After spending one week in New Smyrna Beach we headed to Orlando for another week. While there we had a chance to explore the Winter Park area and I am so glad we did! It was full of charming little restaurants and cafes like Coop which we frequented twice while there! It was that good! I thought I'd put together a list of places that we tried and loved in case you are in the area and are looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of the theme parks around Kissimmee. 

• Coop - a very relaxed but beautiful space that has killer chicken and waffles and genuine southern fried chicken with all the fixins!!
• Rifle Paper Company - their only shop is down a quiet little street and it's the most darling space chock full of their beautiful stationary. 
• Le Macaron - bakeries selling macarons are popping up everywhere these days but that doesn't mean they're all good. This place is the real deal with really fun flavors like basil white chocolate.
• Jimmy Hulas - this place isn't on Park Avenue but it's still considered Winter Park. This place is totally worth a gander - phenomenal tacos and two words: zucchini fries!!!
• Brandywine Books - this used bookstore is tiny but it has some gems if you're willing to take the time to poke around there for a while. They have a lovely collection of vintage children's books too. 
• Hillstone Restaurant - we're big fans of any of the Hillstone restaurants in this family for their consistency and just really, really good food. This particular one has a gorgeous location right on the water with plenty of outdoor seating complete with fans but you can take in the views from indoors too. Try the spinach artichoke dip - you will be hooked!
• Tugboat & the Bird - perfect little children's store with unique toys and they stock Blabla dolls!

So after you gotten your fill of magic at Disney make sure to check out these places! It totally changed our impression of Orlando.

P.S. Huge thanks to Tina for all the great recommendations! Make sure to check out her lovely blog and instagram!

Sometimes you get a post in your head that no matter how hard you try to dismiss writing it just won't stop tugging at your sleeve. I suppose it's partially because the sadness of this winter and spring hasn't completely evaporated, in fact I think it will be palpable for many years to come. I truly believe in the old adage of "if you learned something it wasn't a waste" and I think that is part of the reason I'm comfortable carrying a little bitterness and sadness around with me. It's a good reminder to never take good times for granted, never give up and to never let my guard down.
So while my feed was inundated with photos of sand, water and sun these past two weeks my mind wasn't always wandering around on some cloud. In the few moments that I got to myself (toddlers make quite the demanding beach buddy) I would lay in the sand or water and allow it to relax my physical body but my mind still has a way to go when it comes to healing.
We were having dinner with my parents this past Saturday night (we have been going to the same place in Florida on vacation with them for years now) and my dad noted how that was the first day he felt I was truly myself again. He was right, because just the night before I was telling papa bear how I finally felt like I could unclench one of my fists for the first time in probably six months. I had gotten so used to the survival mode we had been living in, putting one foot in front of the other (often blindly), that the feeling of relaxing was practically foreign to me at this point. It was jarring.
We've done a lot of thinking and a lot of talking over these two weeks. Where did we go wrong? What would we change? How do we want our future to look? Are we happy with how we handled this difficult time? For the most part I think we were proud of ourselves for how we handled this year, save for a few exhaustion and stress induced fights and probably more hours of tv watching for Birdie than I would have liked. Oh, and I wish I kept the house cleaner and had the energy to cook but alas some things did have to fall by the wayside. I would probably credit it to the fact that one of the first deep conversations I remember us having while dating was about how we were passionate about two things when it came to being under stressful circumstances - not complaining and not taking it out on other people. We had been on the receiving end of peoples' ire that came from stress that had nothing to do with us much too many times to continue perpetrating something like that.
For me, I find that the easiest way to accomplish that is quite simply to shut up. When I am extremely stressed I retreat within myself, limit my social interactions and release the pent up emotion with a good cry or two. Sometimes this crying can last close to an hour but I feel like this way is better because all I end up ruining is my makeup, not relationships with people. I also find that the solitude provides me clarity and focus and helps drive me towards an eventual solution. It's tough sometimes I'll admit. Occasionally it's tempting to think about just lashing out and giving someone a piece of my mind but I try and remind myself that the cleanup of the mess that I would create would not be worth the momentary release I may feel.
But most of all I think the reason I've gotten better at this is because I used to be the opposite. My early twenties were such an emotionally tumultuous time for me and I was quite simply a tornado. I felt everyone owed me something, life was so unfair, this person and that person were so mean, blah, blah, blah... And I have spent the latter half of my twenties mending a lot of broken fences. I realized that by allowing my emotions to run amok in my life I was making my life doubly stressful. In a culture surrounded by things like "be yourself!" "be real!!" "don't hold anything in!" it felt like the only right way to exist was one without any sort of self-filter or self-awarness because anything exiting your mind must be inherently "right" by the sole fact that it was "yours." Self-control was an alien concept to me and one that seemed downright insulting to my very being.
The irony is with self-control came freedom that I had never experienced - the freedom to explore my mind. I now know that hurtful thoughts towards others almost always stem from a place of pain inside myself, inflicting pain on someone else won't make mine feel any better. And digging deeper into these raw places of pain have helped me heal them over the years.
This is all to say that before this year I was feeling quite comfortable with how far I had come in my emotional growth, I thought I had "arrived" so to speak and so when our hardships hit I was a little taken aback by the way that my mind began to react. I found myself feeling jealous, angry, annoyed and insulted by the most inane things. In the same breath that I would experience these feelings I would feel ashamed of them. I thought I was stronger than that. So I did the only thing I knew how, I retreated.
I took a step back from social media because at a time when our life felt like a mess I was not mature enough to handle seeing people's vacation photos or "working on another great opportunity!!" tweets. I took a step back from social engagements because I couldn't be the person I knew I should be when people shared their good news. To put it bluntly you could probably say I was sulking. But I knew from past experience that if I continued engaging it would only cause hurt and embarrassment.
The tides did eventually change and the sun came out again both figuratively and literally speaking and I started to come out of hiding. It felt good to be back but I was also never more aware of just how much more work I have to do emotionally than I have been as of late. I've met people who I look up to and admire, who in moments of hardship are able to genuinely celebrate the joys of those around them, who don't feel that someone else's good is constantly underlining their bad. I know this is possible, I just have to figure out how to do it.
Because though life may have gotten easier again, though it may be good now, it is a roller coaster and I know we will find ourselves in a valley again and when we do I want to be better, stronger than before.

