Branch and Bloom {Farm Retreat}

Hello friends!  Our craft class for this moth at Branch and Bloom was a Farm Retreat. We held it on Saturday at our friend Jen's farm. Jenn has a small hobby farm and she's a yoga teacher so we thought it would be fun to collaborate and have a Farm Retreat together.   

It was a great day! The weather was perfect ☀️, the animals were adorable, and everyone had a fabulous time.  

Here was our schedule for the day:

10:30am  Welcome and Farm Tour

11:30 Yoga

12:30 Farm fresh lunch

1:30 Craft class {windowsill herb garden}

2:30 Relaxation yoga and retreat wrap up

We started the day with tours of the farm.  The animals were a huge hit! Jenn has goats, pigs, chickens and ducks.

 

 

 

 

After the farm tour we had our first yoga class outside in one of her pastures.  It was the perfect setting for yoga.

 

After our yoga class we had a farm fresh lunch.  Wraps and salad from Rachael's family grocery store. We sat the lunch up outside and people ate on picnic blankets and tables. 

 

After lunch Rachael and I helped everyone make their windowsill herb gardens.  These were simple to do we just added vinyl words to the little pots. We did thyme, parsley, and basil. 

 

 

 

Here are Jenn, Rachael and I at the end of the day.  Jenn and I bought our "plant lady" shirts and Rachael made hers.  We thought they were so cute!

 

We always like to take a picture of everyone at our craft classes so we took a big group picture before our last yoga class.

 

It was a fun day! Everyone had a good time and we were so happy when one of the participants posted this on Facebook :-). 

 

Next month we are doing a Plant and Pose workshop at Jenn's farm.  Jenn will lead us in a yoga class and for our craft we are going to plant succulents in hypertufa planters.  It should be a fun evening!

I hope you had a great weekend!  

Xoxo

Crafty Wednesday {girlfriend gift bags}

So two weeks ago I went on a beach trip with some of my best friends.  We went to Cape Cod for three days and had a great time talking, laughing, shopping and going to the beach.

Here is a picture of us from our trip.  I love these girls so much!  The weather was pretty terrible all weekend but we still had fun!

I knew we were going to be gone over Kentucky Derby weekend so I wanted to make something for my friends for the Kentucky Derby.  I thought monogrammed mint julep glasses would be perfect!  I ordered the mint julep glasses online and then I had my friend and neighbor Heidi monogram them for me.  I love the way they turned out!  I made mint juleps for everyone to drink while we watched the Kentucky Derby.  They are not my favorite drink but these glasses are adorable and they are stainless steel so we will have them for many future Kentucky Derby parties.

I told my dear friend Rachael about my idea and she decided to make the girls tote bags.  She makes tote bags and sells them in her family grocery store.  This is the one I bought from her this spring I love it!  

For our trip she made navy and pink "GO SEA DO" bags because we were going to the beach. We put all of our other goodies for our friends inside the bags.

Our friend Amy put margarita glasses in as one of her gifts and she put in a giant beach towel in the bags as well-it was so thoughtful of her everyone loved the glasses and the towels!!  I know I will use my towel all summer.  

 

Here is a peek of the towels.  She got pink and blue to go along with the bags.  

Here are the finished bags ready to be given to our friends!  This was so fun to do.  I love making gifts for my friends when we go on trips!  Last year my friend Sabrina and I made monogrammed beach bags for our friends for our Florida beach trip.  You can see how we made them here.  

I hope you have a great Wednesday!  It is HOT here and I plan to spend as much time as possible outside today enjoying the beautiful sunshine!
Xoxo

Catch up!

Hello friends.... Last week flew by!  I had big plans to blog every day.  I have so much to share but last week life got in the way.  The first few weeks of May are always so hard we have end of the year events and parties for work at the College.  It's SO fun but SO tiring.

Last week I had Bunco!  It's always fun to get together with these ladies :)

I teach a cardio/weight lifting class on Monday mornings and Tuesday's at lunch. This is my group from last Tuesday.  We are working on increasing our weights in class and these ladies have been working SO hard.  I am so proud of them!

 

One day last week I worked at graduation headquarters.  Students picked up graduation tickets and their caps and gowns in one central location.  We had snacks for them and a photo booth.  It was a fun way to spend a work day!

