8 Years, Oh My!

I had an absolutely wonderful weekend y'all!!

Friday was my and Kyle's 8 year anniversary!  Its been quite a ride from when we were little babies until now!  I feel like compiling a short list of all the reason I love him.  I will keep it to 10, just because I could name 100 just as easily, but in the words of Sweet Brown - ain't nobody got time for dat.

1) I think one of my favorite things about Kyle is that he can imitate me perfectly, especially my facial expressions, which then results in both of us crying from laughter.

2) All dogs love Kyle.  I think that's a good sign.

3) He will always tell me his real opinion, even if I don't like it, and then get mad because it wasn't what I wanted to hear.

4) He keeps me grounded (case in point - today I have a lump on my arm. Me: "It's been there for 4 days, I have cancer."  Kyle: "Ask Jackson (of Raleigh Barbell) if its a muscle knot, and if not, then go to the doctor." - but imagine that happening daily.  Must. Stay. Calm.)

5) He is totally happy hanging out and observing.  Totally the opposite from me.  I need attention always (#diva).  I can take him anywhere out of his element and he is totally chill with just listening to me and whoever, and people watching

6) He is always looking out for me.  He tells me not to look at the wall when there is a killer roach on the loose, he helps me with domestic things I'm afraid of (the oven), he walks Sienna when I'm a sleepy bear, knows which movies will scare me, and more!

7) He is turning into a really good cook! love + love = LOVE

8) Kyle is great to look up to because he is so balanced in his whole life, and mentality.  Very few people get under Kyle's skin, he is super logical, he is very close to his family.  He can also balance me, his family, his friends (he has a LOT), music related activities, and work with seemingly no effort and he never gets tired.  Unlike me.  Yard work for 1 hour = 3 hour nap (#diva).

9) Kyle cares about Kyle.  It may sound a little weird at first, but Kyle is great at taking care of himself, exercising, eating healthy, and dressing supa stylish.  #Divas must have an equally awesome counterpart.

10) He has put up with my antics for 8 years, and he still loves me.  What more can a #diva ask for?


Me and my main man had an absolutely perfect weekend in Boone & Blowing Rock.  The Blue Ridge mountains are my first love, so I was so happy I cried to be in one of my homes around the world.  We had killer weather all weekend, which was lucky since its supposed to rain the rest of the week.

On Friday we both left early and got to Boone at like 6:00.  It was just enough time to rest for a little bit before going to dinner at The Gamekeeper.  While we heard many good things about the restaurant, we found it to be average, especially for the price tag attached.  It was a fun one time thing, but I do not recommend it.  After dinner we hung out with Kyle's brother Matt (idk if you read this Matt, but shout out for being an AWESOME host this weekend!), some of Matt's friends, and Kyle's bff Marco.

On Saturday I made Kyle wake up with me to watch the sunrise at 5:30.  What is the point of renting a cute cabin with a view if we don't make good use of the scenery?!  The Smokies did not disappoint.  It was stunning and slow, nothing super dramatic, but that fits the mountains, I think.  They are understated in everything but beauty.

OMG

OMG!!

OMG!!!! HEAVEN.

Killer right?

Once the sunrise was on its downward trend, Kylie and I went back to bed and slept in! Hooray!  When we woke up, we went and poked around Gladiola Girls in Boone, ate an ah-maze-ing lunch at Our Daily Bread (ODB) and headed to Blowing Rock.  But seriously.... our lunch... the BEST tomato soup I've ever had.  Also, check out this awesome Eiffel Tower olive oil bottle we scored at Gladiola Girls!

We had fun wandering in and out of the shops in Blowing Rock.  Many of them are what is always there, but it is always fun to look.  I drooled more than anything in a menswear store.  They had beautiful bamboo blazers and sports coats.  I told Kyle when I start making the big bucks, we are going there to buy him some spiffy new duds! Swoon.......  Of course we ate some Kilwins and went shopping at the outlets before heading back to Boone for the highlight of the weekend!!  

Matt took Kyle and I, along with his friends Zack, Jo, John, Johnny, Liza, Jordan to the New River to float down down a ways and drink a little and socialize.  It was SO MUCH FUN I seriously regretted not going to Appalachian for school.  But then I remembered how much I hate snow.  Its a trade off I guess.  But for real.... I could happily float down the river every single day it was so awesome.  It is better than a pool, ocean, or lake.  Not busy like the pool, not salty like the beach, and just more fun than a lake.  I don't have any pictures, which makes me so sad, but it is just one of those things that I will remember because of how awesome it was.

After floating down the river for 2 hours or so, we had to sort of rush back to Boone to shower and make our dinner reservation at Vidalia, one of my favorite restaurants up there!  Excellent as usual!

Sunday was sad because we had to leave, but we just slowly packed up our things, soaked up our view a little more, ate lunch at ODB again, and hit the road!

As usual, I can't wait to go back!

