Columbus Food Truck Fest-Weekend Outing Preparation

We spent this weekend in Columbus at the Food Truck Fest. It was so much fun! We were selling our handmade jewelry, accessories, and pin back buttons. (You can check out some of our stuff here.) We met some awesome people and were lucky enough to have Ghetto Vintage as our neighbor.

This was our first weekend away from home since having Evie. I was surprised at how smoothly everything went. It used to be so stressful for me to leave the house when she was younger... so much to get ready, so many things to forget, and inevitably, spit up on all of us at least twice right before we were ready to walk out the door. Thank goodness, I've either gotten way better at preparation or she is getting easier to take care of as she is growing. Maybe a little of both.

Whenever we are going to be out for awhile, we bring a cooler packed with home-made food for Evie so we don't have to worry about finding something nutritious for her to eat in a restaurant or random grocery store. We keep several gallon jugs of water in the freezer so when we need ice we just throw them in the cooler. They sweat a little but don't melt like ice chips and make everything soggy. When they start to thaw, you can drink the water! The trick is not to fill the jugs all the way before you freeze them or they will burst as the ice expands.

I made a run to the grocery store Friday and prepared some things for her to eat. My arsenal included cooked oatmeal, hard-boiled eggs, grapes, a block of cheese, an avocado, some cooked mixed veggies (carrots, peas, corn, broccoli) all packed in recycled glass jelly jars. Of course, we brought lots of bananas. I packed too much food, which is always better than too little.

I steamed the veggies in my double boiler while the eggs were boiling in the water below. This saved time, energy, electricity, and water. If I didn't use the water to boil eggs, I would have saved it to cook the oatmeal. The water under the steamed veggies has lots of nutrients in it. It's usually green!

I also stuffed a jar full of celery sticks and water to keep them crisp and cool. She can't eat the celery yet but it's the best teether in the world. If she is having a really bad teething day I will give her frozen celery to chew on and it always makes her happy, at least for a little while.

Looks like she got a bit of grass on her celery stick!

Here she is, munching away, happy as a clam. She is such a good baby. It was miserably hot all weekend and she never even got fussy.

With our first weekend trip being such a success, I see more in our future, and that makes me a happy mama.