2022 NYC Summer Bucket List

Eat chicken kebabs from the lady on the corner of our street.

Visit Governor's Island

Get Coco Helado from a corner cart.

Eat ice cream from Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.

Visit the Bronx Zoo.

Take a NYC ferry somewhere.

The Bixlers’ Fall Bucket List 2018

Tammy’s List:

Visit Watkins Glen

Go to Powers Farm Market and go on the haunted hayride!

Race through a corn maze with friends.

Make pumpkin hot cocoa to cozy up on a cold night and watch a black and white movie.

Paint pumpkins with Isabel.

Take a fall family photo.

Start crocheting a baby blanket for Baby Squid.

I can’t believe this little nugget turned 1!  It’s been a whirlwind of a year, but such an honor to be this little girl’s mama.

This fierce little one was born naturally through a water birth at home on her due date - 7/7/17.  Can you believe it?  I certainly cannot.  It still hasn’t sunk in yet.  And it’s been a month.

N and I decided we were going to limit our postings of our precious babe on public social media as much as we can help it, but I can’t help but at least post something about our latest life adventure since that’s what I use this blog to document.

I probably won’t be posting for a while, since first-time motherhood is quite the kick in the pants (understatement of the year, for sure) and I have no idea how I’ll start to find time or energy to take photos, edit them, and post them on this blog for a while (though I managed to do it after 1 month!).  But I’m determined to find a way!  Until next time :)

The Sahmels

I had the honor of being asked to take some family portraits for my good friends and neighbors, the Sahmels.  It was a first for me, as I’ve never taken family portraits with kids (I’ve done one with a baby) and with such a big group.  But I loved the challenge to figure out how to get good posed shots but also get creative in figuring out how to help them feel comfortable to get some good candid shots - those kinds are my favorite.  I think I took a bunch of solid mix of both posed and candids, but this sequence was my particular favorite.  I had the parents whisper sweet nothings to each other while I whispered the plan to the kids for them to sneak attack them when I gave them the cue.  I was proud of how well it worked out!  

The Easter Pig Roast

Inspired by our watching Michael Pollan’s Cooked documentary on Netflix during the Lenten season a couple of years ago, N has wanted to roast a pig.  

N and our friend V had actually decided to roast a pig for Easter last year, but with such last-minute planning weren’t able to pull it off.  But they were ready for this year.  They did their research, built the makeshift roasting shelter, ordered the pig, made plans upon plans, invited lots of friends, and worked together to prep and keep watch on the pig for 12 hours.

I must say, I was impressed with how things turned out.  

I was also very glad that the smoke was pretty contained and didn’t find its way into the house to have a smoky smell linger.

It was quite the tasty and fun ordeal.  I, on the other hand, contributed a made-from-scratch carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting and all the fixings - coconut, nuts, pineapple, the works.  I think I’ll stick to baking and let N stick to the roasting things.

Colorado Babymoon - Boulder, Part 2

After visiting the meadery, we visited the historic Pearl Street Mall and found some store gems there as well.

We visited a cute stationery shop and splurged a bit on a gourmet ice pop (I think it was basil cucumber, as recommended by the store clerk) that was so-so, but we went to town at the Boulder Book Store (of course we did).  There was actually a mead-making book that N really wanted, and then I picked out a cute little bear journal for writing letters to little Baby Bixler, and then we found an awesome illustrated book that we’ll keep as a surprise and reveal after the baby’s born :)

We could have stayed there forever.  There were also a bunch more stores we could’ve explored.  N said this was his favorite shopping area that we’ve been to because it seemed like they had a lot more stores that were more along our taste, style, interest and aesthetic.  

That’s all we really had time to do in Boulder that day.  I would’ve liked to tour the Celestial Teas factory, or explore the Flatirons Rocks, but we needed to head back to Denver, so we left Pearl Street Mall, ate dinner at a yummy Italian place that made all of their pasta fresh and in-house (Il Pastaio), and then hit the hay at an airbnb in Denver.

And yes, we did go back to Novo Coffee and Izzio Bakery to pick up coffee and pastries for breakfast before heading to the airport and flying back to Rochester :)

It was such a great trip!  I’m so glad it was beautiful weather the whole week and that we got to enjoy so many great things.  What a blessing.

