#26- Have our friends over for a Crawfish Boil

I did something I have never done this weekend. I cooked something that used to live in water. You see, I've always tried to eat seafood but it has always made me sick. Food making me sick = I have never had the desire to try and cook seafood. Well, enter a husband who loves food that comes out of water and you find me stepping out of my norm. 

When Pat and I started dating I introduced to him one of my favorite food groups, Cajun Food. Listen, Cajun Food deserves it's own section on the pyramid. Period. It's just so dang good and I want to cry for anyone who has never tried it before. When Pat told me he had never had any sort of Cajun food before my mind was blown. To pieces.  Cajun food was a main staple of foods around my college experience. I mean, we had a date party dedicated solely to the pinnacle of all Cajun foods, Crawfish.

A little throwback for y'all. Crawfish Date Party circa 2010

SO all of that to say/bore you with, we decided awhile ago that we wanted to have a Crawfish Boil at our house this spring (aka Crawfish Season). Pat had never been to one before and that was just not acceptable. 

All crawfish boils should include Abita beer. It's like a law or something.

 I somehow forgot my friend's boyfriend is an actual Cajun and really knows a thing or two about crawfish. I was slightly freaking out.

Can I get a Hail State and go Phi Mu?!

  Well, well, well. Whaddyaknow?? The girl who can't eat crawfish kicks butt at making crawfish. It's true. A real cajun told me so!

Chloe might've loved the crawfish too. *Disclaimer: we never feed our dog from the table. This was a treat*

Pat probably ate about 15 of the 30 pounds that we had. I might be exaggerating just a little bit, but he loved it!

Hubs loved it so much that he took my suggestion and made himself quite the lunch today...

Man, I am probably the luckiest girl ever. My hubs can cook!! 

Have you ever stepped out of your comfort zone and made something you never thought you would before? I think it's safe to say we'll be doing this again next year!

101 in 1001 Update

I am one of those people who gets all gung-ho about doing stuff and then never does it. I have to write things down in order for me to do them. There is something so seriously satisfying about crossing something off a list. Hence my 101 in 1001 list. Let's see how I've been doing-

1. Go to the movies five times

2. Volunteer on a Habitat for Humanity house

3. Volunteer at the Atlanta Mission

4. Consistently put away $100 into savings from each pay check for 3 months- Welllll, sorta. Does putting it in there and then using it for emergency purposes count? No? Crap. I need to get better about being serious about my savings.

5. Do a "no spend" month

6. Go visit friends who live more than 5 hours away

7. Hike and camp out at Tallulah Gorge

8. Finish a Beth Moore Bible study with a friend

9. Journal every day for a month

10. Celebrate our 1 year anniversary Completed 5.11.14

11. Celebrate our 2nd anniversary

12. Celebrate our 3rd anniversary

13. Go see a musical with my husband

14. Go to at least two concerts

15. Take a weekend trip to Savannah

16. Go to the beach

17. Go and visit my grandmothers just because

18. Go to Asheville, NC for a day trip

19. Learn how to solemn ski

20. Go white water rafting

21. Swim with the Beluga whales at the GA Aquarium

22. Go on a dinner date with a friend 20 different times

23. Go to brunch at least 10 times

24. Read through the entire Bible

25. Send our Compassion kid a letter once a month for a year - I'm so glad I put this down because it has prompted me to do this more. Now I'm off to write our May letter! (3/12)

26. Have our friends over for a Crawfish Boil- Boom Bam! I get to do this this weekend. Don't tell them it's my first time every cooking crawfish. Oh yeah, and I can't eat the stuff. I'm such a good friend. Cooking my friends the good stuff (or so I'm told) and I can't even eat it! Booooo allergies

27. Go to a home game at Mississippi State- Woo hoo! Can't wait for October. We have our weekend picked out.

28. Run a 5k

29. Run the Peachtree Road Race

30. Go see my grandfather's grave in Arlington National Cemetery

31. Make a photo book of our wedding pictures Completed 3.20.14

32. Make a photo book of our honeymoon pictures Completed 3.19.14

33. Learn how to make my momma's famous fried chicken - Some time around my birthday this is going down. Every time I talk to my mom I pump her up for my birthday meal because I'm her only daughter and I deserve the most labor intensive meal to make. Or something like that. *That is extreme sarcasm. I'm just the smartest kid and choose the best meal my momma knows how to cook <-- That last sentence is not sarcasm*

