Keeping up with the Jones'

This past weekend I headed up to North Carolina (the land of the pine) with my friend Jessica for a girls weekend! We went to our friend Siri's lake house in Denver, NC. Jess drove in from Charleston and parked her car at my house and we headed to Charlotte to find a Trader Joe's! I had read online about this great peach prosecco and I knew we had to have it for our mimosas on Saturday! Jess found us a TJ's right off 77 in Midtown and we stocked up, had wine samples (very-very-very small ones, we were driving!), got asked for our ID's (always nice now that Jess and I are both 'mid 20s') and bought out all kinds of cheese!

Jess and Siri Happy Hour-ing on Friday

We got to Siri's house, started happy hour-ing and then headed for Sushi at Eez! We enjoyed Saki Bombs, appetizers and each others company.

Our amazing gifts from Siri - so sweet!

Saturday morning was a long walk followed by gulping down mimosas before we hoped on the boat! Siri had a friend of hers, Tim, take us out! So nice to be picked up from the dock and head out onto the water.
If you know me, you know I am slightly afraid of boats/jet skis. No clue why, I am an excellent swimmer (humble brag) but for whatever reason I am a bit ill at ease in a vessel on the water. Obviously I just needed a little liquid courage and I was fine! We had a great time out on the lake, a little too much cocktail-ing at Cocktail Cove and then headed to the Rusty Rudder where Jess and I met out downfall - whiskey shots!

Appetizer - totally unhealthy yet totally delicious

Saki bombs for the win!

Truly a great weekend with two of my favorite people! We had so much fun chatting about our lives, gossiping (yes K. Oz about you!) and just enjoying each others company for the weekend! We were all college best friends and it is hard to make time now that we each have our own busy schedules but nothing beats great times with friends!

Our very healthy appetizer

Eez Sushi - So delicious!

Morning view from the lake house porch

Stocked fridge! 5 bottles of prosecco! 

Girls enjoying our pre dinner drinks!

Happy hour!

My amazing sushi roll

Mimosas after our long walk before hoping on the boat!

Jess and I at Sushi on Friday

Our super cute mimosa drink holders for the weekend!

The after- Rusty Rudder after our boating adventures on Saturday

It was an amazing weekend! Can't wait to see everyone on July 14th for our Charleston girls weekend!

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things...

Are there things that no matter what, can always cheer you up?
1. Laughter
When I was at UNC and I would have a bad day, I would call either my mom or my dad. If it was my dad, we would talk about the problem and try to find a solution.
If it was my mom, she would tell me she loved me and then would go tell me to watch Bon Qui Qui and my day would be better.

Sometimes you need someone to help you solve your problems and sometimes you just need a good laugh! My college loves would climb into my twin bed with me (at the Phi Mu house!) and we would just die laughing at Bon Qui Qui. I say the words "I will cut you" so much one of my current work colleagues asked me if I had knife skills. I had to watch myself after that - I work for a public university and don't need to be fired over my taste in hilariously funny you tube videos.

2. Flowers
My very sweet father in law, Tom, sent me a bouquet of beautiful lillies to my office. I absolutley love flowers and was so surprised to see the UPS man deliver them on Tuesday that I told him he must have the wrong office! They have bloomed beautifully and make me smile instantly when I walk into my office!
I also collect flowers around USC from our great grounds crews. My office is usually filled with either hydrangeas or a beautiful magnolia flower. The smell of the magnolia is almost lemon like and fills my small office quite quickly. How can you not smile when there is a beautiful blooming flower sitting on your desk?

Magnolia from campus

Magnolias from campus. Amazing scent!

3. Mani/Pedi/Hair cut
Beyond keeping James and I with a roof over our head and food in our bellies, I really don't have a lot of responsibilities. I am not stressed from work (I was in my previous job and I am so thankful to not have that now!) and I have a wonderful husband who is pretty low maintenance (at times!). So why do I feel this great pressure to perform as a wife, friend, sister, daughter, employee, cook, housekeeper? A lot is self imposed stress that is completely unnecessary but I feel like I will always have it. One of the ways I unwind and really relax is to be pampered. I love a massage. Every time one comes on Groupon James will email me to see if I am going to buy it. I actually have one scheduled next week! A mani and pedi also calms any nerves I may have and of course, I love a haircut! Sometimes if I need a pick me up in a big way I will stop in and get a pedi. The mani's I really try to save for special occasions.

Love my cajun shrimp shellac!

At the hair salon after having my nails done!

Mountain Get Away

While I have mentioned my cousin's and my DIY adventures this past weekend, I have not talked about what other things we did in between gluing and burlaping.
Blowing Rock, NC has been a summer getaway since we lived abroad. I think we have been going for 20 years. We might have missed one summer when we were moving international from Colombia to the States but other than that, our family has gone to the mountains. As of late, we have deemed the 4th of July as our time in the mountains and we all look forward to the time we have together watching the fireworks. Our houses are always up on the mountains so a lot of times you can see 3 different firework shows and you are 'above' them! Such a unique view! This coming July will be James' 4th year with us, he has been every year since we started dating!