Colorado Babymoon - Boulder, Part 1

We stopped through Boulder on our way back to Denver.  Our first stop was to take a tour of a local meadery.  N was particularly excited because he’s been brewing his own mead, so it was fun to see what we could learn.  It was different from a beer brewery or whiskey distillery because it was mead (honey wine!), but this meadery was also a much smaller scale place than all of the other places we’ve visited.  This tour was basically all in one room where they manufacture and bottle and label their meads.  It was fun to taste some non-homemade meads, too.  

Colorado Babymoon - Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

For breakfast we went to Urban Steam Coffee.  It was interestingly in a remodeled garage, but the food and coffee were good.  I ordered a satisfying special belgian waffle (I think it had nutella, bananas, dark chocolate syrup, and whipped cream!), and N got an awesome omelette.  Yum!       

Before we left Colorado Springs that day, we visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.  It’s apparently’ the only mountain zoo in the US, and I loved this place!  I’m glad we went in the morning because it was a lot cooler.  The views from walking around were amazing, and the zoo didn’t feel too small to be lame or too big to feel overwhelming.

N and I have never really been big zoo people, but we really enjoyed the exhibits and how they’re taking care of the animals.

Colorado Babymoon - Fort Collins, Part 3

We only stayed in Fort Collins for one night, but we were glad to have a chance to stay at a staff colleague’s house and meet his really sweet wife.  

Before we left Fort Collins the next day, our host recommended that we walk around Old Town, a historic section of the city that had small local shops to explore.  Given our so-so experiences with the other neighborhoods in Colorado we’ve explored in other cities, we weren’t expecting very much from this one.  But it was a beautiful morning, and it actually turned out to have stores N and I were more likely to enjoy than not (which is usually very hit or miss).

We first stopped in The Welsh Rabbit Cheese Shop, mostly because N wanted to pick some cheeses up for our lunch and I needed to use the restroom.  It was a really cute little artisanal cheese shop, and I loved the illustrations.  Next door was Nuance Chocolate, a local bean-to-bar chocolate shop in Fort Collins.  We decided to hang out here for a little bit because they offered chocolate flights to try different pieces of chocolate bars, which was new to us.  It was fun!  It was cool tasting the differences between the origins of the chocolates, and talking about which ones we liked better.  We also decided to try something called a “theo brew,” which is where they brew a drink just like you would coffee, except they use ground cacao beans instead of coffee beans.  Isn’t that intriguing?!  It was pretty tasty.  N liked it more because it wasn’t a sweet drink.  We also picked up a couple of truffles for the road.  It was all really yummy.  I wish we had a shop like that in Rochester.

Our host also told us about this cookie shop that sells straight up cookie dough in cups, so we decided to check out Mary’s Mountain Cookies when we spotted it.  They did indeed sell cookie dough in cups and even had cookie dough sandwiched between two ginormous cookies for a cookie dough sandwich, but I decided to be conservative in my pick and chose a giant double chocolate cookie since N wasn’t too keen on cookie dough.  I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was! 

We also decided to pop into a local children’s clothing store called, Clothes Pony & Dandelion Toys, just for fun.  We were on a babymoon afterall, and I actually have not yet been in a kids’ store with N yet.  It was a fun time looking at stuff together, and the store had a really nice large, eclectic collection of items from toys and furniture to clothing, cloth diapers, books, and shoes.  Everything was too expensive for us, but there were some things that did inspire us, and we appreciated that they had things for a whole range of kids’ ages, not just babies.

Our favorite shop was one we could have spent all day in - The Cupboard.  I wish we had one of THESE places in Rochester.  It’s a giant kitchen store, but they had so much more there and things at good prices that it was hard not to buy up half the store.  N and I love kitchenware stores, but this one really takes the cake for us.  They had some big name brands (but curated), local brands, and ranged from kitchenware to tea sets to pantry items to cookbooks.  It was so great.