A few weeks ago at the start of summer we decided to spend the day in DC as a family. For all we knew this would be our last chance to do this for quite some time. We also really wanted to take Birdie to the Natural History museum. We had been waiting to do this until we were sure that she could enjoy the experience and we were so glad we waited!  We started with breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien. Over tea and coffee we mapped out our day making sure to leave room for the inevitable parking disasters or toddler tantrums. Thank goodness we did because we encountered both situations. Papa bear decided to take the brunt of the toddler tantrum and take Birdie on the Mall in her stroller while I looked for parking. Eventually Birdie calmed down and I found a space and we were finally on our way to the museum! We thought we may have just squeaked by without encountering tourist season in the city but alas the museum was exploding at the seams. We made a brisk walk around the mammal exhibit and spent some quality time with the elephant (which was her favorite anyway) and headed out the door before another tantrum hit. At this point it was time for Birdie's nap so we found a nice quiet street in Eastern Market where we parked the car and then took turns exploring our favorite bookstore - Capitol Hill Books.  I love Amazon and the fact that I can realize that we need baby forks on monday night and have them waiting for us at our door wednesday morning but it also kills me to know that they are the reason that brick and mortar bookstores are closing their doors. Capitol Hill Books is such a gem of a shop and it breaks my heart to think that its days may be numbered, even though the crotchety owner seems to be taking this fact in stride. I can't imagine a world where I won't be able to enter a space bursting with books, the scent of the yellowed pages filling the air and losing myself there amidst stacks of books. In case this day is imminent I highly recommend you pay Capitol Hill Books a visit if you ever find yourself in DC.  And speaking of beloved places I figured I might as well wrap this post up with a list of our favorites: - Montmarte - a tiny authentic French bistro that makes you feel like family and where every dish is out of this world. - Ted's Bulletin - a fun place for brunch where they make their own pop-tarts. Enough said.  - Rose's Luxury - a place we only recently discovered and one of the few DC restaurants that deserves all of the hype.  - Le Diplomate - this is my absolute favorite new restaurant in DC. It is pricey so it's more appropriate for a special occasion but the food and service is phenomenal.  - 2 Amy's Pizza - the best pizza in the DMV area, hands down. Tables are limited and it gets very busy on the weekends.  - Pitango Gelato - their season berry flavors taste like something you would make at home - fresh and delicious.  - Tabard Inn - I'll be honest with you it's some of the worst service ever but the food more than makes up for it. That's why we've been back more than a dozen times, rude servers be damned! There may be some that I missed this first time around so keep an eye out for an update potentially. That being said these are the places we visit most often and love dearly.  As our day in DC was winding down and the sun began to set I felt a familiar heaviness weighing on my heart. I am beyond thrilled about our move but at the same time the thought of no longer being a little over an hour away from our favorite city makes my heart ache. My mind wandered back to the dates we had here before we were married, all the birthdays and special occasions we had celebrated at this or that restaurant, all the memories we had made here with Birdie and truthfully it made me sad. To me there's just nothing like DC, it captured my heart almost ten years ago in a way that no other city ever had before or ever did since.  Brace yourselves for many more of these overly sappy emotional posts over the next couple of weeks. I am such a wuss when it comes to moving, even though this will be my fifteenth move... You would think it would get easier by now...