Friday favorites

This week is some back to school favorites! I really wanted some stuff to decorate my office as I don't have a classroom to decorate this year and I have no windows so decor is necessary for my sanity! 

1. I made a wreath for my house and school. They turned out great! 

(This one is at school on my office door)

(This is on my pantry door at home) 

2. It was time to update pictures around our house. I changed out a few frames in the living room and redid the ones that hang in our dining room. Here are the before and after of the dining room ones. 

3. Another favorite this week is officially starting my new position. I'm really excited about what this year has in store!

4. Hobby Lobby is my favorite for decorations for cheap. I spent way too much money this week for my office. Pictures to come once it's all up! 

5. TOMMY GOT A NEW JOB! To say I'm relieved/excited/nervous is an understatement. His job at YP just didn't turn out like we expected. In 6 months it deteriorated drastically. He is moving on from digital advertising sales and is going to be a Business Development Managaer for a recruiting firm that specializes in financial positions and technology. He will be going out trying to sell his company to big firms to use them to recruit new employees. I'm hoping this is a better fit. Anything is better than what he's been dealing with lately. 

That's it for this week. Looking forward to the weekend! Happy Friday!

What's Up Wednesday

What we're eating this week.... This week I'm making Skinny Tastes chicken Parmesan, jerk chicken tacos and then grilling boerwors (South African sausage) and vegetables. Tryin to get back on a meal planning schedule now that I'm going back to work. Summer has been so hectic! 

What I'm reminiscing about... Our fabulous trip to the Pacific Northwest. We have seen a bunch of family and friends since that have asked us about it and I just love telling them how much fun we had!! 

What I'm loving.... Seeing family and friends more regularly because I have he energy during the summer. Getting to go to lunches with my mom and grandma are a favorite of mine. I'm also loving getting to take Cooper on long walks with swimming! 

What we've been up to... We have been busy with trips to the beach, Seattle and Portland since last month. We have been doing some yard work and clearing out around be house. 

What I'm dreading... Waking up in the dark hours for work. Hearing an alarm clock and having to actually get up right away. My very last day to sleep in was TODAY 😭

What I'm working on... Figuring out my responsibilities for my new position at school this year. I'm busy moving into my new office, getting in contact with who I need to for my jobs this year and getting to know my new principal. 

What I'm excited about... The new school year! Yes I'm not ready for summer to be over but I am ready for the school year. We have a lot of change coming this year and new initiatives but I'm excited about a new challenge. 

What I'm watching/reading... I'm still reading "The Substitute" which is ok. I preferred the other books I read this summer. What I'm watching is PLL because it's the only show I have that is new during the summer. 

What I'm listening to... Nothing new really. Yay the radio whenever I'm running around town getting myself ready for work to start! 

What I'm wearing... I've been living in my Piko shirts lately because they are comfortable and cute colors! 

What I'm doing this weekend... My best friend, Samantha, is coming in town from Orlando for a wedding and staying with us. I haven't seen her since April! She flies in Friday and then her boyfriend arrives Saturday morning. While they are at the wedding Saturday night I am going to the SHANIA TWAIN concert! I'm so excited!!! 

What I'm looking forward to next month...we have two weddings in August for high school/college friends of ours. Tommy's friend, drew, from growing up is marrying my roommate from college, Caroline. Tommy is a groomsman and I am a greeter. We are excited to celebrate with so many friends! At the end of August, we have my high school prom date, Colin (Tommy's roommate after college) and his fiancé, Meghan, are getting married at Summerour (where we had our reception!). Looking forward to another night with great friends! 

What else is new... This month my little sister has been in Rome, Itsly, studying abroad and I've been living vicariously through her. Oh to be in college again. Her travels have been so fun! Also my older sister just started a new job at Carter's so baby clothes for everyone! 

What will you miss most about summer...sleeping in, not having to chug my coffee in the car, lunch dates, and walks at the river with my mom and the dogs. 

Weekend recap

We had a pretty busy weekend to bring July to a close. Friday was my older sister's, Bonnie, birthday. My nana and I went to lunch with her and collier. From lunch I went to my first admin meeting at school to get caught up on everything I missed while I was away. 

