Weekend Recap: Birthday Edition

Hey y'all! It's been so insane since the long weekend ended...so forgive my tardiness. :)

A week ago (exactly) was my birthday and boy, it was a great one.

For lunch on Wednesday, some of my favorite coworkers/ friends took me out to lunch at Alma Cocina for some guacamole, fried avocado tacos, and tres leche cake! YUM!

I also got some beautiful flowers delivered to my office...I definitely felt spoiled.

After work, I headed to Twain's Brewery to meet up with some lovely friends. It made my heart swell to have so many amazing people show up. I sure am lucky! To have people drive so far (and in the rain) and even bring their kids was awesome. Everyone kept saying how great my friends were and I'd have to agree! :)

We did these crazy birthday cake shots that tasted JUST like chocolate cake! I still can't decide if that's even a good thing or not! :)

Our company was gracious enough to give us 2 days of PTO for the July 4th holiday so on Thursday I met up with my adorable mom to do some birthday shopping. We also had a great lunch together! :)

Townes has been such a cuddle bug lately...man I'm loving our new couch and how wide it is!

On Thursday night, I put together a new media console for our living room. I love how it turned out! 

For dinner, we had fried green tomato burgers with a sweet potato salad. My kind of dinner!

The updated living room...it's still a work in progress though!

For the 4th, we went to my in-laws' house to see my sister-in-law who is in town from FL. We spent the day swimming and then had a cookout. I may have had too much wine, but it was so lovely. :) My FIL just got this huge new smoker grill, but it was broken so in the meantime, he had to go old school with the small charcoal grill. 

My new tank top...love it!

On Sunday, I woke up early and colored in my anti-stress coloring book (I love it)! and spent some time with Townes. He's my favorite buddy! The long weekend was great, because there was a lot of down time mixed with doing errands around the house. Sadly as adults, unless you go out of town, I suppose every weekend has a mix of fun + work!

He follows me everywhere ♥

For an early dinner, my folks and brother came over and we went to Leon's. The food was so good! Even though I don't eat meat, the charcuterie plate was super impressive!

It was so nice to have them out to Decatur and spend some time with them. We even got ice cream afterwards!

J + I ended the weekend watching the World Cup finale and it was amazing! Go USA! I promise that we were more excited then it appears below. :)

How was your weekend?

I hope it was awesome!

xo

Friday Favorites

TGIF!

It's been such a great week! Due to the holiday, my company gave us off Thursday + Friday and there have been so many awesome birthday wishes and celebrations!

With the rainy weather today, I'm wishing I was at any of these top Florida swimming holes. Bucket list!

Found these 4 keys to responding instead of reacting super helpful. Deep breaths are always the best!

This Chris Farley documentary looks so good. I just watched a SNL marathon for a bit yesterday and it reminded me how talented he was (so much physical comedy skills for a heavy guy)!

This kitten video is precious. Wait for the surprise, it's worth it!

Check out some of the last photos taken of Frida Kahlo. She was so magnificent.

Can reading make you happier? I knew there was a reason I enjoyed it so much. 

"Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers. "

Hope you have an awesome holiday weekend and get outside as much as possible!

xo

Weekend Recap: Easter Edition

 Hey y'all!

This past weekend was a whirlwind...although most weekends are these days!

On Friday, I had back-to-back calls for work and then went to Zumba to dance off some of the work week's stress. As soon as I got home, I hurried to get showered for dinner with our wonderful neighbors, Marge + Russ. Thankfully we just had to walk across the street to join them. 

We had the best time and they made a great veggie lasagna (with no noodles and lots of eggplant and swiss chard) with a nice salad. For dessert, we had panna cotta with homemade raspberry sauce. They sure know how to host! We ended up staying from 7 PM - 11:45 PM! Lots of cordials may have been involved. :) 

On Saturday morning, we did the standard neighborhood walk down to the old waterworks and enjoyed some of the new graffiti. I really enjoyed the sunshine, as always! Poor Townes had his teeth cleaned last week and they ended up having to pull 2 teeth due to an infection and they found a tumor on his leg and have sent the sample to UGA...hopefully it's benign! His mouth was so swollen.

 Afterwards, we headed to Tribble Mill Park to meet up with J's folks and sister (who is in town from Florida). We went on a nice hike around the park, but sadly had to keep Townes out of the water because of the stitches on his leg and we have to make sure it doesn't get infected. Poor guy!

 After the park, we headed to a local farm-to-table restaurant called Graft and had the best meal! 

They were super accommodating with allowing us to bring Townes and the food and service was top-notch. The restaurant is in an old house with a great patio and amazing interior. They even had corn-hole to play and a fire pit. 

We all shared this awesome cheese plate (it wouldn't be the south without pimento cheese, am I right?) and then I had a great veggie plate and J had a veggie pasta. They even do tours of the local Darby Farm where they get a lot of their produce and meats.

We all shared the dessert plate at the end. The chocolate bread pudding was incredible! Overall, it was a great meal and dining experience - I would totally go back!

On Easter Sunday, we headed to my cousin's house to see my mom's side of the family. As always, we didn't get enough time to see everyone since we had to hustle to J's family's Easter, but I am so thankful for the time we had. The sunshine, great family, good food, and setting was really nice.

I am so grateful for my mom and my sister. Aren't they the cutest?

We had a lot of fun exploring the property and old barn. Apparently there are ponds on the property, but we didn't go too far since we were on a limited time clock. 

 Then we headed back to Tribble Mill to the Oak Pavillion and got to spend time with the other side of the family. It's always so much driving on the holidays, but at least the weather cooperated!

 Then we headed back to Tribble Mill (yes...again) to the Oak Pavilion and got to spend time with the other side of the family. It's always so much driving on the holidays, but at least the weather cooperated! It was so nice being able to see everyone and catch up. Not a bad view from the pavilion, right?

We even got a group cousin shot at the park, but sadly we were missing a few! There's always next year.

Hope you all had a peaceful weekend and had lots of great food and egg hunts! :)

xo