All posts in category Suburbia

Ohhh… Epic tacos!

There were still snow flurries this morning…

And it was still cold and grey…

Good morning from Northside…

We ventured out to try something new this afternoon, Agave & Rye in Rookwood…

We started with some chips and guacamole…

Genifer loves guacamole…

And it was really good at Agave & Rye. We also started with the elotte…

And we each had an epic taco. Genifer had The Buddha: teriyaki 5-spice tofu, sticky rice, baby corn, water chestnuts, cilantro, green onion, carrots, red bell pepper, Shiitake mushrooms, crispy wontons, sweet thai chili sauce…

I love ground beef tacos. And they’re kind of hard to find out. Agave & Rye had two on their menu. So this time I ordered The Cousin of Vinnie: seasoned ground beef, tomato-vodka sauce, mac n cheese, white cheddar, tobacco onions and queso cushion in between the two taco shells…

Next time, I’ll try the other ground beef taco. Their tacos were amazing and huge. And they had a bunch of interesting sounding tacos on their menu.

Everything we ordered was delicious…

Agave & Rye had a whole bunch of arcade game that would have been fun to play…

But we’re still in the middle of a pandemic and I didn’t want to touch anything…

Agave & Rye was incredible. Everything was delicious. Their tacos were huuuuge. And we left so stuffed. I think we just found our new favorite taco shop now that Django Western Taco has moved out of Northside.

When we got home, we took the dogs out around the block…

And it was still cold…

Good evening from Northside…

We ended up taking a nap. And later, we watched the NFL playoff games…

I was happy to see Tom Brady win. I was sad to see Drew Brees lose. And I thought the refs jobbed the Browns. How did they miss this helmet-to-helmet hit? Most likely, it cost the Browns a touchdown and they would end up losing by 5 points. Next weekend, I’ll be cheering for Brady and the Bills. Because nothing would be worse than a State Farm Superb Owl with Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes. I don’t really care for either of them very much.

But anyway, we had a really great day with some epic tacos! 😀🌄❄️🌮🐾🏈❤️

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by Thadd F. on January 17, 2021 • Permalink

Posted in #WINTERinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends, Suburbia

Posted by Thadd F. on January 17, 2021

https://tplusg.com/2021/01/17/ohhh-epic-tacos/

Long lines everywhere.

We got up early this morning and dodged the raindrops to get over to the Hamilton County Board of Elections. We figured since it was really rainy this morning that there wouldn’t be many people in line to vote early…

And holy geez, were we ever wrong…

Those are terrible photos taken from our car but the line stretched the entire length of the building and started down the side. We decided not to wait in line in the rain. I did get to drop my absentee ballot off in the drop box. So at least we accomplished something this morning…

Afterward, we stopped at Biggby for coffee and there was a long line there as well…

But there wasn’t anyone inside Biggby…

We like Biggby. A lot.

It was still rainy this evening…

Good evening from Northside…

Even with all this rain over the last few days, our basement is still completely dry…

We had oven sausages and sweet potatoes for dinner tonight…

I really love sausages and sweet potatoes.

Our new plan for getting Genifer’s vote counted is just to get to our polling place as early as we can on Tuesday. Hopefully the lines won’t be too long. Finger crossed again. 😀🌄🌧️🗳️🤞❤️

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by Thadd F. on October 29, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends, Suburbia

Posted by Thadd F. on October 29, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/10/29/long-lines-everywhere/

Hello from Northside.

This morning, there were some pretty little grey clouds above the hill at the end of our street…

Good morning from Northside…

It was really pretty this morning but it got kind of grey by the evening…

And good evening from Northside…

Later this evening, we ran Oscar and Bear out West Chester to stay with Geri for the weekend. She is going to watch two of our guy’s while we go up to Michigan to visit my parents. On our way back to Northside, we stopped at Walgreens to get a few things for our trip…

When we got home, we packed up some stuff to take with us on our adventure up north tomorrow. 😀🌄☁️🐾❤️

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by Thadd F. on October 15, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends, Suburbia

Tagged 2020, Cincinnati, Clouds, Good evening, Good morning, Grey, Home Sweet Home, Look up in the sky, Northside, Oct15, October, Odds&Ends, Ohio, Seen and noted, Suburbia, Walgreens, West Chester

Posted by Thadd F. on October 15, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/10/15/hello-from-northside-20/

And the rest of our Saturday.

It was a grey and overcast Saturday morning in Northside…

Good morning from Northside…

We ran over to the grocery this morning…

They had both the panda bear and the train again today…

And they had lots of my new favorite BBQ Chicken flavor ramen…

There were some great balloons this morning too…

We stopped to get our Saturday morning Mad Llama coffee…

We had this shelf in our kitchen…

Genifer ordered a new sideboard to go in its place…

It took a bit to put together but it turned out pretty nice…

It took too long for Oscar. He was out…

For lunch, we walked down Hamilton Avenue to check out Northside’s new taco shop called Taqueria 251. It was pretty good stuff. I don’t know that we’ll be rushing back. They had this corn appetizer called Esquite that was out of this world good. And they had incredible churros for dessert. I think we’ll still be satisfying our taco cravings at Django Western Taco. But I think our perfect meal would combine the best from the two places.

