the doorknob, and he figured out that we needed to push the locking mechanism towards the door jam, not away. Whadda ya know!! Voila! It worked!

So what does Emily say as I open the door? "Hi Mama!" 

She had no clue that I was seconds away from breaking down the door.  I put some Bailey's in my coffee, and we made it to Kindermusik after all! Just kidding about the Bailey's... the thought did cross my mind though. Oh Thursday mornings, why do you hate me so?

On another note, the concierge travel services page is now up.  So check it out on the home page.

Welcome!

Well I finally did it. I started a blog! First, let me tell you "Thank you for stopping by, I appreciate it." Secondly, let me tell you a little bit about myself and the blog that you have landed on.

So I will admit, my Beach Street doesn't exactly come with a coveted ocean front location. Nope! There's not a ocean or extremely large lake for that matter within several hundred miles. My Beach Street is located on the front range of Colorado. This girl can dream though right?

I'm married to a man that herds nerds for a living, we have an extremely smart, beautiful, loving and quite spirited two year old daughter. Did I mention my hubby is patient along with being tech savvy? He is!

My background before I was called "Mama" was hospitality and event planning. I love to travel, I'm always trying to plan a trip. If not my own trip then one for a family member or friend.

Through this blog I hope to share travel tips, some of my favorite recipes, and maybe a funny story or two. If you are planning a trip, I'd like to extend my services to you in the research and planning department. (More to come on this.) 

I may be landlocked, but my Beach Street View looks pretty good. Thanks again for stopping by!

* Please note, this is not the actual view from my street, 
just the one I wish I had.

-Arrin