Pink and Grey Baby Shower

I had so much fun over the weekend at Holly's baby shower. You may remember the invitation I created for this beautiful shower (found here) a couple of weeks back. Well, the time finally came and the party was gorgeous! Holly's sister did such a great job putting the whole thing together!

Using pretty baby girl dresses as decor was adorable!

A sweet "game" we played for Miss Mommy-to-be was to write a fun joke or nice saying on the booty of some diapers she would be using later. I had never heard of this idea and I LOVED it! What a nice way to cheer up a new mom dealing with baby poo!

We also had a diaper raffle to help Holly stock up before here little girl arrives. I was lucky enough to win one of the fabulous prizes... *ahem* I took the wine.

It was a brunch shower and the spread was simple but ah-maz-ing! We were treated to a simple "bagel bar" for the main meal and a crazy amount of adorable pink desserts after brunch. 

Regular lemonade and a vodka lemonade punch were served. For the punch, Holly's sister used a 5th of strawberry vodka, a 2 liter bottle of sprite, a carton of lemonade, and pint of fresh strawberries

Holly is a huge fan of doughnuts so instead of cupcakes or cake we were treated to a doughnut cake. Mmmmmm...

Our beautiful Mommy-to-be opening presents!

Fall Festivity Extravaganza Wrap-Up

With Thanksgiving now behind us it is my (other) favorite time of year: time to gear up for CHRISTMAS! Yes my house is already completely decked out for Christmas, tree and all (I'll post pictures later). But with fall leaving us behind ('leafing us behind'? hahahah) I wanted to just do a quick wrap up of the fun recipes and things I/we did in the last couple of months. Here ya go!

We made pumpkin pie from scratch! (welllll I made the filling from scratch...)

We made (and devoured in one sitting) roasted pumpkin seeds! 

Husband and I went on a super fun festive fall hike (say that five times fast...)

We made these delicious candy corn sugar cookies! 

We went to a farm and bought apples to make this amazing and easy home made applesauce! 

I hope you had as much fun this fall as I did. Now let the Christmas festivities begin!!!

Fall Hike

Fall Festivity Extravaganza continues! Over the weekend, Husband and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went on a bike and hike. We biked about 3 miles out of town and climbed Bald Hill, the views that day were amazing. I couldn't get over it. Here's a peak at our day.

Above is our very first view once we reached the top. This is facing South East, if I had turned just a little to my left, I could have seen Reser Stadium in the distance. 

Below you can see how bright the sun was, here we are headed directly west. West is my favorite view because there is almost no city, just farm land. 

The tree colors are so beautiful this time of year, I love fall! Here is the west view zoomed in.

Below is a wider view of the west, I love Oregon. 

Then Husband reminded me that I have panorama on my phone so I took another (I'm a little obsessed). 

Hiking back down we had some pretty views too. On the left we are facing due North and on the right is an open air barn that is absolutely gorgeous. 

And here at the bottom of the hill facing East: 

Overall, we biked about 6 miles and hiked around 3 miles. The gym can get boring so some days I like to just hang out in nature... I was pretty dead afterwards, though, so we had microwave tamales for dinner. 

Wine Tasting Bachelorette Party

Just last week, one of my best friends got married, and it was BEAUTIFUL! You may or may not remember two previous posts about Kari's wedding. One was her red and black bridal shower and the other was the invitation to her bachelorette party. What a bachelorette party it was! We went wine tasting in Napa Valley. It. Was. Amazing. I have never been to Napa before so I was totally blown away. We rented a limo and went to four wineries... but we only got pictures of three of them. Below is a picture album of our weekend!

San Francisco:

To save on cost, we stayed at the brides' sister's house. She has this amazing view of San Francisco: 

What a lucky girl! The first day we spent just relaxing as most of us were either flying or driving into town. A few of us ventured into the city and I think Erika, Jessica, and Piper had a pretty good time with the local fire department...

