Oh hi – I’m back! I took a trip to DC a little over a week ago for a friend’s baby shower (more on that in this Substack post), and intended to have posts up here while I was away, but that clearly didn’t happen. About halfway through, I decided to just lean into it, and take time off from here and Instagram. It was actually very nice to have some time off and just relax. June has really felt like it has flown by so quickly, so the time away felt extra necessary. This month’s Life Lately is going to be a bit shorter than usual, because travel (and taking it easy to prepare for travel!) took up a lot of my time this month. But here’s a little look into what I’ve been up to!

Pittsburgh’s Arts Fest is one of my favorite things to check out each year. They’re doing a major overhaul of it, so it was shorter than usual this year – just one week/weekend instead of two – but I still got the chance to stop by. It was a (mostly) beautiful day – we did have to dodge a few raindrops, but it was worth it! I picked up two pairs of earrings and had some delicious fresh-squeezed lemonade as I walks around.

The rest of the month was pretty much a blur other than our trip to DC! I shared more about that in this week’s Substack here, but it was definitely more of a lowkey trip. You can see that Lily got into the calmer, more relaxing vibes quite well!

The whole point of the trip to DC was to celebrate a friend’s baby shower, and it was so nice to be able to be there with her and catch up. We don’t get to see each other all that often – she and her husband actually spent a few years overseas, so it’s a luxury to be in the same country again! It was such a nice afternoon, and I’m not just saying that because I won one of the shower games.

We did make it out to dinner to celebrate Father’s Day while we were there, and ate at Josephine’s in Alexandria on a friend’s recommendation. It did not disappoint – this beef bourginion was so, so incredible… and it looks so pretty, too! I know we’ve mostly moved on from the “taking photos of food” era, but I couldn’t resist.

I’ve been leaning hard into the relaxing and taking it easy since we got home from the trip. It has been a heat wave, but I still spent a lot of time over the weekend reading outside on the patio! I looked up to see this little baby taking a snooze shaded by the trees at the top of our yard. So adorable!