Hi! I’m back with part 2 of my holiday recaps. If you missed Part 1, watch this one first – it covers our first few days of the trip, including Christmas Day: Pittsburgh Christmas Recap 2022 (Part 1).
For this second post, rather than recap day by day, I’ll share some food and fitness highlights from the rest of our stay.
Christmas Recap 2022 in Pittsburgh (Part 2)
Food Highlights
We had some great meals while visiting the Pittsburgh area with Matt’s family and enjoyed plenty of leftovers for lunch most days! Let’s talk about breakfast first.
breakfast
I didn’t get daily breakfast pics as Wes was mostly very early in the morning for toast + nut butter and fruit (I woke up early with Wes many days in exchange for going to practice as soon as Matt was up – well worth it himself), but here were two notable breakfasts we had at the house.
French toast + scrambled eggs + bacon + fruit:
Freezer Burritos – my father-in-law said this was a variation of my recipe for Freezable Sausage Burritos with Eggs! I have to make more of these, they are so easy and delicious and really helpful to have on hand!
I also had some delicious breakfasts around town at my favorite spot, Mediterra, after meeting up with local friends for training dates. (I also had some really good lattes from Adesso Cafe, my other local favorite!)
Mushroom quiche which was delicious and reminded me of my goat cheese and mushroom frittata:
Salmon Toast with Cucumber and Labneh:
And avocado toast (loved the herb and seed additions to it):
Having lunch
Lunch looked like lots of leftovers paired with large salads which I threw together. Here’s one of those salads with some leftover chicken and some soup.
My father-in-law had some chicken broth on hand and made us a really tasty chicken, veg and noodle soup that got lots of love – it was nice to have something lighter for lunch as dinner was richer!
dinner
One of my favorite meals was a large salad with leftover steak from Christmas dinner. It was so good! Served with half a baked potato on the side.
I also love my father-in-law’s cedar grilled salmon – it hit the spot.
Our New Year’s dinner, just before we headed back to DC (we always do night drives after dinner, it’s easier with the kids as they sleep mostly and there’s not much traffic) consisted of pork, potatoes, collards and Sauerkraut, black-eyed peas, and cornbread!
We also had a fun dinner while we were in Sewickley – Matt and I and his two brothers and their wives managed to get a night out without the kids (thanks to the grandparents for babysitting us so we could go out!).
We went to a place in town called Mambo’s Italian Kitchen. I started with the beet salad:
And then the other ladies and I shared a pizza and the lemon chicken. The salad was just ok but the starters were delicious!
We also made it into town on New Year’s Eve – Matt, Riese and I were at a party at our friends Jack and Megan’s house. (Wes stayed home with the grandparents since there were only older kids at the party and we knew we’d be late.)
Riese and I stayed until about 9:30 a.m. before leaving Matt there (to Riese’s utter displeasure – she yelled back the entire drive and it was super funny) and walked back to my in-laws’ apartment on our own so I could take her to bed. I fell asleep at 10:30 a.m. – just before midnight. 😉
The only photo I was able to take at the party was this one with my college friend Sarah, who was marrying one of Matt’s high school friends after we met her back then (she and I were roommates when Matt and I started to make an appointment). It was great to see her and so were the others!
fitness fun
As I mentioned earlier, I dropped out there for a few yoga classes – some with friends or my sisters-in-law and some by myself. It felt really good to prioritize this time to regulate my nervous system in the midst of the noise and chaos in the house with all the little kids.
Matt and I also got out for 3 runs while we were there which was a lot of fun as we don’t usually get to run together these days!
I wrote about the first run in my last recap (it was Christmas Day with cold temperatures so we kept it short and sweet) and the second was on a beautiful and sunny day (actually the only sunny day we had there had). – it’s pretty gray in Pittsburgh in the winter) with our mutual friend Tom.
Matt and Tom are best friends from high school and he and I went to college together and are the reason Matt and I met!
We had a great run – chatty and it flew by. And luckily Tom drove a lot slower than he usually does for us. 😉
The third run Matt and I attended was on New Year’s Day – we thought it would be a good thing to get some exercise before heading back to DC later that night!
We followed the same route we walked with Tom earlier in the week, only in reverse, stopping a little earlier to cool off.
I felt a lot more tired on this run than the previous ones – the busy week caught up with me I think! Although it’s interesting to see now that our pace was a bit quicker, especially as the reverse route is hillier…
We also went on a hike with friends before leaving town – our friends John and Erin had flight problems and couldn’t be there in time for the New Year’s Eve party, but luckily we were able to see them and their kids for a New Year’s Day hike!
Giant was thrilled as they have 3 girls – she hit it off immediately with her 6 year old and literally a minute after meeting them they were walking hand in hand – so cute. My little extrovert!
And Wes was there when he realized that other people weren’t going to take him away from us. 😉
It was also nice to be able to walk on a trail instead of the street – there aren’t any sidewalks around Matt’s childhood home so Wes had to run down the street on all walks, which scared me a lot because of the cars passing by, although I did all the time stayed right next to him… uff.
And there you have it! The complete summary of the trip.
It’s been a hectic week but we had a lot of fun – it was really nice to be with all of Matt’s family and the cousins ​​had so much fun together. It was really cute to see them getting closer as they got older!
We were sad to say goodbye to our family and friends, but it was also very nice to get back to our own beds and routine. I was pretty excited to take Riese to school last Tuesday, to be honest… 🙂