And good evening from Northside…

And from our backyard…

Before we headed upstairs, we stopped to admire our new sideboard…

It looks really nice in our kitchen. We like it a lot.

then we soldiered through The Reckoning on Netflix. It was just plain bad. There wasn’t one likable character in the entire series. So not good. At all. 😀🌄🐼🚂🎈☕️❤️

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by Thadd F. on October 10, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends, Suburbia

Posted by Thadd F. on October 10, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/10/10/the-rest-of-our-saturday/

A morning trip to Trade Joe’s.

Good morning from Northside…

We ventured out to Trader Joe’s this morning before work, and on the way across town the sunrise sky was so beautiful…

It’s been a minute since we’ve been to Trader Joe’s…

And Mad Llama is right around the corner from Trader Joe’s (kind of)…

When we got home, we finished up our work week before having Trader Joe’s delicious Mandarin Orange Chicken for dinner…

Good evening from Northside…

And then we all crashed out…

It was another long week. Thank goodness it’s Friday. 😀🌄☀️🥡🐔❤️

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by Thadd F. on October 9, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends, Suburbia

Posted by Thadd F. on October 9, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/10/09/a-morning-trip-to-trade-joes/

And it’s a low-key Sunday.

Good morning from Northside…

We stopped at the grocery out in West Chester…

Ugh. Those don’t even really sound good. 😝 But they did have the panda AND train at this Kroger…

We stopped at Skyline for lunch to go…

We took lunch over to Geri’s to visit for a bit. And then it was back home…

Good evening from Northside…

We had a wonderful Sunday. The weekends always go by so fast. 😀🌄🐼🚂🌭🍝❤️

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by Thadd F. on September 27, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends, Suburbia

Posted by Thadd F. on September 27, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/09/27/and-its-a-low-key-sunday/

Another good Saturday.

We love our new little side yard…

And we love our backyard fence…

Good morning from Northside…

This afternoon we drove out to West Chester…

We had lunch at Dingle House…

They had a peanut butter milk stout from Left Hand that was just out of this world…

Genifer ordered Mike’s pastrami on sour dough…

I had a half-order of their fish and chips…

While we out in West Chester, we visited Geri for a bit, gathered Oscar and Bear to finally bring them back home with us and then we headed back to Northside…

Good evening from Northside…

And this evening, we watched Minnesota United draw with Houston and Louisville City thump Memphis…

It was another really good Saturday. 😀🌄🇮🇪📺⚽️❤️

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by Thadd F. on September 19, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #SUMMERinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends, Sports, Suburbia

Posted by Thadd F. on September 19, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/09/19/another-good-saturday-2/

Mad Tree Brewing.

We finally made it to the new Mad Tree Brewing. We had been to their little original location a few times. We’ve tried to check out Mad Tree’s new location a few times but we always found ourselves trying to go at really busy times and we never could find a place to park. But we found ourselves in the neighborhood this afternoon and decided to finally check it out for lunch…

I think Mad Tree had the best social distancing precautions of any place we’ve been so far during the pandemic. Masks were mandatory to enter and they took our temperatures at the host desk…

Mad Tree had “traffic” lanes set up for everyone to follow when they were up and moving around from their tables…

We sat in the main room. But there was also an entire really huge outdoor courtyard area with another bar…

And there was another huge room behind the Catch-a-Fire kitchen that wasn’t being used while we were there…

The place is just massive. And I forgot to take a photo of the actual brewing facilities that are located off the main room where we were seated. But on to more pressing topics like taking a look at the draft list…

And once you’ve decided, you just order straight for the bar…

We ordered Kickboard with a raspberry-lemonade street pop in it, and a Nitro Hermit Crabs & Cowrie Shells…

And then it was on to ordering some Catch-a-Fire for lunch…

We ordered a 10″ Buffalo Soldier pizza…

BBQ wood-fried wings…

And Peppadew Pepper Fire Bites…

Everything was delicious. The pizza had a great flavor but the sauce wasn’t too spicy. The wings had a great, delicious char on them. And those Fire Bites were just out of this world. The little peppers were very sweet and finished with a really nice heat. They were amazing! After we were done eating, we had a Shade and a S’More Gratitude…

And exit through the gift shop please…

Mad Tree has an incredible space with terrific beers and great food. I can’t believe we waited so long to finally check it out. I can guarantee it won’t take nearly as long for our second visit. Mad Tree is pretty awesome.