We could have explored some more (it wasn’t as small as it may seem!), but we decided to head out to Colorado Springs since it would take us a couple of hours to get there.  We checked into our awesome airbnb place and then decided to walk over to Switchback Coffee Roasters, since they were less than a mile from us.  We spent the rest of the afternoon there, chilling, journaling, and reading on the warm, sunny day.  It was so lovely :)

Colorado Babymoon - Fort Collins, Part 2

The Waltzing Kangaroo was one of the places to eat that stood out among my research.  I was intrigued by the idea of Australian cuisine, and especially loved the idea of some personal sized pot pies.  There were so many good choices, but N and I were really happy with the lamb & rosemary option for me and spicy green chili option for N.  

And yes, I did order a side of mashed peas, and they were delicious because they weren’t squishy.  But the sweet potatoes were definitely the home run of the two, hands down.

After an entire day/afternoon of sipping on beers, the Waltzing Kangaroo provided us the perfect amount of food and was SO delicious.   

Colorado Babymoon - Fort Collins, Part 1

So, N seemed to forget that I happened to book the only two brewery tours of the whole trip on St. Patrick’s Day, even though I told/asked him about this at the time I was booking them.

It made for a kind of crowded day, but it really wasn’t too bad.  We went to Odell Brewing Co and New Belgium, and it was cool being able to compare and contrast the two breweries - not just for their product and their size, but also for the kinds of things they were doing as a whole company.  Odell was a place I had looked up on Trip Advisor or Yelp, but I especially wanted to visit New Belgium because I had somehow seen that they were the brewery Ben & Jerry’s had partnered with to create some special products and pairings.

Overall it was an absolutely beautiful day and a fun time at both places!  N especially loved being able to drink double the beer samples, and I love hearing his opinions about the different kinds :)

Colorado Babymoon - Estes Park, Part 2

For our last hoorah in Estes Park before heading out, we visited Cinnamon’s Bakery for some locally made cinnamon buns.  Yum!  This place is only open in the mornings until they run out, and I’ve read that there have been lines out the door at times because it’s not quite easy to run into off the side of the road, but all of the locals love it.

There were no long lines when we got there, but we definitely weren’t the first ones!  They were certainly delicious rolls.

We also got to spontaneously see some elk on the way back to our B&B.  They’re HUGE.  I took pictures from across the street, so they look kind of small in this pictures, but oh my, they are towering.  It was so fun to see them before we left the Rockies!

Colorado Babymoon - Rocky Mountain National Park

During our stay in Estes Park, we headed over to RMNP to do a little hiking the second day.  Amazingly, the only visitor’s center and entrance that were opened were just about a 5 minute drive from our B&B!  How convenient.

I was a little nervous about this part of the trip, because I wasn’t sure how strenuous the trails would be, and we were already limited to which trails were open because it was still “winter” season and a lot of them were closed.  I also wasn’t sure how I would feel being pregnant and all, and I very much didn’t want to hold back N, who loves hiking and hikes super fast.

But actually, it turned out much better than I thought it was going to be.  It was sunny and warmer than we expected (about 50-60 degrees), and there was only one part of the Nymph Lake/Dream Lake trail that was a bit difficult.  The packed down snow was tight enough that we’re glad we didn’t rent snow shoes, and the winter gloves we borrowed from our neighbors helped with the difficult part of the trail and the windy parts of the lake.

That was the only slightly disappointing part - the snow-covered lakes.  They were so snow covered that it just looked like a giant field instead of a lake.  And Dream Lake looked a little better, but it was SUPER windy.  The mountains were absolutely gorgeous, though, and it was so great to eat our picnic lunch on top of a big rock overlooking the scene. 

We loved that we got to see Bear Lake and walk a little bit around the Bear Lake trail, given that it’s the woodland animal we’re associating with our baby.  We were so excited about RMNP and the hike going so well that we went back to the visitor’s center and bought a mug with RMNP and a bear silhouette on it :)

Colorado Babymoon - Part 3

Since Colorado’s a pretty small state, we had a week, and we were only staying on the eastern side of the mountains, it gave us flexibility to take our time in each city.  So, like I mentioned in the previous post, we returned to the Denver Central Market for breakfast/brunch and hung around for a few hours before heading out to our next destination.

