{Anniversary} {Photography} {Giveaway Winner}

On the first day of our anniversary weekend/staycation weekend, after our lunch at Foster's and a mani for me, we took some time to revisit Duke Gardens where Mike had proposed a year and a half ago:

This time there was no guise of "just cutting through the gardens [after dark] to get to our car". There was no sudden shock as 10,000 twinkling lights lit up a gazebo and an ice sculpture with our monogram. This time there was no hidden photographer capturing every moment. This time we decided to give our very novice photoging skills a little practice. And here's how it turned out...

 Mike likes to get "paparazzi shots" all the time. I never really know their coming which makes them mostly realistic. Except, oh, I'm not Jennifer Aniston or Miley Cyrus, so maybe they're not actually realistic at all. 

I thought Mike's reflection in my sunglasses was cool. I actually thought he was just talking to me when he shot this one. But nope, he was capturing a cool reflection shot. 

This is the first time we've ever shot and edited people. It was really fun and I thought the results weren't bad for a first run. Anyone want some practically free portraits done? (I'm actually serious).

Naturally my husband would do this. 

This has become my new head shot for my new writing gig. And just think...I didn't have to pay for this one! 

My Austrian husband. Fortunately he has outgrown the lederhosen. VERY fortunately. 

And did I mention I wore these little comfy beauties around the gardens. Nothing like a pair of pink Sperry's to complete an outfit. 

Now that the photography bug has bit me, I've got this hankering for some real editing software (we're currently using an online editing software). Tell me, what do you use or hear is good? Photoshop, Lightroom, iPhoto? 


P.S. I entered the giveaway participants carefully double checking each entry you earned and using the Random Number Generator on Random.org drew a three...which was one of Aileen's number since the third entry was one of hers! Congratulations, Aileen- you won the stationary set. Please e-mail me your address and I will mail it to you. Thanks to everyone who participated. I wish I could give everyone a stationary set :(




Thanks for hanging on during this especially long post. More even more fabulous anniversary stories and pictures to come! I can't wait to show you our jewelry making adventure...

Anniversary Weekend: Foster's Market

After a surprise trip to The Umstead Spa in Cary for a manicure, the hubby surprised me with lunch at Foster's Market. Foster's Market is very special to us. It's where he first took me out to eat one Sunday for brunch and it's the same place that catered our rehearsal dinner. It's such a unique, vintage, earthy place. It's really unlike any other restaurant I've ever been to and the food is just incredible. Even BETTER than homemade (if that's possible). 

M and I always order two different entrees and share. We ordered the Herbie Bird Wrap, a favorite from our dating days. 

And for our second entree choice we picked one of their 1 pound plate options and chose their chicken salad (unbelievably delicious, and I don't even like chicken salad!), potato salad, and fruit salad (apparently salad was the theme of this one. Ironic that none of it was actually traditional greens "salad"?).

The food was delightful, but the company was even more delightful. 

I think I still have a crush. 

Isn't he just dashing? I could gush all day. 

Thank you, Sara Foster, for making your homemade recipes available to the crowds of hungry folks in Durham and Chapel Hill (and those of us who live in Raleigh/Cary and are hungry enough for Sara Foster's cooking that we're more than willing to drive).

And dessert, oh sweet dessert. We chose one of Foster's famous coconut macaroons. Luckily, my MIL & FIL gave me the Foster's Market Cookbook for my birthday so I will soon be whipping up many Foster's Market recipes at home. 

More anniversary pictures and memories to come...

...In the meantime...what do you think of our anniversary lunch- does the food look yummy to you? Have you ever been to Foster's Market or a place like it?

Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate Chips

(don't forget- you can still enter the giveaway through this Saturday)

It's Show Us Your Life on Kelly's Korner and this week's topic is favorite sweet recipes...

There is nothing quite like the scent of sweet banana bread baking in the oven. And I love making a big batch so we have enough of this deliciousness to snack on for days. Whether it's a warm breakfast to go, an afternoon snack, or served as dessert with a side of vanilla ice cream this banana bread recipe is one of my favorites. Oh, and the fact that it's healthier than typical dessert breads just makes me feel even better about that second slice. I hope you and your family enjoy this recipe.  

Homemade Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate Chips

Ingredients:

1 and 1/4 cups all purpose flour (I usually do part whole wheat flour, part regular flour)

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup milk (I use vanilla milk generally, such as Silk's Pure Almond milk)

4 tablespoons butter, melted 

3 bananas (I puree them in a food processor before adding them to the other ingredients, but smashing them in a bowl with forks also works)

1/3 cup dark chocolate chips

1/3 and 2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

For the bananas I recommend zapping them for a minute or two in a food processor. If you don't have a food processor on hand a blender or bullet blender will substitute just fine, and if neither of those are an option a food old fashioned banana smashing fest with forks works just fine as well. 