34. Learn how to make a quilt

35. Get our wedding quilt finished - My mother-in-law and I are working on this baby!

36. Buy our first house

37. Go snow skiing

38. Get professional pictures taken of us

39. Take a picture together every year on our anniversary- 1/3 

40. Throw a bridal shower for a very dear friend

41. Get a dog Completed 3.28.14

42. Host Thanksgiving or Christmas

43. Take a cooking class at The Viking School

44. Take a class at Sip n Stroke with Pat

45. Put our paintings from the class on display

46. Get the Bible Verses from our wedding printed and framed for display

47. Write down our wedding vows and keep them in my Bible for a daily reminder of our covenant

48. Have the college students Pat is coaching over for dinner

49. Get that nice camera I have been eyeing for years Completed 4.20.14

50. Learn how to use that camera

51. Go to Mardi Gras

52. Go to the Sun Dial restaurant

53. Go eat where we had our rehearsal dinner Completed 5.10.14

54. Make lasagna from scratch

55. Go on a date to the Food Truck Park here in Atlanta Completed 3.22.14

 56. Send out Christmas cards

57. Be done with Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving

58. Go back to Harry Potter World

59. Bake Pat a cake for his 26th and 27th birthdays

60. Plan a Eurotrip for 2016

61. Get the French version of Rosetta Stone

62. Brush up on my French and keep my ear using Rosetta Stone

63. Send a package to my French family filled with their favorite American goodies

64. Go to the doctor and get a shot/blood drawn without crying

65. Don't buy anything that isn't on my grocery list at least 10 times

66. Ride a paddle boat in the tidal basin in front of the Jefferson Memorial

67. Go on a Girls' Trip

68. Organize my closet Completed 3.24.14

69. Go for a run every day after work for a month

70. Bike all the way around Stone Mountain without stopping or walking

71. Take a picture in the church we got married in on our first anniversary Completed 5.11.14

72. Take a picture at our reception sight on our first anniversary- I completely dropped the ball on this one. We just didn't do it. No way around that.

73. Dance to our first dance song on our 1st, 2nd and 3rd anniversaries- Dropped the ball on this one too. Somehow this never crossed my mind the day of.

74. Give up soda for a month (and maybe forever?!)- Hahahaha, I must have been dreaming when I wrote this.  

75. Save up for a new car

76. Get our couch cleaned- Yeeeeeeeah, this was supposed to make me do this when I published this darn list. Gross. I need to do that now. Oooor in a month when it fits into our budget.

77. Hike Kennesaw Mountain for the first time since high school

78. Take pictures of Pat in the goal- Welp, better charge up that camera. Have to do it this weekend or else I'll be dropping the ball again for good.

79. Reenact our engagement pictures in front of the ATL skyline

80. Send a friend a package just because

81. Try five new fruits at the Farmer's Market

82. Make beignets for breakfast one day

83. Have breakfast for dinner one night

84. Sell our a piece of furniture made by us

85. Sell a baked good (people keep telling me to do this)

86. Learn how to make my momma's famous Potato Soup

87. Dust around our house once a week for a month (aka get into the habit of it)

88. Buy a strangers meal

89. Go ice skating

90. Make a ginger bread house

91. Plant an herb garden Completed 3.8.14

92. Spend an hour laying outside and looking at the stars

93. Finish the Game of Thrones series

94. Go to Oktoberfest in Helen

95. Go on a picnic

96. Host a dinner party

97. Go to the zoo

98. Finish all of my name change stuff Completed 4.4.14 (I know you're all really sad that there's not an extremely thrilling blog post about my time spent at the DMV and SS office)

99. Make ice cream/sorbet from scratch

100. Fly a kite

101. Do a random act of kindness at least 5 times

I mean I'm pretty proud of myself for actually getting some of these things done. I love that I am being pushed to get some things done that I would otherwise never do. This is making me get out and enjoy my city more. Here's to powering through and getting more done this summer! Can't wait to share some of these adventures with y'all!

Weekend Shenanigans: Graduation, 1st Anniversary and Mother's Day ... oh my!

What up weekend with so many life events at the exact same time! We got to start off the weekend by watching my baby sister graduate from high school.

And then I left there extremely jealous of all the fun times that she is about to embark on. I loved college and everything it had to offer. I even loved going to the library (nerd alert!). She has decided she wants to go through Rush and I'm even jealous of that (I can say that now that I'm 4 years removed from Rush). I really just miss living in the same place as all of my friends. Oh, and naps. I really really miss naps.

