Friday's I get to enjoy a half day at work. Often I will do the grocery shopping and run errands before returning home, but I always make sure to get home in time to watch Giada De Laurentiis. Two Friday's ago on her show she made "Hearty Tomato Soup" and "Beef and Butternut Squash Stew". Both of which looked amazing and I knew I wanted to try. So yesterday I made the soup for lunch and it was so yummy (we will be having the left overs tomorrow)!! Tonight I made the stew and it too was delicious. It is a thiner stew but the melody of flavors was simply wonderfully delectable. Many times on Giada's cooking show she makes a meal for a certian event this time it was after her and some friends had spent the day skiing and had dinner by the fire. While Jordan and I didn't eat this after skiing we did have it while in front of a warm, cozy fire Jordan had prepared. It sure was a fun dinner.
Here is a picture so you can join in the fun with us.
Let me know what you think if you make either of the recipes!
I woke up this morning and I could not help but be reminded of all the reasons why I love Saturday mornings. Saturday mornings are so wonderful to begin. I am awakened by the sunlight streaming through our creamy white curtains. It's such a peaceful way to be awoken, much nicer than any alarm clock for sure. Once waking up there is really not much of a schedule, you can do what ever you want and take as long as you want doing it! This morning Jordan and I started our morning with a nice walk/jog then got all cleaned up and had a wonderful yummy brunch. We were given a waffle maker this Christmas from Jordan's Family and we are having fun using it...yum..
We also enjoyed a yummy cappuccino together in cute tea cups. I got the cappuccino maker for Jordan's Christmas present and they are so much fun to make and drink. It is a stove-top maker similar to a percolator but it also steams the milk and makes that fun loud pitched noise just like you're at a coffee shop.
I also love Saturdays because they are such a wonderful day to recharge and get ready for the week ahead. I love getting the house all clean and I love how the house smells after all the cleaning and laundry. Saturdays are also a great day for crafts and painting your nails. So many fun things can happen on a Saturday there are just so many reasons to love this day!
Last week Jordan and I went on a date, it was a snowy Saturday and we were looking for something fun to do. The pottery painting place in town "The Polka Dot Pot" also offers glass fusing and I had been wanting to try it for awhile so we decided to do that. I chose to make a pendant and Jordan provided wonderful advice on my piece. Working with glass was lots of fun. I got to choose from lots of colors for the base of my pendant. Then they showed me how to score and cut the glass into little fun pieces to decorate the pendant. Lastly they have you glue your pieces down and they send it off for fusing. I think I will go back and make some earrings to go with it!
We just got back from our New York adventure late Saturday night after driving 7 hours through the surprise snow storm, it took us a little over 4 hours to get to NY mind you.
Our trip started Thursday morning when we set off on our journey. We decided to stay outside the city in New Jersey so that we could use an amazing Hotel coupon. We arrived just in time to check in, and change for Wicked. We were about to catch a shuttle into the city when the other family that was going changed their mind and the shuttle driver decided to drop us of at a bus stop instead. He informed us to take the 125. So we waited patiently for a while then after about 30 minutes became a little concerned that our bus wasn’t coming for us. So we went into the Dunkin Doughnuts and found out that the 125 comes once an hour. In total I think we waited for 45 minutes it was quite chilly. Then when we got onto the bus we didn’t have enough “singles” for the trip, so luckily the bus driver let us on despite our incomplete fares. The ride was quite nice and relaxing actually. After a quick bite to eat and a yummy Peppermint Mocha (at the most packed Starbucks I have ever experienced) we arrived at the Gershwin Theater! It was huge and so exciting. Our seats were spectacular and the play was magnificent!!! It was quirky and fun and we loved every minute of it.
The next day we were much more prepared to go into the city. We parked our car and took the Path Train. Our next adventure took us to the Museum of Modern Art. Jordan’s brother Jesse joined us there. Our big excitement for going is a Tim Burton exhibit they have there currently. It was amazing!!
And after we were done with that there were 6 floors of art to look at.
Look we even snuck into a piece of art!
We ended up getting coffee and desert at the Museum café and we just had to take a picture of it because it was so amazing!!
This was a yummy meal at a Japanese place, we were only given chopsticks and this spoon for the broth :) So we both became much better at using chopsticks.
That night we went to a really fun diner and then went to the Town Hall to see Prairie Home Companion; which is a radio show that is aired on NPR. It was so fun to be there and Norah Jones happened to be one of the musical guests, which was something we didn’t know when we bought the tickets. We were pleasantly surprised because we both enjoy her music. It was really fun to see everything live after listening to the radio program.
