Only one thing missing...

Unfortunately, my mother became very ill just a few days prior to the baby shower and was hospitalized during my entire visit (and a few weeks after that too!).  We had her on speakerphone as my sister and brother-in-law cut open the gender reveal cake so that she could hear everyone's reactions.  My sister also gave her the actual envelope from her doctor with the gender reveal photo so she could open it at the same time of the cake cutting.  Afterwards, I saved some of the party "goodies" and brought up everything to the hospital for her (and the ICU staff) to enjoy in the celebration.  Here's some photos :-)

It's a...

Wow! It's been a loooong time since I last blogged! My last post was about leaving my past job and getting ready to start my new one (which I LOVE), but right in between those two events was a quick trip (or a 17-hour drive both ways) home to St. Louis to throw my sister's bbq/gender reveal/baby shower!

Here are some of the desserts on the dessert table with the cute little signs I made:

 

 

a full view of the entire dessert table:

 

And then the food of course....

love these 'fruit and cheese' kabobs!

When guests arrived, they had to guess the baby's gender and received either a "girl" fan with a bow or a "boy" fan with a mustache :)

This group guessed BOY! (the parents-to-be guessed girl)

This group guessed GIRL!

The gift table

and centerpieces...I absolutely LOVED how all the floral arrangements turned out - the florist did such a good job!  (me ;-) heehee)

 And finally....the GRAND REVEAL...

 It's a ....

  I'm going to have a baby NIECE!!! :-)

Saying Good-bye

Wow! A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks! Well, for starters...I wrapped up my final days at my job in Orlando. It was hard to make the decision to look for a new opportunity, but as much as I love selling the "dream" to my brides...I thoroughly LOVE being the person to make that dream real. I know it was the right decision and I can't wait to officially start my new position (which happens in TWO days!)! While I will also be servicing corporate functions, which aren't my #1 favorite, having the opportunity to work with the brides again will be worth it all. My work threw me a going-away party last Wednesday (well, two Wednesdays ago). My boss came in from Tampa (ironically, I will now be working for her husband at my new hotel!), and a lot of my co-workers showed up to wish me farewell. I definitely shed a few tears opening my card/gift and when I received our ritual gift of a photo of the hotel with a signed photo mat with everyone's signatures (I SO love this tradition and was SO excited to finally receive my first one!). They made sure to have some of my favorite foods too: chocolate chip cookies (I am such a cookie monster), cheese displays (I can't keep my hands off of them!) and steamed pot stickers (yum!). Open bar never hurt anyone either ;) 

 Cleaning out my office took FOREVER! I can't believe how much "stuff" I've collected in just under two years! (Sidenote: I've already checked out my new office...doesn't

even come close to this amazing view and so much space!) 

 Since I've been so incredibly busy after my last day, I haven't even had a chance to try out my new gift! I can't wait to use it soon and I will definitely have a review to post about the Jambox!

 

 

Weekend Wrap Up & BIG News!

Happy Wednesday!!

Well, nothing too exciting to report out on from this past weekend.  Last week I caught a nasty case of bronchitis and ended up in urgent care because I refused to slow down with work.  I had a huge wedding this weekend to service and I convinced myself I was well enough to come in (despite the fact that I ran an average temp of 102.5 for about 5 days straight).   So I spent most of my time either at work, or recovering on the couch while I existed on almost nothing but cough syrup, antibiotics, Tylenol, Ibuprofen and water.  Charlee was excellent company of course :)

And in other news...I am excited to announce that I have officially accepted a new position within my company in Tampa!  While I have been so blessed in my current role with our Sales organization, my passion lies in servicing events (primarily weddings!) and so I will be making my way back into the Event world in less than two weeks!!  Orlando has been a wonderful home to me the past year and a half and I am definitely sad to leave all of the amazing friends I have made at my current hotel.  My last day here is next Wednesday, and then I will actually be heading home for my sister's baby shower (yay!), and when I return....off to Tampa I go!  :)

Pinterest: I Did It! - Mini Apple Pies

And I've created another pinterest recipe, the "Mini Apple Pie" found here on Little Bit Funky's blog.  I've only made apple pie (or any pie!) one other time in my college cooking class...so I definitely consider myself a pie amateur, and I found this recipe SO easy to make!   I made no variations from the original recipe, except that I halved it.  Let's face it...having 24 mini pies in the house can get dangerous!!  So here's how the mini apple pies go down:

For 12 Servings
Cut up 4 cups of apples into 1/2 inch bites (I found that approximately 1 apple equaled a cup)
In a large bowl mix the apples with:
6 tablespoons of flour
3/4c of sugar
2 heaping teaspoons of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

You will also need:
2 tablespoons of chilled butter cut into 12 equal portions, and 1 tablespoon melted (reserve for the end!) 
1 box of refrigerated Pillsbury Pie Crust

Unroll your first pie crust and cut several circles out.   Continue this until you have enough crusts.  (Just like the Canastitas, I used a large coffee mug for my circles).

