Yesterday I mentioned that over Memorial Day weekend we took a road trip to D.C. to visit Tara (of Tara’s Multicultural Table) and her family. We’ve known this wonderful family for almost 10 years! Tara’s husband went to Auburn with my husband and me. It wasn’t until we were both stationed in the FL panhandle together that we became close friends. This year will be the first 4th of July since 2010 when we won’t be together, so we had to fast forward that weekend to Memorial Weekend instead!

On Saturday we headed into the city to check out the zoo. Did you know that there are a LOT of people in D.C.?!

It was a beautiful, warm day and a lot of the animals were finding shelter away from prying eyes. The first half of the day was spent trying not to run over toes with the strollers and seeing empty habitats. But then all the frustration was forgotten when the tiger was highly active, running around his habitat and jumping in the water. We really felt sorry for him – as the only active animal at the zoo he received a lot of attention from “roaring” and yelling children. His tail was twitching and his gaze kept moving up towards the source of the noise. We were able to get some incredible pictures though and the little man woke up in time to see the tiger. I got the moment I was hoping to have watching him notice the tiger and like it! (War Eagle!)

On Sunday after a trip to the farmer’s market (documented yesterday) I got to do what I’ve missed most – cooking with a friend. I’ve been watching Evan help Tara in the kitchen via text messages and blog posts and it was so sweet to see him in action. He helped us whisk the eggs, pour the vanilla, and manned the stand mixer. All while my little man was being entertained by alphabetic fridge magnets.

During #BrunchWeek one of my fellow bloggers posted a recipe for Nutella Aebleskiver. I immediately shared the recipe with Tara because (a) she loves Nutella anything and (b) I thought she had one of those fancy aebleskiver pans. She didn’t… at the time. Within half an hour she’d ordered one, saying it’d been on her Amazon wish list for quite some time. Happy Mother’s Day to her!

We made two different flavors, the suggested Nutella and honey. We decided that I’d photograph and blog the honey and she the Nutella. That was another fun moment for me, getting to use her photography set up! Their house doesn’t let in much light and the window that lets in the most light is upstairs. Right by the window she has a table set up and has made a few different painted boards. She has a butcher’s rack complete with different napkins, placemats, and other specialty cookware. Evan even has his own space out of the way where he can color while Tara takes her wonderful food photography. Tara has much more patience and dedication than I when it comes to photography (I just step outside, weather permitting, and snap up to 5 photos).

For the Aebleskiver recipe, please check out Tara’s post from yesterday.

We had such a great time going to visit Tara and her family, and getting to meet our Goddaughter, Claire! We’d been needed to get away and a road trip was just what we needed. The drive to Virginia was beautiful, lots of hills, mountains, and greenery. On the way back, in the middle-of-nowhere WV, we stopped for BBQ on the side of the road. It was so good, and it was the little man’s first BBQ – he absolutely loved it and ate about a quarter of my pulled pork.

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