Our last big event before the drive home was waking up Saturday morning to go to the Bodies exhibit which is located near the World Trade Center. Jordan’s mom had gone to this exhibit a little while ago and raved about it so we were very excited. It was also really neat for Jordan because of his studies so he had a fun time pointing things out to me as we went through. The displays were truly amazing and fun to see.
We had a super fun time in NY seeing the sites here are some random pictures we took :)
I have thoroughly enjoyed this past Thanksgiving weekend! It has been full of fun with family and decorating!
First of all we hosted our first Thanksgiving meal, Jordan's brothers came over to our place. The past several years we have had Thanksgiving meal just the two of us because Jordan has had to work the Friday after. We had made it quite a fun tradition. I enjoy cooking so I always come up with the menu for the big day and then we would enjoy a Thanksgiving feast together. After the meal we would always put up the tree and watch Elf. This year we were honored to have Jordan's brothers over. I got a little stressed because sadly the turkey took a good hour longer than I had planned on; but in the end everything turned out fine. Here are some pictures of some of the fixin's (we are so bummed that we forgot to get a picture of all of us together).
Jordan picked up these beautiful flowers for me :)
Now for the decorating part. Yes we put up our tree!! Also my parents gave us a little gift money to buy something special for our new place (Thank you!!). So we got to use that for some new decorating items. Here are some pictures of our decorations!
Here is the our new country snowman with our stockings hung by the fireplace in the background :)
This is the cutest owl ever and our new ornament for the year!
I have saved the best for last...homemade crafts! So I love Martha Stewart Living magazine especially around the holidays. I recently picked up the December issue and it is full of yummy recipes and crafts. One of the projects in the issue were these beautiful star ornaments made out of ribbon. I instantly fell in love and had to give them a try. I tend to collect ribbons so I had a little stash and then I went out and bought a few more to have variety. Below is a picture of the finished product.
After I was done with this project I had some leftover ribbon scraps and decided to put our names on our blank stockings using the scraps. Here is how they turned out :)
Hooray for the Holidays!! I hope you are all having fun with your decorating too!
Doesn't that just sound like the most beautiful place?....Well I have to tell you it is! :)
3 Sunday's ago we had just finished a long dreary week it seemed that it was cloudy or raining every day. I actually like rainy, overcast days but even I was ready for some Sunshine. So that Sunday afternoon we decided to go on a much needed hike. It was a gorgeous day in the low 70's with a breeze and very sunny. So Jordan went online to find a location (still being new to the area we don't know all the great hiking spots yet). He found Sky Meadows State Park a great hiking find by Jordan as always. So we made our 30 minute journey there. We were so happy to find a place so close to us. As we arrived we found that we were not the only ones with this idea...it was packed!! So we knew it must be a good spot. Upon arriving you see several Historic buildings that you can tour, we will have to go back to do that another time. Being super excited to be out enjoying the great outdoors we headed straight for the trails. There are several different options of directions to go and paths to take. The path we chose started out very steep and quickly you are looking back at the most beautiful view. You can see so far over the rolling hills filled with trees, cows, horses and farms it was breathtaking. The trail eventually connects to the Appalachian Trail too so you could keep going if you wanted too. Here are some photo memories we took to share.
I can't say that the pictures do it justice but we sure can't wait to go back!
About a month ago my friend Tosha and I went to paint some pottery at the Polka Dot Pot. I was very excited about this because back in high school this was a favorite past time of mine. I used to go to the "Dancing Brush" which was the local pottery place in Poulsbo, WA. I had many fun times painting gifts there. So needless to say it was fun to do again. I already knew what I wanted to paint before I even got there to pick out my piece. Awhile ago my friend Carrie painted a travel mug and that is what I chose. Tosha chose a cat treat jar as a gift for her Grandparents who happen to love the Redskins which is what inspired her color choices. My design choice was inspired by a plate that was on display in the shop, I just chose different colors that caught my fancy. So here are our finished products.
Then the following week Jordan and I went to paint too. I was very excited that he was interested in trying it. We had a lot of fun it was a rainy Friday and our outdoor plans to go to a hot air balloon festival with some friends had been canceled because of the weather. So it was nice to do something like this together in place of the festival. Jordan chose the mug and wanted to paint ornaments around the rim. He chose a really neat gray color for the base that was called Tin Man it turned out great!. Then I chose a ring tray and painted it a fun purple with little white polka dots all over...I love polka dots can you tell? :)
So this was my craft outlet for last month. I am getting back to my quilt project and will be showing a little progress soon!
