Sunshine & Raindrops

The Sunshine:

- I never believe when the weather calls for snow. I've lived in Hampton Roads for 20 years and the weather forecast disappoints me regularly. So I take the "I'll believe it when I see it" stance. So Ryan and I were really excited to peep out the window on Tuesday night to make sure it was still snowing. Waking up to a beautiful snowy house and knowing we would be able to lounge on the couch all day was amazing!

- We tested out our new fire pit and roasted smores in the snow. 

- I spent Friday with a photographer friend of mine, talking all things details. We had a blast!

The Raindrops:

- Ryan is part of a Bible Study on Wednesday mornings. They meet at the crack of dawn for breakfast so they can all make it to work on time. Well since two of the guys live right around the corner from us, they all decided to get together at one of their houses. We were excited to go but didn't want to drive until others had sufficiently tested out the roads for us. Which meant we had a mile to walk in the snow. We bundled up the best we could but it still took a good half hour for our feet to thaw when we got there.

- They're calling for snow again this week. Usually I would be excited about this, but this time I have plans that I really can't afford to cancel.

Sunshine & Raindrops

As promised, here's my wintery-but-not-christmasy buffet. And it just now occurs to me that I set my ampersand up backwards. Oops. Keeping it real, ya'll!

Last week I had two amazing wedding consultations and Bible Study, so my evenings were pretty full. So when we got to Saturday, Ryan and I were pretty content to lounge around all day.

We attempted to make pancakes... rather, I should say we made pancakes and attempted to eat them, but found that we were almost out of syrup. Pancakes without syrup just aren't the same.

Saturday night we had the yummiest mac and cheese ever at my parents' house.

And Sunday we hung out with some friends and had Pad Thai for the first time. It was a little spicier than I normally go for, but we were addicted! It was so yummy that we wanted it for dinner too. I'm not sure how long we can hold out before getting it again! Where has Pad Thai been all my life?

So basically, all we did this weekend was eat.

Sunshine & Raindrops

I only instagrammed once this weekend. I'm not sure if that's a defeat or a victory.

All in all it was a good weekend. Full of relaxing. That's the point of the weekend, right?

Ryan and I found a new TV show, so Friday night was full of binge-watching to try to catch ourselves up to the current episodes.

Saturday was a very sad day for Ryan. The Christmas tree came down. And since our tree comes apart in 3 big pieces, we decided to try leaving the lights on it and see how if our tree will be pre-lit next year. Fingers crossed!

Saturday night we found ourselves running errands in our old neighborhood and we decided to grab Chinese from our favorite restaurant for dinner. And it's different. I'm not sure if they're under new management or if they just decided to change the recipe, but it's not as good anymore. Good thing we moved. Next on the to do list: find a new Chinese restaurant to adore.

Only three more weeks of football. How will we ever console ourselves?

Weekend Wrap Up

Because of all the craziness that surrounded Christmas this year, with Ryan having to finish up end of year audits and with me having a wedding 3 days after Christmas, we didn't really get a chance to take more than 2 days off. So we decided to take a long New Year's weekend.

And boy, did we enjoy ourselves.

We mixed in a smidgen of home improvement and organizing with a lot of relaxing and a fair amount of board game-playing. Here are a few highlights:

We're newly obsessed with the board game, Ticket to Ride. We've played 5 games in the last week and I have a feeling we'll be playing again tonight.

When a recipe calls for softened butter, don't jump the gun. It always affects the texture and while the cookie will still taste good, you'll know it's not quite as good as last time.

In spite of getting rid of a pile of clothes before moving a few months ago, we both managed to find a large pile of clothes to donate. I'm still hanging on to a few things I haven't worn in a while (If we ever go on a cruise, I'll want to take this cocktail dress), but for the most part our closets are filled with clothes we love to wear.

We finally got our dryer replaced (after waiting 4 weeks for the back-ordered part for our ancient machine that will never be produced again), so we got all caught up on laundry. I know, I know. Exciting stuff.

In other appliance news, we picked out and ordered a new fridge. I can't wait to put a big shiny bow on it as soon as it arrives this week! Merry Christmas to me!

We're both still avoiding taking the Christmas decorations down. Ryan wants to leave the tree up and I'm fine with putting the tree away, but I don't want to lose my pretty string of Christmas cards. I love looking at all these beautiful faces every day!

Weekend Wrap Up

Welcome to my new blog series... Weekend Wrap Up! Since it's basically 2014 already (where did the year go?), I thought today would be a good day to start my new Monday posts.

This weekly series will be a place for my wedding sneak peeks and just general recap of life and all the exciting stuff I do over the weekends. Because I'm a VERY exciting person. (kinda..... not really.)

Yeah, I'm so exciting that I often have to look through my Instagram feed to remember what I did over the last couple of days.

But anyway....

Friday I took most of the day off to catch up with a dear friend who was in town visiting family for Christmas. We planned to meet at 9 and bake cookies. Needless to say, she didn't leave until nearly 3 pm. There was a lot of catching up to do!  We made some yummy blueberry cookies, which might just be popping up this Friday as our Sweet Tooth recipe.

Friday night Ryan and I had planned to stay home but we decided last minute to head up to our old high school for the yearly alumni basketball game. We definitely weren't very interested in the game and we didn't see anyone we hadn't seen in a while, but we did have a good time looking through old yearbooks and photo albums. Fortunately for us, most of the albums were just old enough that we were still adorable and hadn't quite hit the awkward stage. Exhibit A, anyone?

And Saturday I had the immense privilege of shooting a wedding for a very sweet and very in love couple. I don't want to get ahead of myself though, so I'll just leave you with this one image and you'll have to wait for the full blog post!

I'll be taking a few days off this week to celebrate the New Year with my husband, but don't worry, I won't be ignoring you! I'll be back on Wednesday with a FEATURE! Can't wait to show it off!