Line each cup of your muffin tin with a tiny pie crust.

Then fill the crusts with your apple mixture and push the crusts down the rest of the way.  Use all of the apple mixture; each pie should have a little mound.  Then take each of your little pads of butter and top each mound with the butter.

Using the remaining scraps of pie crust to top off the apple mound and brush with the melted butter.  Bake for 20-22 minutes at 400.

ENJOY!
ps. Best served with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream :-)

Weekend Wrap Up

Wow!  It's been such a busy week so far and it's only Wednesday! :-(  I am sooo ready for the weekend (except I do work all weekend...so maybe not!)  :-)

This past weekend was spent almost entirely indoors (and in the kitchen!) as the weather was just downright awful.  Lots of thunderstorms and high winds.  Bracing ourselves for another weekend of bad weather as Isaac is brewing down near the islands.  Yikes!

Saturday morning I spent a few hours (and several dollars!) at the auto shop...I sure hope my car felt the love afterwards.  I barely managed to get home from the grocery store before the storms started, so I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the kitchen as we decided to have a date night at home.  Here's what I made: 

First, the canastitas made another appearance (seriously, LOVE them!).  I'm so happy I stumbled upon the recipe for it.  :-)

Of course we had Malbec wine for our "Argentinian" date night :-)

Next I grilled up some peppers and FINALLY used my indoor grill pan for the first time (sorry mom!  I asked for this as a gift years ago and had yet to use it...but I love it! THANK YOU!).  Here's a tip: NEVER grill peppers indoors. Ever.  The smoke that's produced from them was out of control.  Fans on, air off, windows open and I could still hardly see my hand in front of my face!  Lesson learned.  Luckily, they were delicious and almost worth choking on smoke to death to eat.  Almost.

the smoke had JUST started...I had NO idea what I was about to get into...

Lastily I grilled up some steaks.  Now, those who know me well know that I do. not. like. steak.  I decided to give it a try again for Jordan's sake and I knew he was craving it!  Not too long ago we stumbled upon chimichurri sauce for the first time.  Well, my first time and he had eaten it before in Argentina but not realized what it was.  Since then, we've been dying to try recipes with it.  A coworker of mine has a connection to an Argentinian restaurant and brought me in a jar of their chimichurri sauce (thank you Sol!).  So in went the sauce to marinate the steaks. 

 

Jordan said they were delicious (I beg to differ...but again, I don't like steak).  The chimichurri sauce was SO good though. Yum! He ate all of his and most of mine.  I went back for seconds on the canastitas.  :-)

To cap off date night, we rented The Hunger Games and enjoyed some mini apple pies I made earlier in the  afternoon (recipe to follow!).

And of course...we can't go without a new photo of Charlee.

Someone was VERY anxious to get to the dog park!

 Hope you're all enjoying your week!

Throwback Tuesday: Monterey, CA

This post is loooong overdue!  This past March I had an amazing opportunity to attend a training class in Monterey, California.  If you haven't been there...you must add it to your list of must-visit places.  The weather, the food, the people, the shopping, the view....all of it is insane.  I would move there in a heartbeat! I was there for an entire week of training, but I was fortunate to have two full days of free time.  My Aunt and cousins from Stockton, CA were kind enough to pick me up from the airport and spent one of my free days with me.  As they are members of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we spent a lot of our day there (such an amazing place!).  We also poked around on one of the piers, did the 17 mile drive in Pebble Beach (more to come on that!) and I finally got to eat at a Bubba Gumps :-) 

At the Aquarium

At the Aquarium

um...hello! this view? gorgeous! Doesn't it just make you want to curl up in a sweater and eat some chowder?  :-)

On my OTHER free day, I booked a whale watching tour (I highly recommend Chris's Whale Watching).  Now this is were it gets crazy cool.  While I did see a great whale (breathtaking!), we also ran into hundreds (no exaggeration here), HUNDREDS of dolphins. The ship captain estimated around 300-400 dolphins and stated that for every 1 dolphin you see above water they anticipate at least three below the water. With it still being March, and with the winds on the ocean...it was FREEZING on the boat.  (Side note: I am officially transitioned to Florida weather...I'm cold all the time outside of this state).  Because I was so cold...my iphone was having trouble recognizing my finger as it was pressing the buttons to take pictures....that's right...NO pictures of the great whale.  BUT, I was able to capture a few videos of the dolphins.   Happy viewing!

This video was shot as we were first approaching the dolphins...it looked like a random wave out in the distance...and as we got closer to the dolphins...the passenger next to me exclaimed (in a very British accent) "not a wave...look, it's dolphins - they're playing about in the water!"