 

I invited these three students over for lunch on Thursday to celebrate the end of the year  I worked with them this year on the Greek Council.  I am so happy for them but I'm so sad to see them leave.

 

Graduation day was Saturday it was FREEZING cold.  I went to one of the ceremonies to see a few of my favorite students graduate.  Jessie was the President of the Greek Council for two years and she worked in my office this year.  I am going to miss her SO much next year.  I am glad I got to see her and meet her parents on graduation day.

 

G worked 16 hours on graduation day because he coordinated all of the volunteers for the three graduation ceremonies.  He was exhausted when he got home and took a nap on the couch with the three puppies.

 

Yesterday Ava had basketball so I drove her to Albany for her two games. I love watching our girl play basketball.

 

Sunday night G and I went to see The Zookeepers Wife.  It was such a great movie.  It was a moving story about a couple who helped 300 Jewish people escape from the ghetto of Warsaw during World War II.

I am reading this book about Whole 30 and I decided to start Whole 30 today. My friend Rachael is doing it too and G pretty much eats Whole 30 all the time so I am hoping it won't be too difficult for me.  I made this egg bake for breakfasts this week. 

 

That's a look at our {busy} life lately.  I hope you had a great weekend and a very happy Mother's Day!

Xoxo

Book Review {April}

 

Last month I read three books.  Each of them was very interesting and thought provoking in their own distinct way.   You can read my other two book reviews for this year here and here. 

The first book I read was Milk and Honey for my bookclub. 

 This book was different than the novels that we usually read.  Milk and Honey is a book of poetry and it’s divided into 4 sections;  the hurting, the loving, the breaking and the healing.  Each of the chapters serves a different purpose and deals with a different pain.  The first section was about abuse and that was tough to read.  It was a beautiful book and  I’m so glad we read it.  At our book club we read some poems aloud and that was really powerful because they mean so much more when they are spoken.  These are two of my favorites from the book.

“i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautiful
before i’ve called them intelligent or brave
i am sorry i made it sound as though
something as simple as what you’re born with
is all you have to be proud of
when you have broken mountains with your wit 
from now on i will say things like
you are resilient, or you are extraordinary
not because i don’t think you’re beautiful
but because i need you to know
you are more than that” 
― Rupi Kaur

“i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own

i want to fill so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of
us combined
could set
it on fire” 
― Rupi Kaur

The second book was Harvest: Unexpected Projects using 47 extraordinary garden plants.

This book is beautifully photographed and has step-by-step instructions to create beautiful projects including beauty products, gifts and beverages.  The book is divided into three sections early, mid and late so you can do projects throughout the gardening season. I also got this book as a gift for my friend Jenn who loves gardening and had a birthday in April.  I love this book so much and plan to make many of the projects highlighted in the book. 

The last book I read was my favorite book this month.  It was a Handmaid’s Tale.

I wanted to read the book before the Hulu series started and I am so glad I did.  I could not put this book down.  It’s very dark and primitive.  This book was published in 1986.  You would think something written 30 years ago would be dated but it is not.  It is a haunting book about life in a futuristic society after women are denied even the most basic civil rights.  There are many similarities to our current government in this book and that was scary to read.  So many people (myself included) take for granted many of the rights and privileges that we have as women in our country.    I was a huge fan of the book until the ending.  I did not like the way she did the ending.  I started watching the Hulu series last night and there are some differences from the book but I really like the series so far-I’ve seen two episodes. 

What have you been reading?  I love getting book suggestions from people.  There are SO many books that I want to read!  I have some good ones lined up for May.

Xoxo

Girls Weekend {Cape Cod}

I just got back from the BEST weekend .  I took a girls trip to Cape Cod.  We have been planning it for months and it was a perfect weekend.  I'm so glad we were able to get away and enjoy!

 

We left Thursday right after work.  It's about 5.5 hours away and we stopped for dinner at a restaurant featured on Diners,Drive-ins  and Dives on the way out. 

 

Friday we got up early and headed to the beach.  It was cold and cloudy so we didn't stay too long but we all love the beach so we had to go!

 

My friend Stephanie is an amazing kitchen designer and she also is a photographer she took these pics (with her iPhone!) at the beach.  I think they are gorgeous and want to get a couple printed for our house.

 

We stayed at my dear friend Amy's sister in law's house in Dennis.  Ava goes to Cape Cod every year with Amy and her family.  Here is a picture of the outside of the house.  It was so cute and cozy inside.  I can't wait to go back!