Combine the dry ingredients in one mixing bowl, and the wet ingredients in a separate mixing bowl. Stir the ingredients in their respective bowls throughly before combing them all together and stirring. 

Bake at 350 degrees for around half an hour or until top is slightly golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool or just dive right in if you're like me and can't resist.

Every time I bake this dessert it just smells (and tastes!) like home should. Maybe someday (long in the future) when I've got grown kids they'll come home to this smell and say it smells like home- ha! Now that's a thought!  

What are your favorite desserts?

One Year Ago Today...Our Wedding

One year ago today was our traditional Durham wedding with a Duke Chapel wedding ceremony followed by a Greystone Inn wedding reception. Here are a few photos from our wonderful photographers, Walters & Walters (they're the best...I tell all my engaged friends about them!). 

As soon as I laid eyes on the Greystone Inn in Durham I knew it was where I wanted to have my wedding reception. It was the perfect southern old estate wedding reception I had always imagined. And all of our vendors did a wonderful job transforming it into a classy evening reception venue. I'm very grateful for all their hard work. I'm truly privileged that I now I get to work with many of these talented wedding professionals. 

I get LOTS of questions about the Jackie Kennedy style bridesmaids dresses I selected so I'll tell you: they were from David's Bridal and were unfortunately limited edition so David's Bridal doesn't carry that style anymore. However, they've still got lots of elegant and stylish bridesmaids dresses to choose from so fret not it you had your heart set on these (seriously, I get so many e-mails asking me where these dresses are from! It makes me feel great to know I actually selected good bridesmaids dresses seeing that the old adage is that bridesmaids dresses are never pretty.)

This was my favorite wedding memory moment, our first dance as Mr. & Mrs. to Michael Buble's "Hold On". 

From walking down that epic aisle at our Duke Chapel wedding ceremony to munching on the amazing local eats prepared by Green Planet Catering our wedding day was all that I had hoped for from start to finish. Looking back I'm so grateful for that amazing day, but even more grateful for what an amazing life with Mike I have today. 

Moving Boxes & White Roses

Moving is stressful no matter where you're moving, how you're doing it, or who is helping you.  When it to comes piles of boxes and that plates-at-one-house-and-the-bowls-at-another effect I'm a little frazzled. I'm just the nesting sort. I like to have my space, have it organized, and know where EVERYTHING is. Alright, so maybe I'm a little up tight. But I've certainly loosened up since marrying my husband (nothing fazes him...NOTHING!). 

Sets of plates and bowls aside, I'm so glad we moved. We're loving our new home, and it's a lot closer to Mike's office which is great. Now, you're probably wondering right about now why this post has pictures of white roses in it rather than those piles of boxes I mentioned. Since we moved into our first apartment last year, Mike started this little tradition of getting me a bouquet of full white roses as my first bouquet at our new dwelling. Since he made it a point last move, he certainly couldn't let it go this time.

Halfway into the mess of boxes that was our new place a week ago, one dozen full, blooming white roses made their way into our new nest. Since the bathroom was the only sane room at that time I put the roses in there. (Good thing the bathroom here is probably my favorite room...it's so spacious...I could use that double vanity like a little office if I could get beyond that fact that it's probably way too weird to pull a chair up to the vanity and set up camp). 

Oh, and just because I'm giving those gorgeous roses so much praise, I didn't want our "pet" Mushoo the bamboo from Whole Foods Market to get jealous. Yes, whilst facing the infamous pet debate of newlyweds last summer we settled on two shoots of bamboo. After having fostered a puppy for a few days in our old place and watching it poop or pee every 20 minutes on our carpet I was rather glad we opted for a "pet" that did not require bathroom breaks of chew toys. 

Remember That Song About The Meatball that Rolled Away?

Remember that children's song about the meatball that rolled away and eventually grew into a meatball tree? Well that's sort of what happened to my hubcap. And after discovering the dealer was going to charge me a whopping one hundred dollars for a new one, I was wishing my hubcap, like the meatball, had grown into a hubcap tree. 

