Memorial Day weekend

Memorial Day weekend 2011 was a hit! I even got to meet a faithful reader of my blog!

The mighty Betsie River was really high and the current was moving right along.

Saturday afternoon Kate, Mom, and I enjoyed an afternoon in Traverse City.  We shopped and had lunch followed by some morsels.  Yum!  

Crystal Mountain held their annual Beer and Brat Festival Saturday evening and the weather was perfect.  We sampled many different craft beers from all over Michigan and delicious mini brats.  Short's Brewing Company was probably my favorite.

It was packed!  They had a great band playing and Lauren loved dancing.

My favorite brat was white cheddar and asparagus.  Jon and Kate loved the cherry and blue cheese one, but I didn't get a chance to try it.

We rounded out the Beer and Brat Festival with a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie that I made for all of us to enjoy.  I'll post the recipe soon.

Every night Lauren did my physical therapy exercises with me and was a big motivator.  She loves using my foam roller and band.  

Wilma was in her glory hunting for chipmunks in the wood pile. 

After Jon and Geoff left on Monday, the rest of us went to Frankfort and, of course, had to get ice cream from the Cool Spot.  Mackinac Island Fudge was my flavor of choice!

Lake Michigan was as beautiful as ever!

Thanks to all of those who serve our country and for those that we have lost in the line of duty.  This weekend we gave special remembrance for you and we are so thankful for all that you do.  

Friday's Fancies - Cabin Time!

We are taking off for my parent's cabin in northern Michigan in a couple of hours for the holiday weekend!  We LOVE the cabin.  My whole family LOVES the cabin!  We always have such a great time up there!

We are so lucky to have beautiful Lake Michigan to play in.  I decided to create a fashionable outfit to wear while enjoying Michigan's outdoors.  The shoes are even made in Michigan (in fact, in my hometown)!

1. Sunglasses  2. Watch  3. Capris  4. Mary Janes  5. Smitten with the Mitten  6.  Michigan Sand Dunes

Head on over to {long distance loving} to check out some other holiday weekend outfits!  Next week I'm staying back in Michigan so my posting might be a bit irregular.  Happy Memorial Day weekend!!!  And let summer begin!

Rhubarb Love!

As I mentioned earlier, I lovelovelove rhubarb!  Did ya catch that?  I LOVE it!  I think there are a few reasons for this.  One, my grandma loved rhubarb as well and I can remember being a little girl and having her make strawberry rhubarb pie (although I didn't like it when I was little...I must have been crazy).  Two, you can only get rhubarb in the spring and the season is fairly short so I pretty much load up on it and then wait all year to have it again.  Finally, it's something you don't eat raw (you can, but each time I've tried it my mouth puckers and my eyes water) and you get to try fun recipes with it:  crisps, bars, chutney, bread, muffins, cupcakes...the list could go on and on!

This is all of the rhubarb Jon's grandma and I harvested.  That's worth some dollars in the city...it's about $4/lb at the farmers markets in Chicago.

Rhubarb Bars
compliments of Woody, Jon's grandma


Ingredients
For the crust:
1 cup flour
5 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 cup shortening
For the filling:
2 beaten eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups cut up rhubarb

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Use a pastry blender to cut together the flour, powdered sugar, and shortening for the crust.  Press into a 9x9 or 10x10 pan.  Bake for 10-15 minutes.  While the crust is baking stir together eggs, white sugar, flour, salt, and cut up rhubarb.  Once the crust is done pour the rhubarb mixture over it and continue to bake for about 35 minutes (I had a smaller pan so mine was thicker and took about 50 minutes to bake).  Let cool for a bit and serve with ice cream!

  

Do you like rhubarb?

What's your favorite way to serve it?

A New Role in Junior League

This year I have been nominated to co-chair the Junior League of Chicago's A Family Affair event.  I am so excited for it (our year goes from June-May)!  Melissa (the other co-chair) approached me about it back in March and I couldn't believe it.  I took a few days think about it and accepted the position!

I served on A Family Affair (on the solicitation sub-committee) when I was an Associate JL member back in 2009-2010.  I really enjoyed my placement, but thought I wanted to try something new for 2010-2011 so I joined the JLCU (Junior League of Chicago University) committee and had a great time meeting those ladies and serving with them.  I feel so honored to be asked to serve in such an important position this year...the pressure is ON!  :)  And, we will celebrate our centennial in 2012 so it will be a year to remember!    

Last night we had our Development Council transition meeting.  It went very well, but I know we have a big responsibility ahead of us.  Thankfully Melissa is super on top of things and awesome (she also served as co-chair last year so that helps)!!  I couldn't do this without her!    

National Stationery Show - Part 2!

Ok, back to NSS (you can find part 1 here)!!  Monday morning I packed my suitcase up and brought it with me to the Javits Center (I was going straight to the airport from the show).  I couldn't believe I was already packing up!  It seemed like I had just gotten there.  The show continued through half of Wednesday, but I came back early.

Check out my cool name tag!

And, my awesome business cards!!  Uh huh, yeah, that's right...I'm official!  :)

Guess who we got to meet Monday morning?  Cyd from The Sweetest Occasion!  I was so excited to meet her!  I have been reading her blog for a long time and last year we emailed a bit when I was at a cross roads with my job.  She is super friendly and has tons of energy!  That was definitely one highlight of the trip!