 

Friday during the day we went to a winery and shopped at World Market.  The winery was adorable and the owners were great.  It was a fun way to celebrate the day.  I took pics of Patriots stuff they had and sent them to Brock because he loves the  Patriots!

 

Friday night we celebrated Cinco de Mayo with lots of snacks and margaritas!  We had most of our meals at home which was nice.  We saved money and we didn't have to go out.  We ate SO much.  I think everyone is starting their diets today!

 

Saturday morning we went back to the beach for an early morning walk.  

 

On Saturday we went to a craft show and we all got matching BFF bracelets.  Each of us got a different one which was fun.  I got an anchor.

 

Saturday night we ordered in and watched the Kentucky Derby.  We all bet on the horses and my horse Always Dreaming won!  We all brought Derby Hats and I made us Mint Juleps. I bought these julep cups and my friend Heidi monogrammed them for me.  I'm going to do my Crafty Wednesday post about them this week :-) 

 

Sunday was our last day on the Cape.  We took one last morning walk on the beach (it was finally sunny!) before heading home.  

 

 

It was a great weekend! We are all so busy with our jobs and families it was fun to have time together.

Xoxo 

Happy Things {April}

April FLEW by for us!   I wanted to slow down and be more intentional about it but that didn't happen this month.  Between organizing and cleaning our house to move to our summer house and all the events I had  I can't believe it's already May.  May is absolutely my favorite month of the year but this year April was pretty good too.  Every day I write down one happy thing that happened during the day and then and then end of every month I do a blog post so I can remember little happy things that happen throughout the month.  Instead of doing monthly posts I did one HUGE post in 2016.  You can read it here.

January   February   March

1-YMCA fundraiser!  So many friends and fun times.  

2-Hospice Epicurean Festival

3-Greek Week begins!

4-FULL lunch time class at the Y!!  

5-Ice cream date with Ava

6-Quiet night at home with the fam

7-Happy hour with friends 

8-Dinner and went to see the play High School musical with friends

9-Easter Egg dyeing 

10-Garden Club meeting

11-dinner at 5 guys and ice cream with the fam

12-Monthly Bunco night

13-awesome yoga class 

14-packed up stuff to move to the new house 

15-Worked at new house and had our first dinner there as a family.  

16-Easter church followed by brunch at Rachael's followed by leaving for DC

17-DC-visited the White House, monuments and National Zoo

18-DC-toured the Capital and Botonic Gardens

19-Good to be home after a whirl-wind trip to DC

20-This is a sad one :(  Anne left our house to go live with her new family

21-Ava's friends surprised her and took her to the Chainsmokers concert for her birthday.  

22-Earth Day!  Helped Rachael with her Open House at the Green Earth.  Dinner out to celebrate T's bday.  

23-Unpacked and moved into our new summer house.  

24-Book club we read an awesome book this month-Milk and Honey 

25-Taco Tuesday night!  Always fun!  

26-End of year awards dinner for work.  

27-Dinner out with friends!  And a ride 

28-Dinner at Table on Ten to celebrate Jenn's birthday

29-Ava's first game of her AAU season!

30-Paint and Sip Brunch at our new house 

Our weekend

We had a busy weekend!  Ava was in a basketball tournament all weekend thankfully G took her because I had a lot going on at home. 

 

Friday night we went out for my friend Jenn's birthday.  We went to a local restaurant that makes homemade pizzas every Friday night.  I had heard great things about it and I was so excited that we got to go try it. The food was amazing!!! So fresh and delicious.  We ordered two pizzas (mushroom and margherita) and two salads and the three of us shared a bottle of wine.  We had a great time!  

 

 

 

After dinner we raced home to attend an open house for a yoga studio that is opening in our town.  My friend Jenn is a yoga teacher and she teaches at this  new place. It was beautiful and there were so many people there. I have been going to hot yoga there once a week and I love it.   

 

Saturday I was busy, busy, busy all day getting things ready for my brunch.  Saturday night I went to Rachael's for a dip in the hot tub and snacks.  It was so fun catching up with these girls! ❤️

 

And yesterday I had my brunch.  I'm so glad my friends saw my new house.  It was a great weekend!  You can read about the brunch here.

I  have a short week at work this week and then Thursday afternoon I'm headed to Cape Cod with friends for the weekend.

Xoxo