Napa Valley Stop 1: Castello di Amorosa

So apparently this guy made a bunch of money on his first vineyard and decided to spend it on building a freaking CASTLE. Ahhh to be rich. But I'm glad this guy is because his castle was amazing. See for yourself:

Oh yeah, we also tasted wine, but those pictures are boring. The staff there was super nice and put up with our shenanigans, which is always a plus for this group... 

Castello di Amorosa's website:  http://www.castellodiamorosa.com/

Napa Valley Stop 2: V. Sattui Winery

Remember how I said the guy who built the castle made all his money on his first vineyard? Well here it is. We didn't get a ton of pictures of the grounds because they had a huge BBQ event going on that day and we were trying to make up a bit of lost time. So there are only a couple of pictures of it: 

Yay! We got a group shot! I know you don't care but I do, so deal with it. 

V. Sattui Winery's website: http://www.vsattui.com/

Napa Valley Stop 3: Domaine Carneros 

This final Chatteau is actually a champagne winery, which suits me just fine because I looooooove me some bubblay! 

This place was also gorgeous. Whatever. It's Napa, they're all beautiful. And the champagne tasted like candy (well some of them did, others were nice and dry). 

Domaine Carneros' website: http://www.domainecarneros.com//index.cfm

Home: 

I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that the drive back to SanFrancisco looked like this: 

Sleepy Girls

But never fear, after a quick nap, we were all out and ready to go in our matching bachelorette shirts (that I designed, BTW... unless you don't like them, then I had nothing to do with them - that bitch over there did it all....). FUN WEEKEND!

Surprise Coral Bridal Shower

Over the weekend I had the privilege of attending a SURPRISE bridal shower for a good friend of mine. Her wedding color is coral so that was kind of the theme of the party. Here is a look at the beautiful shower.

      

 

Like I told our sweet host, you know its a good party when there is no non-alcoholic option. We were greeted immediately with beer, wine, and vodka punch. I need to get the recipe for this punch because it was AMAZING!

We drank out of mason jars and our blushing bride received her own special mason jar goblet. (Tutorial of how to make it here.)

We snacked on food from this unbelievable bakery. I stuffed myself stupid and it was worth it! 

Dessert consisted of this beautiful cake and cupcakes. 

We played two games, (one is a little risque and I didn't get any pictures of it but it was hilarious) and the other was to find the "ring" M&M's of out of these special, personalized M&M's (website here).

Because the wedding color is coral, we all dressed in it that afternoon. Although it was a surprise for the bride, she just happened to be wearing coral as well. It was a gorgeous and fun way to wrap up the weekend!

Camping

We have two seasons in Oregon: rain (9 months) and summer (3 months). The rain never seems to end and right when I think I'm going to drown myself in the lake puddle on the corner of 14th and Jefferson, summer rolls around and ALL IS FORGIVEN! Nothing beats summer in Oregon. During these few short months, you can see the purpose to all the rain.

BAM! Purpose.

We went camping at Lost Lake over the weekend (love you Julia) and it was awesome. I. Love. Camping. I LOVE IT! You get to be dirty and stinky and nobody cares! I have never been to Lost Lake and I didn't realize what I was missing. The lake is b-e-a-utiful and you can rent all sorts of fun lake stuff: paddle boats, kayaks, paddle boards, etc. We just brought floaties and swam.

 

There was a fair amount of wild life, mostly chipmunks and salamanders. Yay! You can also take a hike around the lake, there is a path that circles the whole thing, about 3.5 miles. If you don't want to be with the crowd on the main beach, hike this bad boy and find your own spot. There are a ton of small beaches you can have to yourself if you are willing to walk there.

We lived mainly on hot dogs and sandwiches... until Saturday night when Carson dreamed up this delicious pot of awesome. FRANK AND BEANS! He just cooked up some bacon in a small pot, then added the franks (without draining the bacon grease) then added the *cough expired cough* beans. We poured them over onion buns and added a bit of cheese on top. It. Was. Bomb. Yay Carson. 

Omnomnomnom, amazeballs.

And Kegan went out Saturday night and took this amaaaaaazing long exposure picture of the stars...