Tulip Garden Picnic, Lacrosse, and More Mac 'n Cheese

Saturday was an incredibly action-packed day.  After going rock climbing in the morning, my boyfriend and I decided to enjoy the beautiful weather by having a picnic in Sherwood Gardens, which is a beautiful tulip garden in Baltimore City that is pretty much in full bloom right now.  I would have preferred it if the weather were a bit warmer, but it was still a sunny day and lots of people were out enjoying the garden. 

For lunch we packed vegan tuna sandwiches, rosemary potatoes, and more non-vegan tarts. 

 

All the trees were flowering and most of the tulip beds were blooming too, so everything was bright colors all around us! 

 

Some of the tulips were more open than others, but there were also a few beds that weren't flowering yet. I'm not sure if they stagger the bloom times on purpose to keep the gardens colorful longer, but I'm looking forward to going back in a couple of weeks to see what new flowers are out. 

 

The flowers are grouped by color, but every once in a while you get a random tulip in the mix. I'm not sure if this is a mutation or a mislabeled bulb ...

Make that every twice in a while ... The yellow ones here are on their last legs, but that little pink guy is just opening up.  Pretty soon it will be all alone in this bed. 

Later in the afternoon we dropped by the Hopkins-Navy lacrosse game to watch Hopkins beat Navy 15-4. 

The weather was sunny but cool, so it was a great day to sit outside for a long time (as long as you were wearing plenty of sunscreen!) 

For dinner I used up the last of the mac 'n cheese sauce, but dressed it up differently by tossing Tofurky beer brats into the mix. 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a very random meal, because I also didn't have enough of any one kind of pasta, so I mixed two together and just cooked the campanelle first for a couple of minutes before adding the shells so they would be done at the same time. 

While the pasta cooked I cut up two brats into bite-sized pieces and browned them on either side.

Then I tossed it all together with the sauce for a quick, easy, and tasty dinner. Yum! I think I'll really feel myself missing this mac 'n cheese so I'll have to make it again soon! 

 

Late at night after dinner I headed to a friend's 30th birthday bash ... more on that soon!