Saturday night Pat and I ate where we had our Rehearsal Dinner for our nice anniversary dinner. I might still be full. It was that good. You don't like French food? This picture will change your mind-

That right there is my biggest weakness. Mousse au chocolat ... I meeeean, I could kiss the person who came up with that recipe so long ago. 

Sunday was spent celebrating one year and our mommas. I love that we got to attend church where we got married exactly one year before and got to enjoy a wonderful lunch with both of our moms and the rest of my family.

One year later and back at the church. And I need to cut my hair. Moving right along...

Pat and his mom

Three generations: Moi, my mom and my grandmother

And then the moment we had all been waiting for. A whole years worth of waiting for the most magnificent cake in all of the land...

Bam! Look at how beautiful she looked even a whole year later!

And to continue on with this picture dump of a post here are a bunch of pictures of us with the cake. You get to look at all of these because they are approximately 1000x better than the cake cutting pictures of us on our actual wedding day.

Pat isn't even looking and this picture is STILL better than the ones on our wedding day

Awkward squatting and it is still better than our wedding day pictures.

Freakish face and ... well, you get it. Basically my mom should have been our wedding photographer.

Was it still good, you ask? Well, I believe this picture says it all...

Yes, it was still fantastic!

And just so I can prove that I did indeed get my own piece this year...

Noms.

What did you do to celebrate your 1st anniversary? 

I hope you all had amazing weekends! For all the mommas out there, I hope you enjoyed a wonderful Mother's Day and got pampered like you deserved!

#55- Go on a date to the Atlanta Food Truck Park

If you can't tell by now, I am one of those people who needs to write things down for them to get done. My 101 in 1001 list has been such an inspiration for me. There is just something about having things written out that really gives me a kick in the butt. I have been inspired to get things done that I have been saying I would do for years in some cases.

Today's post is not something that I have been wanting to do for years, but I knew that it was something that I would keep putting off unless I wrote it down to hold myself accountable. The Atlanta Food Truck Park is fairly new to the city. I have heard so many amazing things about the park that I just knew it would be a place that Pat and I would both like. I kept hearing about how amazing the weather was supposed to be this past Saturday, and I just knew we couldn't stay inside the whole day. It was the perfect day for us to head to the food truck park.

I think it's safe to say that like was an understatement, we both loved it! So much so that we are already planning our next trip there.

That picture is a very small snapshot of the actual setup. There are around 15 trucks in the park at a time and they are all so drastically different. While we were there the trucks were turning out Croatian food, French food, Italian ice, Vietnamese food, Jamaican food, Japanese food, Indian food, BBQ, a sandwich truck, every different combination of hot dog that you can imagine truck, and I know I am missing some. There was no way we could have gone to every truck so we only went to three trucks on this trip.

A few years ago Pat had the amazing opportunity to live out one of his life dreams and play professional soccer. He lived and played in Croatia for a couple of years. While he was there he fell in love with the local cuisine. When we walked into the park and saw the truck above, he almost started doing a happy dance right on the spot. He got to have one of the foods he always talks about, Cevapi-

Gone in about 10 seconds

I was not so adventurous, but I finally got to try a BBQ place that I have been hearing about for awhile now. I am pretty picky about my BBQ, and I have not been able to find a place in Atlanta that just knocks my socks off. Well that all changed when I tried Sweet Auburn BBQ on Saturday. I was fighting Pat off of my plate the whole time. I will definitely be making a visit to their physical location in the near future.

Lord knows there was no way I was going to leave the food truck park without hitting up the French truck. Crêpes are quintessential French, and I am never one to turn down crêpe made by a French person.  Homemade chocolate and whipped creme?! Be still my heart.

This is what happens when a boy takes your pictures...

In heaven.

I definitely think that this is a must see place in Atlanta. Atlanta is never really known for it's food community, but the city has such a large international community that there is always a new place to try. The park is a great place to try out so many different types of food in one go. Sadly, King of Pops wasn't there on Saturday so we didn't get to indulge in one of the favorite ATL hotspots.

I can't wait for our next visit!

What do you think of food trucks or food truck parks? Are they a place that you would love to visit and hangout for an afternoon?