How to be a Grown Up: Cooking

I think I'm going to start having a "How to be a Grown Up" series from time to time.  I've been feeling super grown up since I started working, because I'm putting effort into planning and making good meals.  It is sometimes challenging to plan out everything I want to eat in a week, buy it all at the grocery store, and then making, because it is so much easier to just plop down in a restaurant and order something.  Luckily, I have my trusty sidekick Kyle to help me cook (actually usually he does more of the cooking than I do, because I go to the gym 3 nights per week).  In my Europe blog food was much more present than it has been on this blog, but fear not, I still eat like a horse.  Anyways,  its been an interesting journey so far.  Some of the things I made were pretty terrible.  Some were freaking awesome.  I will try to put more pictures of my nommy creations on here (see below for past meals).

My current goal is to bump up the creativity and skill level in my and Kyle's cooking.  We have a long way to go until we make it on Iron Chef!

I made the best healthy dessert last night, and had to share because it was both beautiful and delicious.

Roasted peaches

Mascarpone cheese

Blackberries

Honey

BAM!

Here are some other successes in my cooking learning curve...

Summer bake w/ Italian sausage, tomatoes, eggplant, mushrooms, onion, & mozzarella

Philly Cheesesteak minus the bun

Steaks in my new Le Creuset grill pan!

Breakfast for dinner!  Grain-free pancakes, egg souffles, & BACON

Mango guacamole

Sweet potato chips/fries

Pork chop with savory blackberry sauce!

Cauliflower cheese casserole

First attempt at eggs Benedict!  (poaching is hard!)

Pulled pork in the crockpot!

Sweet potato & roasted red pepper soup

Turkey sloppy joes with avocado & pepper jack cheese

Pimento cheese & Sriracha quesadilla, with guac & mango salsa

Orange peel chicken w/ cauliflower "rice"

Awesome restaurant food I've had lately:

Foie Gras 2 ways @ Saint Jacques - potentially better than some foie gras I had in France!

Saint Jacques Website

Bento Box at The Cowfish

The Cowfish Website

Lychee Cosmopolitan (best mixed drink ever), green apple sorbet palate cleanser, sushi, & fancy fortune cookies at An

An Website

Charcuterie & cheese plate at Coquette

Coquette Website

Sienna Learns to be Mannerly

Many of you probably don't know this, but one of my biggest pet peeves is a badly behaved animal.  I hate hate hate pushy horses, dogs that bark other than when someone rings the doorbell, cats that pee everywhere (I'm looking at you Allie), etc.

Sienna is pretty well-behaved with the exception of when she sees another dog.  She gets so excited and just goes nuts, crying, barking, and jumping.  It is all very embarrassing.  Now that she is done with her heartworm treatments, I can start to train her.  We had Steve the Raleigh Dog Trainer come to the house and help us with a training session for a few hours on Sunday.  While it did not seem like we were learning anything earth-shattering, it is working surprisingly well so far!!  It is an ongoing learning curve, but the German Shorthaired Pointer, June, who lives a few houses down the street from us, followed us for half of our morning walk today.  Sienna kept looking back at her, but she was pretty focused on me, and not one peep came out of her mouth!  I was actually really impressed, and super happy.  I'm very pleased with little baby S.  I will keep y'all updated.

PS I know I need to put up some progress pictures of her soon.  She is almost at a perfect weight, now we are just trying to figure out which food is the best, and how to get her coat to stay super glossy and nice.  There has been some fluctuation on coat quality.

The end of proud mother bragging for today.  Wish me luck in the days/weeks to come!

Lavandine

My walks with Sienna at night are when I do all of my good thinking.  Sometimes I am tired from work and don't feel like being functional for a 10 minute walk, but it is really the perfect way to unwind right before bed.  Even though my house is not even a block from hectic 5-points, my neighborhood is always freakishly quiet at night, and I love it.  I can mentally transport myself wherever my mood takes me for the few moments I'm out and about.

The past week or two, my mind keeps going to Provence last year with my mother, because a woman a few doors down from me has several large lavandine bushes right by the sidewalk.  Not that I am a lavender expert, but lavandine is a lower quality lavender used for more commercial scents, as opposed to fine lavender, which is used more for potpourri and perfume.  Nonetheless, it smells like lavender and so naturally it gets me thinking about visiting the lavender fields, listening to the bees hum, and smelling such a beautiful, heavy fragrance with every breath.

It got me thinking how ridiculously lucky I am to have so many "to do's" checked off of my bucket list.  "See lavender fields in bloom" is one that I would love to experience again, but the dilemma then is, why do something twice when you could do something new instead?  The opposite argument is that it was so wonderful, wouldn't it be great to go and do even more the second go-around?  I seriously doubt I will ever see the lavender fields in Provence again, but hopefully it will be because I am off having new adventures.  I am lucky to have so many people in my life that have made my life so fruitful, when there are so many people in this world who don't have a fraction of my luck.  Today, I was stuck in traffic in the rain for 40 minutes on the way home from work.  It was so annoying, but since I had nothing else to do, all I could think about was 1) I have a good job.  2) I wasn't actually in the humid crazy thunderstorm, I was in my safe, dry, air conditioned car 3) there actually wasn't a third thing, those were the main two, but I could think of one hundred more reasons why my life at that moment was better than a lot of other people's lives at that same moment in time.  I don't really know how I went from lavender to the rain, but I know I have my parents, grandparents, and friends to thank for making everything I ever dreamed of possible.  Thank you.

