Friday, March 28, 2014

Friday Adventures

Kyle has Fridays off work so we try to take advantage of this day by going on adventures and just spending time together. I'm going to try and start a new series of posts of our Friday Adventures, so here is week one!


Kyle had to go get some shots in the morning. I started my morning with some quiet time and coffee while Bud made sure we were safe and sat basically on my shoulder to look out the window. He's a strange one...


We went on a long walk around the park close by our house. This was our attempt to take a picture of the three of us--Buddy was clearly distracted by a bird, or a squirrel, or a leaf.

Then we went to Best Buy to look at laptops (ended up buying one later in the day) and then headed downtown for some lunch. We decided to try out Swiss Pastry Shop which ended up being a great idea!


Everything sounded so good I was having a very hard time deciding what to get but ended up going with the Big Tex--a smoked brisket sandwich with cheese and BBQ sauce. Kyle got a burger, no surprise there! According to him it was one of the best he's had, which says a lot! They also had three displays worth of pies and desserts, we ended up ordering a slice of Black Forest Macaroon Cake to share.

The texture is really different, kind of crumbly because it's made from egg whites and almond flour and then has layers of whipped cream. It was quite delicious and not too heavy. I did get one big bite of all whipped cream which was a little overwhelming but that was my fault for not realizing what I had picked up. Overall it was a fun little place to have lunch, the food was awesome and the prices were great! Give it a try if you can!

We stopped at Walmart on the way home cause I wanted to start making cake balls for the bridal shower I have in a few weeks. The great thing about cake balls is they last for several weeks in the freezer and taste just as good as the day you made them. Love recipes you can make ahead of time!


I made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and a vanilla with vanilla frosting. Maybe my next post will be directions about cake balls but for now I'll just show you the final product. I only finished the vanilla ones, and I had just enough cake left over to make a mini cake ball which I thought was adorable and might make a whole batch this tiny next time.


Those were our Friday Adventures for the week, it was a pretty busy day as you can tell from my Fit Bit app (my determination to get at least 10,000 steps a day is a post for another day)


Hope your Friday was full of adventures, or full of rest! See you next week!
-M

Friday, March 21, 2014

Season of Showers

It's been a long time but, let's just pick up here. It's been a season of showers, meaning house warming showers, throwing baby showers, and soon throwing a bridal shower. I've attended lots of showers, but never really thrown one until recently, now I'm a pro--not really!

House Warming Shower
We recently moved over to the Saginaw area in order to be closer to our church community. The ladies from church welcomed us with a very sweet house warming shower. We we blessed by many rolls of paper towels, toilet paper and some pantry staples. It's been a good adjustment moving over here, we love being able to have students over and host a lifegroup on Sunday evenings. Plus, the neighborhood is great and we are right across the street from a great park so we go on lots of walks, which Buddy loves!
The very cute decorations at our house warming shower



My favorite part of the house--our coffee hutch

Baby Shower x2
Kyle's oldest brother and his wife are expecting their first baby next month! So last month my sister-in-law, my mother-in-law, and I threw them a baby shower at our new house. The shower was about a month after we moved into our house and definitely gave us an incentive to get everything unpacked and put away! The shower turned out great, it was so nice to have everyone over to celebrate with them. The decorations and food turned out great--we did a taco bar with shredded chicken and beef as well as lots of different toppings so everyone could make their own tacos. Then we did a dessert bar with lots of different bite sized treats--cake balls, rice krispies, candy, and pretzel sticks. It was such a fun night and we can't wait to meet our niece in a few weeks!
Decorations from the shower
We also threw a baby shower at church for our worship leader and his wife who are expecting their first baby, a boy, very soon! The wives of staff members and ladies on staff helped throw the party and it turned out really cute. I can't take credit for the decorations, the other ladies worked very hard to make sure it looked great. I did do the chalkboards for it and thought they turned out well.

Bridal Shower
My sweet friend Aarika is getting married in June and we are throwing her a bridal shower in a few weeks. I will have to post pictures after we throw it, I'm sure it's going to be a pretty shower!