Successful Summer Celebration

Hello all! I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend. I can’t believe summer is officially over. I must say, even though I didn’t have a big summer of traveling around, I am kind of sad that its over….just kind of. I think I’m mostly sad that today I have to stay at work until 5 pm…I know, I know, my life is so hard. :)

Either way, I enjoyed my last summer weekend with some of my favorite people. We ended up home relatively early with enough time to enjoy a glass of wine and then head off for a delicious dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. The restaurant, located downtown, was so busy and the rest of downtown was too! The weather was hot, but not as humid as it usually is this time of year and there were so many people out enjoying their Friday evenings. After enjoying a delicious dinner out we made our way back home to enjoy a little dessert. My sister made two DELICIOUS cakes for my birthday, even though my birthday is not until the end of the week. She won’t be with me on the actual day of my birthday, so it was a super sweet gesture…quite literally!

C. made two amazing cakes, but unfortunately I only took pictures of one of them. The first cake she made was a yummy peanut butter cup/chocolate ice cream “pie” and the second cake was a copycat of one of M. and my wedding cake flavors, Margaritaville. They were both amazing, but I was especially impressed by her take on the Margaritaville cake – it was pretty similar to what our baker did and it had the prettiest yellow icing with pink accents!! Of course I also made the family take pictures...I am into the memories people.

The rest of Friday evening was spent relaxing and chatting in the living room…a perfect, relaxing evening!

Saturday morning we slept in a little and then my mom treated me and my sister to pedicures. I always forget how much I love having my nails done (I usually just do them myself), but I am in love with my perfectly hot pink toenails...thanks, mom! After our relaxing “girl time” we stopped by the grocery store for some fixings to have burgers on the grill. We sat outside since the weather was absolutely BEAUTIFUL (in the mid 70’s), enjoying our grilled burgers (thanks to M.’s grilling skills..and yes that is a photo of my burger...I am one of those weird people that takes pictures of my food from time to time) and then finishing our leisurely lunch off with a little more of the yummy cake C. made.

The day went by quickly and we needed to get ready for the wedding of one of M.’s law school friends. We ended up leaving the house around 4:30 for her 6:00pm wedding. M.’s friend ended up with the MOST PERFECT weather for her wedding day…especially since the reception was outside…it was amazing! The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was held at an old farmhouse with a big white tent outside. The view from the tent was gorgeous…green for miles and a beautiful sunset too! We enjoyed some wine and some pretty yummy shrimp and grits. I know M. really enjoyed catching up with some of his law school friends and of course I enjoyed admiring all of the wedding details! We arrived home relatively late, but stayed up with my sister C. and waited for my parents to come home from a family friend’s wedding (actually, it was the son of the wonderful woman who hosted my bridal luncheon’s wedding).

Sunday was another leisurely day. My grandmother came over for a visit and after running a few errands around town we got dinner together (well, actually mostly my mom got dinner together). We had another easy (and very summery) meal of grilled chicken sandwiches, potato salad, chips with black bean & corn salsa, and a great glass of wine. For dessert we prepared something special. Earlier that morning we started the prep work for making ice cream sandwiches with pralines. The pralines we prepared actually turned out a little less solid than we had hoped, but that turned out to be a good thing because we folded the sugared pecans coated in thick caramel into softened vanilla ice cream and then sandwiched that into the butter cookies my mom prepared. DELICIOUS. I think I might actually make this dessert again – seriously, I could eat that ice cream and caramelized, salted caramel pecans every – single – day.

That evening we all got together to have a little “family game night” and we played Boggle (one of C. and my favorite games), Apples to Apples and Catch Phrase. There were certainly some entertaining moments and I’ve discovered that my geography skills are absolutely, positively terrible...right M.?? ;)

Monday morning’s arrival was a little sad. I wasn’t quite ready to make the drive back to DC. We stayed around the house until about 2 helping C. pack up the rest of her stuff for school and relaxing. We made the drive back to DC without hitting any traffic (which is always a plus!), stopped for a quick bite to eat and then made a stop at a new ice cream place before getting back into the city. Overall a wonderful weekend!

Now we have a short work week, my birthday is on Saturday, and I have a fun new goal to add to the list that I made last week! I can’t wait to tell you about it! :)

Enjoy your TUESDAY! :)