Cocktail party

Last Monday my friend Rachael had a cocktail party for her sister Dani  who was in town for the week.  It was a great way for all of Rachael's friends to be able to see Dani. 

  Our friend Erica is a bartender and she is starting a little business where she will come to your cocktail party and teach people how to make drinks.  Her first official party was Rachael's last week!  It was such a fun night!  And I know she is going to have much success in her new business ❤️

Here is Erica in blue with my friend Monica. 

Erica had recipe cards for us with our drink recipes so we could make the drinks she taught us to make at home.  

She also had all of the shakers, stirrers and glasses that we needed to make our drinks.

Here are some of us with our first drink.  A margarita!

Cheers!

I

This was my favorite drink of the evening-the Bonaire

Bonaire recipe

Juice from one lime

Splash simple syrup (to your taste)

1.5 ounces vodka

2 splashes POM juice

Wedge of lime 

Fill glass shaker  with ice, put ingredients into glass shaker  in the order listed above and shake vigorously.  Pour entire contents of shaker into a short glass. Place lime wedge on edge of glass and enjoy!  

Here is a picture of the whole group.   It was a fun night!

Xoxo

Crafty Wednesday {wooden signs}

I haven't done a crafty Wednesday post in a while because I've been busy having too much fun to do crafts this summer.  A few weeks ago I did make some wooden signs with some friends.  These were super easy to do and I think they are really cute.

 A long time ago we did a Craft Night for Branch and Bloom and made chalkboard trays.  The post on those is here.  We had a bunch of leftover wood from that craft night and I have been wanting to use it up for another project.  So I decided to make personalized wooden signs.



The wood I used was 18 inches long and 12 inches wide.  When we made these for our craft class we had the wood cut at Home Depot.  They will cut the wood for you for free which is so great!  I have a saw at home but it's so much easier if they cut it for you :)  We have had so much wood cut for Branch and Bloom that I swear the poor Home Depot workers hide when they see me coming-ha ha!

The wood was already stained from our craft night so I just taped the edges with painters tape and used white craft paint to paint the insides.  After two coats of paint I peeled off the tape while the paint was still wet.

I used my Silhoutte machine to cut out the letters.  I download free fonts from www.dafont.com and the one I used for this project is called Watermelon script.  I used black permanent vinyl for this sign.  

I also cut out letters for my two friends and they made signs too.

This was a fun and easy project...my favorite kind!

Happy Wednesday!
Xoxo

Happy Things {June}

I like to do this post at the beginning of the month but summer is flying by for us so I am just getting it up today.  Every day I write down one happy thing that happened during the day as a way to remember the fun little moments that happen each day.  I did this every day in 2016 and I wrote one big post about it here.

For 2017 I am doing one of these posts every month. Its fun for me to go back and look at our happy things during the different months.

January

February

March

April

May

1-yoga and coffee date
2-Avett Brothers concert at Ommegang
3-Country Living Fair with Sab
4-Sunday night dinner with the family :)
5-Book Club (we read What She Left Behind it was a great book!  You can read my book review here
6-Walk in the park with Ava and Lilly
7-Our 20th anniversary!!!!
8-June Bunco!
9-Plant and Pose our June craft night.  You can see pictures from our Plant and Pose here.  
10-Dinner out for anniversary
11-Tea at the Otesaga
12-Walk with Jenn and Vicki (it was 90 degrees and SO hot!!)
13-Cleveland to see the LA Dodgers play
14-Cleveland trip
15-Fireworks night!
16-Art in Bloom
17-Brunch at Rachael's
18-Graduation Party for Gabby
19-Quiet night at home with the family
20-Baseball game with Donna and Inez
21-Walk with Ava in the park
22-Fireworks at County Club
23-Dinner and movie out with Lisa and our girls
24-Graduation Parties
25-Yoga retreat
26-Lunch with friends
27-Ava started her summer job!  Taking photos for the baseball camp
28-Hospice Concert
29-Day out on Inez's Boat
30-Ausable Chasm

Saturday Snack {guacamole}

Yesterday two of my frieds ceebrated their birthdays!  My dear friend Sabrina had a birthday so a big group of us celebrated by taking her out to lunch.  It was so fun to get together and catch up ❤️❤️ and Sabrina loved it!  She loves her birthday so getting a big group together to celebrate was perfect!

Yesterday was also my friend Jenn's birthday.  She turned 50 and she had a party at her house last night.  She had it catered and everyone brought a snack to share.  I made homemade guacamole and it was a big hit!  

Jenn and I are in a book group together and we just click.  We have so much in common and always laugh like crazy when we are together.   I was so happy to celebrate with her!

