This year Easter fell right around my birthday so I took that as a sign to take a few extra days off work and have a long extended weekend back in Ohio with the family, I was even lucky enough to drag Kyle along with me. I have to say I'm super blessed with an amazing family and love anytime I get to catch up with them and especially when we all get to be in one place together which doesn't happen as often now that we're all grown up living in different areas and some with growing families! Speaking of that I got to meet the newest Kimmet, little Samuel at a week old and he is just adorable! The weekend was a perfect mix of family, food, celebration, and relaxation. The weather could've been a little better but I think spring is finally trying to stick around. Here's everything we we crammed into the weekend: coloring eggs with the twins, making ice cream, baking & cooking for all the parties, Good Friday mass, Sonny Jacks for a birthday drink, Easter in Cleveland with Jolly's, easter egg hunt, sunrise Easter mass, Kimmet Easter at the parents, and checked out the progress on the Clouse House!
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Just this past month I heard of another similar company and decided to try out Plated. It works pretty much the same way. A few things I do like better about Plated was the number of choices each week of meals and they have them online a few weeks in advance so that's nice to see for planning ahead. The week I signed up was a "game day food" theme for the Super Bowl so it wasn't as gourmet as my Blue Apron boxes but the meals were still super yummy. Lastly Plated is a little more costly and the meals range in price per plate but you can order as many recipes a week as you want, not just a one size fits all box. I can't wait to buy another box sometime soon!
In December I finally got to check out the cool city of Savannah for about 48 hours! It was a quick trip there (me and Kyle were actually down south for a wedding in Jacksonville, more about that in another post) but was a lot of fun and we packed a lot in but still managed to be relaxed. We explored the city, checked out the riverfront, ran the bridge race, ate good southern food, and of course found the best ice cream! This trip is best explained through photos, so enjoy! I hope to go back to explore more and maybe squeeze in a few other southern cities too.
So now that it is starting to feel like fall I decided to start brainstorming some fun things I want to do in the upcoming months. There is a lot I love about fall but I am a little sad at the thought of summer being over. I love the heat and sun and EVERYTHING summer related plus this year mine was a little less "summery" so I wish it would last longer but oh well now on to fall and finding ways to make it awesome (and not think about the fact winter will be here soon yikes!) So below is my fall "bucket list" hopefully I can get to most of it and enjoy lots of fall themed stuff once the weather gets chilly and the leaves start changing.
Currently... wishing I was at the beach but I guess pools will have to do for now Currently... enjoying wineries and tacos and this guy, have already been to the Winery at Bull Run a few times this year Currently... taking advantage of the fresh produce at all the farmers markets around here (those cherries and cherry tomatoes were amazing!) Currently... finished my personal logo/mark and implemented it on my blog and website Currently... still obsessed with jeni's and love when there are new flavors, this one is one of my faves now (maybe jeni's will be a permanent part of my currently posts based on how much I love it) Currently... working in dc for a few weeks and really enjoying using public transportation and getting to see all the monuments daily After looking through my vacation photos I decided to split them into 3 categories for this post. Kyle and I crammed a lot of good food, drinks, and sightseeing into our vacation but we were also able to relax and not rush through anything so it was a perfect combo of planned stuff and just going with the flow. Asheville was a neat town and pretty small. We were able to see most of the city in 2 days and then spent the rest of the time checking out the other sights outside of the downtown area. I doubt we'd vacation there again to see the city but I wouldn't mind stopping back to stay in a cabin in the mountains and grab a meal or two in town since the food was amazing. FOOD! DRINK! EXPLORATION! My favorite foods lately have been cheese and chocolate (well I always love chocolate) so Kyle and I decided to have a fun fondue night and celebrate a year of dating! We looked up lots of recipes and decided to do a cheese one with a beer base and then just find yummy cheese at a local shop based on suggestions. It turned out really yummy and we dipped some steak, tater tots, and veggies in it. Then we moved on to chocolate fondue next and kept with the alcohol theme mixing dark chocolate with cream and Kahlua. In this one we dipped strawberries, pineapples, and pound cake. We definitely fell into a food coma after all the food. We enjoyed all of it and now want to do more and experiment with different cheeses and chocolate! I found an ad in one of my fitness magazines for graze.com which is a subscription snack box with lots of different healthy snacks. I decided to give it a try and get one box to see what I thought and I have to say I was impressed. It's $6 a box (but I had a coupon for the first box free). There was no commitment but you can sign up for a box every 2 weeks or 4 weeks or cancel/start anytime. After you receive the box you can go online and rate the snacks so they know what to put in new boxes. So the more you rate and mark what you like and don't like the better chance you get ones you'll love! I actually loved everything I got in my first box and have already ate them all and can't wait for my next box! They also gave me a code to invite all my friends to try it out. So if anyone is interested here's the link graze box. You get the first and fifth box free! But if you don't like it you can always cancel after the first free one (but I'm guessing you'll get hooked, I already am). Below are the 4 snacks I had, all super yummy and besides the pistachios they were pretty unique and nothing I would've been able to put together myself. I tend to get bored/overwhelmed off and on with cooking from all the prep, grocery shopping, meal planning, etc especially with my work schedule right now. So I try to mix things up between making easy go to foods and then finding new ones. This past week I was inspired by some Pinterest finds, magazine clippings, and groceries that needed to be used before they went bad. So here are a few new recipes and I loved all of them, they will definitely be filed to be made again. |
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