We bought pastries from Izzio Bakery and coffee and chai from Crema Bodega, and oh my, were those pastries especially tasty.  N got a croissant (which he enjoyed), and I took a risk and got something I’d never heard of - a queen pastry, which is actually a kouign-amann.  The woman serving us recommended the apple caramel one, so although there were a few chocolate ones that looks indulgent and yummy, I decided to go with the apple caramel for a lighter breakfast.  And oh my, I am so glad I made that decision.  I was so pleasantly surprised to find that the apple caramel was not too sweet, the texture was a perfect combination of crispiness and soft chewiness, and the apple to dough ratio was a perfect balance.  I have a whole set a sweet teeth for sure, but I’m not usually one to pick caramel off the menu, and I was honestly a little concerned it’d be more sweet than apple-y.  But it wasn’t!  It was SO tasty. 

Crema’s pour-over coffee was decent, and we were happy when we discovered that the chai latte was not a some kind of mix or watered down tea, but some kind of house-made chai spiced blend.  It was just a bit too spiced for me, so N and I actually ended up trading and I got his latte :)

We got to the market pretty early in the morning, spent some time chilling and got a little snack from Izzio - the labne cheese on rustico toast, it was also really good - while we waited for High Point Creamery to open at lunch time.  We were so excited to order an ice cream flight.  We got to pick 5 different flavors, and the flight came with a house-made chocolate fudge sauce and freshly made waffle chip.  Oh my.  We were again slightly disappointed by the texture (lacking some density) in the ice cream, which seemed very similar to the Little Man Ice Cream quality (we were beginning to wonder if something about the high altitude affected the density of ice cream here), but the flavors and chocolate sauce definitely made up for the lacking texture.  We agreed that our personal favorite flavor was Basil with Blackberry Swirl.  N’s second favorite was the Corvus Coffee, and I liked the Coconut Creme Brulee that I picked out.  So much flavor yumminess!

After our satisfying ice-cream-for-lunch endeavor, we headed out of Denver to Estes Park.  Before heading to our B&B, we stopped at the Stanley Hotel to look around the haunted but beautiful place that inspired Stephen King’s novel, The Shining.  We were so excited to be making our way closer to the Rockies!           

Colorado Babymoon - Denver Part 2

For the second half of our day in Denver, we wandered around the RiNo art district and made a few discoveries:

1) The art is so much fun!  If you’re ever in Denver and if you have time, take a walk around the area just to see all the really cool murals around the neighborhood.

2) The Denver Central Market is a great place to meet people and eat yummy food.  It’s smaller than a lot of markets like it in other cities, but it’s also really clean and has options for everyone.  We only wandered around a little bit and decided to come back the next morning before heading out, since we already had some dinner and dessert plans we wanted to check out.

I didn’t take any pictures here, but we ate at Work and Class in the RiNo art district for dinner, which was a fun place to eat.  They update their menu as seasons change and local ingredients become available, but if they have the blue corn empanadas while you’re there, make sure you get an order of those delicious pockets of goodness!

I had researched Little Man Ice Cream as a potential place for us to have dessert, and I was pretty excited about it.  It had a lot of great reviews, and it was a beautiful night for ice cream after a sunny day.  Unfortunately, we were a little disappointed.  The ice cream was okay, but it definitely wasn’t as dense as we were used to, and there wasn’t anything distinctive about the flavor choices.  We’ve had better ice cream in Rochester :\  Oh well!

Colorado Babymoon - Denver Part 1

First stop, Denver!  We snuck out of Rochester just in time to miss the (hopefully) last big nor’easter snow storm of the season.  We knew we were getting into the city late at midnight, but we were not expecting to wait an additional 3.5 hours to get our rental car and drive to our stay for the night!

Thankfully, that was our only travel hiccup and honestly, as long as we stayed cool it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. But we did decide to sleep in and keep it a chill-day-to-explore Denver kind of day.  So we hung out at Novo Coffee for the morning, walked around Larimer Square (which was actually kind of lame), and hung around Washington Square in the sun.  

Novo Coffee was delicious - it happened to be Pi Day, so N took advantage of their deal and got their drip coffee and pastry.  He also loved my mocha, and I especially loved my handmade blueberry pop tart (and I don’t usually like cooked blueberry things!).  We were certainly happy campers after that.

In Larimer Square, we took a spontaneous risk and decided to eat at Euclid Hall Bar & Kitchen for lunch.  It was perfect!  The sun was just beautiful, and the food was absolutely delicious.  I would highly recommend the Brat Burger and their pickles!