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by Thadd F. on September 4, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #SUMMERinCINCY, Odd & Ends, Suburbia

Tagged 2020, Catch-a-Fire, Chicken wings, Cincinnati, Cincinnati beer, Cincinnati Breweries, Fire Bites, It's what's for lunch, Mad Tree Brewing, Oakley, Odds&Ends, Ohio, Pizza, Seen and noted, Sept4, September, Shaken not stirred, Suburbia, We ate this

Posted by Thadd F. on September 4, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/09/04/mad-tree-brewing-2/

Hooray! It’s Friday.

Dang. Yet another grey morning in Northside…

Good morning from Northside…

Before we started work, we ran over to Kroger for some groceries…

Have you seen these digital advertising strips on the displays at the end of the aisles?

I should have taken a video of them. But I’ve been yelled at so many times for taking photos in Kroger that I get a little gun shy. They were fully animated with varied advertising messages. They were really cool. But they weren’t nearly as cool as these monster candles…

Kroger had the panda and the train again today in the international aisle…

And they had fun unicorn balloons…

Seen and noted were these Wendy’s Baconator Pringles chips…

They don’t sound good to me. But what about some Halloween candy?

Why wouldn’t there be Halloween Reese’s Cups pumpkins in the grocery on July 31st?

We had delicious BLTs for dinner…

We’ve been on a real BLT kick lately. Probably because BLTs are so delicious.

And this evening it was still grey…

Good evening from Northside…

Thank goodness, We made it through another week. Bring on the weekend. 😀🗓️❤️

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by Thadd F. on July 31, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #SUMMERinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends, Suburbia

Posted by Thadd F. on July 31, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/07/31/hooray-its-friday/

A pretty good Saturday.

Good morning from Northside on this Saturday…

This morning we ran over to Lowe’s again to get more paint. After her success with painting our little half-bathroom, Genifer wanted to try painting our living room this weekend. While we were at Lowe’s, we also looked at some Pergo flooring for our third-floor bedroom. We really liked the color variations on this sample…

Pulling up the carpet on our third-floor and replacing it with wood might be our next, next project. After Lowe’s, we ran over to Kroger to get some groceries. They just had bee and sunflower balloons again today…

Have you ever tried Jack fruit? It looks like you’d get a lot of it for just $1.99…

I wonder if it’s any good? You know what IS good? These Ruffles chips…

Ohmigosh. They’re my new favorite! And this is the second time now that I’ve found them at Kroger! I was worried I would never find them again.

After we were done at Kroger, we stopped at Mad Llama for coffee…

When got home, Genifer started taping off the living room with painters tape…

And then she started priming,,,

And she did another really outstanding job with the primer…

And tomorrow she wants to paint the living room. She has a navy called Salty Dog that we think will look really nice in our living room. My job was to keep the dogs away from the paint while she was priming and tomorrow while she will be painting. And while she was priming, I got to watch the FA Cup semi-final between Manchester City and my Arsenal on ESPN+.

I don’t know why they relegated this match to ESPN+. They had a UFC behind-the-scenes show on ESPN and old X-Games highlights on ESPN2. It didn’t make much sense to me. But Arsenal defeated FA Cup holders Manchester City 2-0 to move onto the final at Wembley. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored both goals for the Gunners, finishing off an unbelievable 18-pass team move and then a swift counter-attack goal to finish off Manchester City. Come on you, Gunners!

Arsenal keeper Emi Martinez came up huge again for the Gunners especially with this save on City’s Riyad Mahrez. Watching the Mikel Arteta Bench Cam was also pretty entertaining. Arsenal’s head coach gets pretty animated on the sidelines. It’s been a week for The Arsenal. The Gunners beat newly-crowned Premier League champions Liverpool 2-1 on Wednesday and now FA Cup holders City 2-0 just three days later. Pretty darn unbelievable!

Arsenal will face Chelsea in the FA Cup final on August 1st…

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Chelsea beat Manchester United 3-1 in the other semi-final.

When the match was over and Genifer was done priming, we went out in the backyard with the dogs…

And while we were in the backyard, we fired up the grill…

First, we grilled some salmon burgers and chicken kabobs…

And then we grilled a couple of burgers and some jalapeno cheddar dogs…

The burgers were really good…

And the dogs were outstanding…

We’ve been buying this sweet Hawaiian bread at the grocery. Not King’s Hawaiian, but the Kroger equivalent. And I’ve been putting my hot dogs on that instead of buying hot dog buns too. It seemed like there were always hot dog buns leftover. The dogs taste awesome on the Hawaiian bread and now we don’t have a lot of extra hot dog buns going to waste. I think that’s what they call, a win-win.

This is Bear, the newest member of our family…

I like him. He’s fitting right into our family like he was meant to be here.

Good evening from Northside…

When we got home, we had some of this strawberry cake we got at the grocery…

It was really good. I’ve been on a strawberry kick lately. I can’t wait to see how our living room looks in its new Salty Dog blue…

When we got upstairs, we watched Louisville City lose 1-0 to St. Louis. And we watched more of the MLS is Back tournament. It was a pretty good Saturday. 😀🗓️❤️

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by Thadd F. on July 18, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #SUMMERinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends, Suburbia