Friday night we had a party for Bonnir and two other girls on our tennis team that have July birthdays. We went to the Kilch's house for a margaritas and mustaches party! So fun and great night. 

Saturday morning I woke up early to head to my parents church for a charity event that my mother is the co-chairman of. Cool girls is an organization that's been in Atlanta for 26 years and my parents church as been involved with them for 24 of those years. St. Peter and St. Paul's always hosts them for a back to school shopping day where they get some fun things, do crafts, dance, and eat chick fil a lunch. At the end of the day they each get to take home a new backpack filled with school supplies and other goodies to start their year off. We had about 115 inner city girls come and they had a great day. It's a huge undertaking for my mom but the girls really enjoyed themselves! 

Saturday night I had a beautifully relaxing night babysitting collier. Miss this little boy when I'm away! Bonnie and Brett went out to dinner to celebrate her birthday so I got to hang with little guy!

Sunday morning we woke up (to NO running water because a few houses down had a water main break!) got ourselves looking halfway decent and headed to church. From church we went to Lowe's to pick out some flowers for by our mailbox. We dropped the flowers at my parents while we went out to family brunch for Bonnie's birthday. We went to "Niecy's Cafe" which opened right around the corner from my parents. It was great! 

After brunch we hoped we would come home to water but NO. Tommy went ahead and took on the yard work and did a beautiful job! 

While I grocery shopped for the week and cleaned the house. We had invited 6 couples over for dinner that night and at 4pm I still had no running water. Cue panic. I ran to Bonnie's house to shower and when I got back we had WATER! Phew. Dinner party back in full swing. 

We provided the main neat and everyone else brought side dishes and appetizers. It worked out great! We had the Hartmans, Reynolds, Mitchlers, and soon-to-be Stellings over.  The soon-to-be Bobinski's weren't feeling well. It was a great night catching up with our best friends. 

We had a wonderful weekend and ready to take on my last week (day now) before going back to work full time. 

(Side note. I'm always looking for a good morning devotional that doesn't take half an hour that I can do during the school year. Today the author of the study I did over the summer just launched a new devotional app called First 5 and I tried it today and thought it was great! You can set your alarm through the app so when you turn your alarm off in the morning it goes straight into your daily lesson. ) 

Half Monday! 

Friday Favorites

Linking up for Friday Favorites this week! 

1. The Pacific Northwest in particular exploring. You can read my posts on Seattle, Portland, and Scenery on these links! Here is one of my fave pictures from our trip! 

2. Food Truck Wednesday at Blackburn Park. This week I met up with my dear friend Lindsey and her two boys for dinner. We lucked out on our timing because not 5 minutes after Lindsey loaded up to leave the heavens opened! 

3. Paper Towns by John Green. I read this book on the plane and it was hard to put down! I can't wait to see the movie (hopefully in the next week!)

4. Sleep- yes I know this is a funny favorite for this week but with my days of Summer break dwindling at a rapid rate and my days of sleeping in coming to an end I am soaking it up for all it's worth! 

5. My Parents- they took care of our sweet Cooper while we were away and treated him like their own. He was spoiled over there and I'm not sure he wanted to come home! 

6. Movies with friends- my three best friends from High School and I go to movies whenever we are on school breaks. This week we went to see TrainWreck. Always a fun time with them and Cinebistro knows how to put on a good show! This movie was hilarious! 

5. My big sister Bonnie! Today is her 29th birthday so we are going to our favorite place Fickle Pickle in downtown Roswell for lunch with nana and then tonight she's having a triple birthday celebration with two of her good friends, Sarah and Katie. 

Happy Friday! Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! 

Pacific Northwest Part 3: Portland

When we told people we were going to Portland everyone just ooed and ahhed over the food and drinks they had when visiting as well. This city is definitely a foodie town and full of their own local breweries and wineries. We ate and drank our way through Portland and I don't regret it at all! 

We had booked another AirBNB for the first two nights in Portland. We stayed in the Beaumont area which was about a 12 minute drive into downtown so an easy location to the surrounding area. Once we freshened up and got settled we headed to the Pearl District of Downtown to explore. 