I know I talk a lot about France and Europe, because I am very nostalgic, but I am also very nostalgic about a certain part of NC that I don't have the opportunity to visit frequently.  I became very excited on my walk, because Kyle and I are off the the Blue Ridge Mountains, Boone, and Blowing Rock to celebrate our eight (!!!) year anniversary.  I am so beside myself with happiness I could (am) cry(ing).  I thought I wouldn't see my beloved mountains this summer, but I am!!  I can't wait to see the beautiful blue hills rising up in the distance, and then looking out on all the ridges.  I was a TOTAL diva (hah what else would I be) and refused to stay in a Marriott because I knew there was a cabin to be found with a killer mountain view in our budget (I was right, FYI).  I can't wait to get there and watch the sunrise next weekend!  Thank you to my mother and maternal grandmother for instilling the love of mountains into my heart.

I can't wait for this view!

I know this post was a little all over the place.   I didn't really feel like making good transitions tonight - welcome to my brain ladies and gentlemen.  All my thoughts flow from one to another and even I'm not really sure how I go from place to place or thought to thought.

Good night!!

Sienna says good night too!

My Calendar is Happy!

I have some really exciting things going on in my life this week!!!

Firstly....Kyle and I decided on a wedding venue!  We went to see the Cotton Room last week, and while it was a beautiful venue, Kyle was not impressed by tape holding some beams together, I was underwhelmed by the event planner who showed us the building, and my mother had concerns about the food.  Cotton Room = nixed.  I swear I literally looked into every wedding venue in a 30 minute radius from Raleigh, and only one was perfect... Fearrington.  However, Kyle had never been to Fearrington, so he, my mother, and I made a lil trip to Pittsboro this weekend to show him all the potential ceremony venues there, the barn, and the village in general.  He loved it (duh).  I AM SO EXCITED AND SOOO IN LOVE WITH OUR VENUE!  I am working on the contract this week, so we can lock in our dates and prices for November 7, 2015!  Then I can kick up my heels and chill for another year or so hahaha.  Look how beautiful Fearrington is!

(click to enlarge)

 Fearrington Barn - exterior

 

Fearrington Barn - interior (gorg!)

Back of the inn, and some of the gardens

Potential ceremony site #1

Potential ceremony site #2

I'm just so excited, I can't even stand it!

The other bit of exciting news for the week is that my mother booked the apartment we will stay in for WEG in Normandy next year!!  It is super cute, in the middle of downtown Caen, and is just a 15 minute bus ride to the stadium where most of the event will be held!  No hour long commute like we did when the WEG was in Kentucky! Now all we have to do is wait for the tickets to go on sale in August!!

Apartment in Caen!

(click to enlarge official 2014 WEG poster)

Finally, please keep my (great) Aunt Marion in your thoughts!  She had a big surgery last week, and will be a Duke for at least 7 days.  She hasn't had any complications or problems so far, here's to hoping it stays that way!

Gettin' My Learn On!

Belated weekend post - I've been very lazy this week!

Most of the past weekend was helping my mother and her new dressage pony at the Capital Dressage Classic show.  It was a little warm, but Cowboy and my mother were very good and made lots of progress in their partnership.  I also hung out with some of my sorority sisters at the pool on Saturday!  It was a PERFECT day to be at the pool, so we just played in the pool a little and drank some beers - so fun!  Not so fun part - I got a lil sunburn eek!

Oh hey suspension!  Lots of power in a little, stocky package!

A endeavor in my life is taking an online Intro to Food Science course at State.  I remember now why I was glad to leave school in the fall.  Anyways, my last semester I took a Muscle Foods class (aka the meat class) which was all about the meat the average consumer eats from grocery stores, how it gets to the grocery store, and all the different cuts of meat available and their many uses.  It was by far the best class of my college career, and it was right at the very end!  I loved it and the general concept of Food Science because its an ever-growing industry and is so applicable to my daily life.  I am taking this Intro to FS class so that I may determine if I would like to pursue an additional degree (while working - no more full time school at this time).  I'm not yet sure what I would do with the degree, but their graduates have no problems getting jobs related to their major, and the department itself has way more resources than International Relations.   I am really enjoying the content of the class (its just the commitment to studying that I don't care for) so I think I will be moving forward with the major, hopefully in the fall, with maybe 1-2 classes per semester.

Highlights from Muscle Foods (Fall 2012)

Summer Sausage I made!

Yum, grinding up pork meat!

Making kielbasa! 

Chicken tender batter & bread machine!