#31- make an album of our wedding photos

Y'all. I know you heard me brag about Artifact Uprising in my post about our album of our honeymoon pictures. Well they not only knocked it out of the park again, they hit a freaking grand slam!! I swear they aren't paying me to write this or giving me free goodies. I really just love them this much.

I knew I wanted to print off our wedding pictures into an album, but I also knew that I didn't want to spend $400+ on a quality album. I researched the crap out of places to complete this little project of mine. I knew once I found Artifact Uprising that I would be crossing off #31 on my 101 in 1001 list.

Please ignore the poor quality of the pictures I am about to share. I am currently in the process of saving up for my camera, so my phone will have to do for now. :)

Here is a peek into our album-

Of course Pat and some of his besties reenacted Gangnam Style. Of course.

I can't wait to make other albums from big events/trips in our lives! I really hope y'all check them out if you need an album of some photos. You will not be disappointed!

What do y'all think?

#32- Make a book of our honeymoon pictures

As I mentioned yesterday, I love pictures. I feel like I am always taking a million pictures, but then I never do anything with them. 

I had been toying with the idea of making picture books for big events/trips for awhile now. I looked at so many different companies and websites, but I always felt that the books were just too cheesy. I didn't want extra designs on the pages and the plain layouts were so difficult to work with. Then I found Artifact Uprising, and I fell in love. I couldn't figure out why I loved their simple yet elegant design until a coworker said a few magical words- "That looks like something that would come from Anthropologie!" Duh! That is most definitely why I loved their simple yet elegant style. After I figured out why I loved them so much, I got to making our book and now get to cross #32 off of my 101 in 1001 list. Score!

While their design most definitely looked like something straight out of Anthro, their prices did not live up to Anthro's infamous high price tags. Hallelujah!
I can not recommend them enough. Their website is super easy to use, and the turn around on orders that are put in are super fast!

Here is a little peek into the book of our honeymoon pictures-

 That's just a little taste of our book. I love it more each time I look at it.

What do y'all like to do with the pictures you take? Do you have any other ideas on how to display them?

The weekend our tax return made over our back porch...

This past week our tax return came through and we had three things we knew we wanted to splurge on; a new laptop, our plane tickets to DC and outdoor seating for our back porch. We managed to do all of that and put some of the return away to savings. I'll call that a success!

We started off our weekend by going back to Sapori di Napoli with my dad and sister. It was as amazing as the last time we went. This time was a little torturous for me seeing as I gave up pizza for lent. I am not a big believer in giving stuff up for lent, but I am using this lenten season as a way to break a really bad habit of mine- ordering pizza instead of cooking dinner.

My little sister and I- excuse the exhausted, long week look I have going on

 We got up bright and early on Saturday morning to help out at Pat's family farm in western Georgia. This is where my inspiration for our back porch re-model came to fruition. 

Daffodils! Always the first sign of spring in my college town

While the men were inside moving furniture, I walked the property for inspiration. I ended up finding three different galvanized containers that were not being used and probably never would be again. Hubs has been wanting to have his own herb garden, and I had just found him a container for his little herb garden! Since we are living in a rental we don't want to over do it by doing yard work when we can't take it with us when we leave. I figured this solution was perfect for us. We hurried home, stopped by Ikea to pick up our new outdoor table and then stopped by Home Depot for our planting supplies. 

Here is what our little outdoor oasis looked like before we started the transformation-

In the picture above Pat is nailing holes into the bottom of the containers so they will be able to drain when we water them. Our grill "cover" is literally just barely hanging on and we have a few old plastic planters scattered about.

Mid-transformation

Forgot to mention that the chairs we got to go with our table came from Home Depot. $20 for each chair seemed like a better option than $40 (at least) for each chair.

 

We chose Primrose for our flowers because they need only some sunlight through out the day and our back porch is pretty shaded from all of the pine trees. For our herb garden we planted basil, mint, cilantro and rosemary. With planting that herb garden I get to cross #91 off my 101 in 1001 list!

Our completed table and lanterns from Ikea

 

We ended the afternoon by sitting down to enjoy our new oasis for about 30 minutes before we had to run and get ready for dinner with Pat's mom and stepdad.

Other views of our little back porch oasis.

I'm so excited that we finally have a place that we can sit outside and enjoy. I'm looking forward to many weekends of reading, grilling out and having friends over to enjoy!


I hope y'all have all had great weather to enjoy this weekend. It's going to make going back to work tomorrow especially hard.