Fortunately, my hubby is a resourceful sort of guy. He suggested I call a few local car salvage lots. But after a few calls I began to realize that unless I wanted to drive more than an hour out of my way on a wild car parts goose chase, I wasn't going to get a hubcap deal through a salvage lot. But, then he discovered Hubcaps.com  With much more affordable prices, this hubcap wheeling (umm...pun intended) website offers a huge variety of hubcap options to fit practically any car. Oh, and my new perfect little hubcap came in the mail in a matter of days (a surprise to me because I had no idea my husband had discovered Hubcaps.com and ordered me one). 

While I hope you don't lose a hubcap any time soon, I do hope this replacement hubcap recommendation serves you well in the event that you do lose a hubcap. Hubcaps.com saved me a lot of money and precious time (because really, who wants to spend an afternoon browsing around a car salvage lot in the middle of nowhere anyway?)

Do you have any website recommendations for places to find good deals on everyday items? I've always heard Overstock.com is wonderful, but I honestly just heard that from their commercials so that might be a slightly swayed opinion.

When The Kitchen Becomes a Putting Green

Or perhaps I should entitled this post "learning to live with a man". 

To my surprise the other day I turned on the sink disposal to hear a horrible, terrible grinding noise that seem to shake the whole sink. Obviously, there was something down that drain, and this wasn't a mere fork or spoon gone astray. 

After positioning my lighting just so and digging around with a couple of spoons (I wasn't about to put my hand down there!), out popped a golf ball. I suppose the sink's drain is the perfect size to be an indoor putting hole, isn't it?

To my husband's credit the golf ball found its way into the drain on its own. I guess this calls for a "no golf balls lain on any surface anywhere near the kitchen sink" mandate in our home. 

And May The Wind Be Always At Your Back

Wait, is this for real? No more registering for classes? No more finals? No more lectures on developing our networking skills? Did I really just get launched into the real world? I think that'd be a resounding "yes". Weird. Just plain weird. 

Weird...but I am BEYOND EXCITED! I've always been the sort of person who is ready for the new stage and the new step so here I go, world!

But before I jump the gun on those new steps, let's look back at a few pictures from Sunday's Mother's Day graduation. 

When this photo was snapped I commented on the fact that nobody better try to mess with me, I've got brothers (and I have four more not even pictured here!)

Ma famille. 

Was it really just two years ago I was at Duke celebrating his graduation? 

At the very end of the commencement ceremony, the college's President spoke a very special Irish Blessing she'd been saving for the grads of 2011 (her last class to speak an Irish Blessing to before she retires)

"May the road rise to meet you, 

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

May the rains fall soft upon your fields,

And, until we meet again, 

May God keep you in the hollow of his hand."

(Irish Blessing)

How did you feel the first few months after you found yourself a new college graduate?

Of Daisy Chains and White Sun Dresses

We have a little tradition at MereCo we like to call "Class Day". Okay, so this is a BIG tradition. In fact, it's often considered one of the most important traditions a Meredith girl will experience during her four years in that safe little gated wonderland. Here are a few favorite snapshots and moments from my senior Class Day. 

Class Day is for seniors and their Lil Sis class (the sophomores) to celebrate their sisterly bond the day before graduation. 

The sophomores rise at 4 AM to gather daisy and ivy to begin making the largest daisy chains you'll ever see. 

 

That's my Lil Sis, with the curly hair, helping to carry the daisy chain into the amphitheatre. 

The seniors proceed in, each wearing a black glove on their left hand to represent their oddness (a tradition for odd year graduating classes only). 

After much talk and many a speech and serenade the seniors proceed onto the green and form a giant circle, holding hands. 

The Lil Sis class picks the daisy chain back up and carries it down to stand amidst the circle of seniors. 

The sophomores walk the daisy chain around inside the circle twice before placing it down in the center to spell out the Roman numerals that represent the seniors graduation year. 

After the sophomores exit the circle, daisy chain still in the middle, the seniors raise hands counting up to their graduation year, and then race into the circle to take all the flowers off the chain. It's a bit of a madness with girlie squeals and daisies flying everywhere. But it's all in the name of the traditions that bond us together. 

My Lil, Lizzy. 

My Lil, Meaghan. 

"But we know now that no matter how far we traveled on our own separate paths, somehow we would always find our way back to each other, and with that, we could get through anything." 

(Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)

My best friend at MereCo, Kim. We're like peanut butter and jelly, or chocolate and peanut butter depending on where your tastes reside. 

Looking back now I feel like our lives have changed because they had to, and that the real magic of the onyx was in bearing witness to all of this and in somehow holding us together when it felt like nothing would ever be the same again. 

(Adapted from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)

 What traditions do you treasure?