My friend Jenn is in the middle of this picture.  I love her to pieces ❤️

Here is my recipe for homemade guacamole.  It is so easy and it tastes so fresh and delicious.

Homemade Guacamole 

4 ripe avacados

2 tomatoes

1/2 t coarse sea salt

2/2 t onion powder

Juice from one lime

Cut the avacados in half and scoop out with a spoon.  Smash avacados with a fork.  Cut up tomatoes and add to avacados and stir.  Mix in salt and onion powder and squeeze the juice from one fresh lime.  Combine all ingredients together until well mixed.  Add two of the avacados pits to keep the guacamole fresh.  Store in an airtight container until ready to  serve. 

I hope you enjoy this recipe.  Ava and I love guacamole so I make it a lot!

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday friends!  We have a fun weekend planned so I'm ready to get it started.  Today I am linking up with Erika, Narci and Andrea to share my Friday Favorites.

1-I have a small craft business called Branch and Bloom with my BFF Rachael.  Once a month we host a craft class.  Last night we held our July craft night and made monogrammed wine glasses. This one was our biggest one ever-we had 40 people.  It was a great night!

2-Ava is going to Florida next week to stay with her BFF Sam who moved to Florida with her family earlier this month.  I'm so sad Sam and her family moved away but I'm thrilled Ava will be able to spend time with them next week.

3-I have SO many friends with July birthdays.  I have 4 friends that are celebrating this weekend so we will be going to a few birthday parties and celebrations this weekend which will be so fun!

4-We are having a going away party for Ava next month.

 We ordered her invitations yesterday and this is one of the pictures we used.  Ava is wearing her Rotary jacket that is covered in pins.  The Rotary students exchange pins and put the pins on their jackets. She'll leave for the Czech Republic in about 5 weeks.  

5- I made this wooden sign for our living room this week. I'm going to do a full tutorial next week for my Crafty Wednesday post.

I hope you've had a great week!

Xoxo

Weekend Fun

We love everything about  summer ❤️. This weekend we spent a lot of time outside enjoying the sunshine. Ava had the Gus Macker basketball tournament this weekend.  She loves playing in this tournament every year and we love watching her play.

Friday I went on a wine tour with my friends.  We visited six wineries on Cayuga Lake which is one of the Finger Lakes.  

It was so interesting learning about the different wines and I always love time with my friends.   

We spent the night in Ithaca on Friday night and a wonderful dinner at Just a Taste a tapas restaurant.

Saturday morning we got up early and headed to Buttermilk Falls to hike.  It was a beautiful morning for a hike!  

After our hike we went to the Ithaca Farmers Market for a little shopping and lunch.  Ithaca has the most amazing Farmers Market and I love visiting there when I'm in Ithaca. 

I got a Greek gyro for lunch it was amazing!  After lunch we headed home.  It was a great little getaway. 

Sunday morning I left home at 5:30am to run the Boilermaker 5k with my friend T.  This is my favorite race of the entire year and I'm so happy we were able to fit it in. This race is my favorite because of the tremendous crowd support along the race route and the incredible after party.  

We spent the rest of Sunday at Ava's basketball tournament.  

For dinner Sunday night G and I went to our friend's house for a cookout.  After dinner the guys played poker and we made these signs.  I love the way they turned out ❤️  

It was a great weekend!!  

Hospice Concert 2017

Every year I go to the annual Hospice Concert with my friends.  It's a fun night and the money raised goes to support our local hospice which does so much good for families in our community.  I am thankful that my own family has not had to use hospice but I know so many friends that have used hospice care when their family members are sick and I think it's a wonderful organization.

The tickets are pricey $225 but that includes dinner, drinks and the concert.  This year there were three acts Brett Young, Night Ranger and Daughtry.  Here is my post from last year's concert.

Ava also came to the concert with her friends.  It was so great to have her there too!  She had a great time.
Here are some pictures from the night.

Ava and her friend Mary waiting in line to get in.

My friends and I before walking in to the concert.

My favorite act was Brett Young.  My friend T and I took a selfie with him.

And then after his performance we went backstage and got a big group picture with him.  

Ava and her friends wore matching shirts in different colors which I thought was so cute.  These girls had a great night at the concert. 

Stephanie, Rachael, Mica and me :-)

Night Ranger played next and I knew a lot of their songs. I was looking forward to them but I honestly didn't enjoy them at all because it was too loud.  I guess I'm officially getting old 👵🏼

The last performer was Daughtry.  Ava and her friends were most excited about seeing Daughtry.   He took Ava's f phone and took a selfie with the girls.  They thought that was awesome ❤️

Here are a few more pictures from our fun night.

It was a great concert!  And the perfect way to start the summer. 

Xoxo