Saturday: We first started at Fat Heads Brewery for a snack and a beer flight.

From here we walked down the street to the famous Powell's City of Books . This famous store takes up an entire city block. It's the biggest bookstore I've ever seen! I could have spent hours wandering that place. 

 After perusing the bookstore, we walked around the corner to Deschuntes Brewery for a drink because it wasn't quite dinner time. We stood in the bar area making conversation with a couple from Vancouver, Canada. They had some helpful hints for our day along the coast the next day and places to visit. 

Next up was finding a place for dinner and so we chose to go to McMenamin's Kennedy School. McMenamins takes over old buildings and reconstructs them. The Kennedy School is an old school building with several bars, restaurants, and a wedding venue inside. It was really neat how they redid the school to fit this mold. Our food was fantastic and we enjoyed sitting in the courtyard for dinner (even if it was 90 outside). 

Sunday: After exploring the coast we freshened up for dinner at Pok Pok. This restaurant had come recommended by every person we spoke with about our trip so we had to try it! It's a very interesting menu with inspiration from all over Southeast Asia. We got game hen, a prawn and noodle dish, and sticky rice. Oh the flavors! It's a tiny restaurant with very little seating (no wonder we had an hour wait) but it was well worth waiting every second. Lived up to all the hype! 

When I looked on Trip Advisor for restaurants the #1 recommendation was Salt and Straw Ice Cream and since there was a location across the street from Pok Pok I knew we had to go! It reminds me a lot of Jeni's Ice Cream we have here. Yummmy delicious and very different flavors as well. July is their month for berry specials. There was a line around the corner (perfect to let our dinner settle) so we waited and contemplated our choices. I ended up with Snickerdoodle and Birthday Cake Blackberry ice cream. Tommy got some kind of berry pie flavor. We both got them in waffle cones. To say we were full that night is an understatement but hey it's vacation right!

Monday: So one of the places you always hear about in Portland is Voodoo Donuts but then everywhere I read and everyone I talked to told me to go to Blue Star Donuts instead because they tasted much better. So we got an early start and some donuts before hitting the road to explore Mt. Hood.  

 Tommy got a lemon curd and a blueberry donut. I got a maple & bacon and their original glazed. 

 Yes that is actual pieces of BACON on a donut. Delicious! 

This was by far my favorite! 

After exploring Mt. Hood, we came back to check into our Hotel for the night. We walked from the hotel to a happy hour spot that was suggested to us by Tommy's cousin called, Portland City Grill. This was such a cool spot because it was on the 30th floor of a business building. We had 360 degree views of the city. (the lighting was too terrible to try and get any pictures but such a cool spot. No wonder when she lived there she always took out-of-town guests there for happy hour). 

We then walked to dinner to meet up with my cousin, Alastair, who is working on a project in Portland right now. It was great to see him! We met him for dinner at Tasty N Alder. It was such a neat atmosphere. The walls were all windows that once the temperature went down could slide open really wide. It wasn't a huge place. The food was fantastic. Everything we ordered (family/tapa style) was so delicious. You can tell the chef is more about quality than quantity. All I have to say is...goat. cheese. dumplings. 

 After dinner we walked across the street to Multnomah Whiskey Library. This place was awesome! You really felt like you were in a historical library with all the dark wood and lighting. We each got a specialty cocktail and Alastair ordered us a champagne toast for our anniversary. Such a neat experience! 

Tuesday: This was our last morning in Portland. We didn't really have time to go exploring as our flight was at 11 so we slept in and then went out to brunch. Again to another highly recommended place called Mothers Bistro. Gosh my omelet was fantastic! (prosciutto, roasted garlic, tomato, and provolone cheese with a side of their delicious homefries. SO FULL AFTER)

As I stated at the beginning, we sure ate and drank well in Portland. We had such a fun time exploring different neighborhoods throughout the city and experiencing what everyone raves so much about. Portland is somewhere everyone should visit! Great people, great food, great drinks, and awesome access to beautiful landscapes!