Tweetsie  July 2011

We stay in different houses, have many meals together and we even get to go to Tweetsie Railroad, a theme park (in a sense) that I have been going to all my life.

Blowing Rock Thanksgiving 2011 (my beautiful sister!)

Blowing Rock 2010

Blowing Rock 2010

Blowing Rock 2010

Blowing Rock 2010

You could hear the Tweetsie whistle from our house this past weekend and it was so neat to also be able to hear the guns from the 'gun fight' that is staged during the Tweetsie ride.

This weekend was all about relaxing and enjoying my time with my family! We went to the farmers market, had drinks on the porch with beautiful views, enjoyed visiting with my bff Siri and ate delicious food (homemade oreo for breakfast!). Could not ask for a better weekend!

Sample at the farmers market

Kilwin's with Lu! YUM

Farmers market on Saturday morning

Homemade Oreo- breakfast of champions

Beer on the porch with this view!

Huge bunny and the oddest looking alpaca chicken ever

My sweet Grandfather EGD and my mom!

My parents enjoying our happy hour. 

Great Pottery Barn cosmetic cases! I bought one as a shower gift for my cousin and James got me one as well!

Lemon zest pie and Coltrane!

DIYing Queens

I mentioned here how my cousin Lu had quite a few DIY craft ideas to make during our mountain weekend together. I headed to Blowing Rock on Thursday evening for a long weekend of mountain views, good food, even better company and of course, to be put to work by my cousin!

Lu being introduced at the wedding

 Lu is one of the most fun and positive people in my life! She was a bridesmaid in my wedding last July and I am one of her bridesmaids in her Labor Day weekend wedding! She has just moved into the most amazing condo in Blowing Rock but, with its very neutral palette and the fact that she can't hang anything on the walls, we had our work cut out for us as to how to introduce color into her home!

Lu and my Aunty Jill - such a fun duo!

We woke up Friday morning to this amazing view and then got to planning right away! We had Lu's laptop out and I was writing notes of what we needed. The planning took quite a long time!

Beautiful mountain view before the fog cleared!

Planning stage!

Thumbs up for great Goodwill finds

 We then headed to the Goodwill near the mountain house. We wanted to do these projects on budget and with unique materials and what better place for cheap thrills than a Goodwill?! Lu had seen a really neat project where you take old pie tins and candle sticks and make them into a tiered vanity stand. Of course, we were not able to find old pie tins but we did find some old china that was in great shape! 

Our purchases!

 

After our Goodwill finds, we ran to another thrift store in Boone, where we had great luck with the brass candle sticks and we were out the door and at Mellow Mushroom for lunch in no time!

Plate options for our tiered soap holder!

We then headed to Wal Mart with a mile long list of all the other supplies we needed - super glue, burlap, pins, hammer - you name it, we probably needed it and bought it! 

Our supplies lined up for our tiered bathroom and kitchen 

Once at home, we got started right away - making my poor aunt clean all the plates (some had some serious grime around the ridges of the design - nothing a little elbow grease and scalding hot warm water can't cure!)

Rub a dub dub

After the plates dried, we got to gluing! Thankfully, we had spent the extra dollar to get the super glue that gives you less of a change of 'bonding' your fingers together. It also was less likely to peel off your finger prints. As much as I have dreamed of a second job hijacking cars with the hood rats in Columbia with no chance to be caught due to lack of identification, I thought it best if we stuck with the glue that would not stick to us. To say we were paranoid while gluing is an understatement and thankfully we both have our original fingerprints!

Once the glue had finished drying we had two very ornate bathroom tiers for make up, make up brushes, guest toiletries and we had a great kitchen hand towel and dish soap holder as well!

Now that the tiers had been completed, we had another project to work on- a burlap wreath! We had seen so many examples of how to make them but we knew we wanted something with some texture and height to it. Enter the bubble burlap wreath. 

We realized, after 35 minutes of cutting burlap into 4 inch squares and then pinning those squares to our foam wreath, ours did not look at all like the bubble burlap wreath picture online. Honestly, we liked our design better! We used pins with pearl head so that if they showed through it would look pretty and like we had done it on purpose - not that we refused to cut anymore squares!

Here is the after! Lu will be putting the red P (for her new last name come September!) below on the wreath and hanging it on her front door! In the fall there will be a Roll Tide plaque for football (Lu is a Bama grad!) and at Christmas a Merry Christmas one! Such a versatile project that only cost us $10!

There were other project we completed but none had me as excited as the tiers and the burlap wreath! Lu and I have decided that our next together also needs to involve some crafting since we are the (self proclaimed) DIY queens of our family! What have y'all been crafting lately?