I also met some other really nice wedding bloggers.  Tracy from WeddingType Blog brought us super delicious rose and pepper shortbread cookies.  She did an awesome write up of NSS on her blog and included Syd Design!  Thank you, Tracy!!  I also met Katie from Aisle Candy.  She was super sweet and took lots of pictures of our booth.

Oh, and in celebrity news, Abbey was visiting another vendor's booth and Tiffani Amber Thiessan was there!  How cool is that?  Come on, I know you all remember her as Kelly Kapowski in Saved by the Bell and Valerie Malone from Beverly Hills, 90210.  I pretty much wanted to be Kelly Kapowski when I was younger, but who didn't?  :)

NSS has a little bit of fashion with it, it's in NYC after all!  There is a section called the Paper Runway where students use paper to make clothing- seriously, it's all paper.  It's super cool.  So creative.  Here are a few of my favorite entries.

By now it was time for me to catch my ride to LGA and head home.  I was very sad to leave.  :(  It was such a great learning experience and I met so many fabulous people.  

Jon picked me up at the airport and had flowers for me!  What a sweet guy.  I put them in three little arrangements when we got home.

If you are interested in reading more blog posts about NSS check these out: Abbey's first write up on NSS, Cyd's NSS Meetup, more NSS love from Tracey, and Part 1 and Part 2 from Design*Sponge.  Until next year, NSS!

Weekend Recap

This weekend we headed to the east side of Michigan!  Saturday I had a baby shower for one of my really good friends and we visited Jon's grandparents.

It was so nice to catch up with the "Chrysler girls"!!  I miss them so much and we don't get to see each other that often (but we did talk about planning a weekend!!).  The shower was beautiful and Allison received lots of goodies for the baby!

The cute jelly bean favor we got.

This cake was dee-licious!  The strawberry and white chocolate shavings tasted so good!

Here are the Chrysler girls (minus Carmen...we missed you!).  Allison is next to me...she is all tummy and looking great!!  And, I'm not really that tall...it was totally my heels.  :)

It's so relaxing staying at Jon's grandparent's house.  There is always classical music going and plenty of time to chat and read.  Saturday night we took them out for dinner and ice cream.  We had a great time!  Wilma loves running around their backyard and chasing squirrels.  That's how she spent her Sunday morning.  Before we headed back to Chicago, Jon's grandma taught me how to harvest rhubarb.  She has two plants and knows I am slightly obsessed in love with rhubarb!  We came home with 3 lbs of it!!  YUM!!

On our drive back we stopped at Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo.  We love our seasonal Oberon and always talk about stopping on our drive, but never have.  It was a beautiful day for a beer outside so we decided to take a little detour!  It tasted so good!

Another good weekend in the books!

Date With Dex!

We have been waiting for MONTHS for Dexter: Season 3: Disc 2 and guess what?!?!?  We FINALLY got it!!!!  We can hardly control our excitement!  What a great way to finish off our weekend!  Tonight we have a date with Dex!

via here

Hope you had a great weekend!

Friday's Fancies - Baby Shower

We are off to Michigan for the weekend.  We are staying with Jon's grandparents and I'm looking forward to relaxing on their back porch with them and taking them out to dinner Saturday evening.  I also have a baby shower for one of my really good friends on Saturday.  We worked together at Chrysler and she was a bridesmaid in our wedding.  I know it will be a great time!  I can't wait to see all of the Chrysler girls...it's been too long!  

I'd love to wear the outfit below to the baby shower.  It's very springy and fun!  If only I had an endless budget!  

1. Shabby Apple Dress  2. Revas  3. Clutch  4. Pearl Necklace  5. Pearl Studss

Don't forget to check out more Friday's Fancies over at {long distance loving}.

National Stationery Show - Part 1!

I don't even know where to begin telling you about the National Stationery Show.  It was absolutelyfreakin'awesome!  Just so cool.  The vibe was great!  I wish I was still there!!!  I'm so proud to have had the opportunity to represent Syd Design with Abbey.  I can't thank her enough for it!  Without further ado...

Early last Saturday morning I flew out to NYC.  Jon gets the "super husband" award for waking up at 5:15am and driving me to the airport (who wants to take public transportation at that time of day?).  I made it through security without any issues...I even accidentally left my bag of liquids in my carry on and they didn't catch that at all.  The security agents were probably still sleeping...it was 5:45am after all.  :)

 
I had a fabulous airport terminal breakfast from McD's.  Those of you that know me, know my love of McD's oatmeal.  So creamy and delicious!  It provided a great base to hit the ground running once I landed in NYC.

Abbey and I arrived within 20 minutes of each other at LGA.  It was perfect!  We got our transportation to the city and we were off!  We headed straight to the Javits Center to set up our booth.  I wish I would have taken "before" pictures so you could see the transformation, but in all of the excitement I forgot.  We hung curtains, unpackaged and hung the wedding album pages and greeting cards, put the sign up, set lighting up, put product out, and put down our floor.  Oh, and side note, Abbey thought of everything- a steamer for the curtains, reusable coffee mugs for both of us, energy bars, bagels and peanut butter for breakfast, mole skin for blisters...she had everything and rocks to travel with!

We had awesome neighbors in our little block of the 2200 row at Javits: Wiley Valentine, Knock Knock (I know you have seen their products all over), Great Arrow Graphics, smock., and Vera Bradley.

Here are some pictures of our booth (#2255).  I apologize for the quality of the pictures.  I didn't realize I had my camera on a funky setting until I got home.  :(  Clearly I was too caught up in the moment!

 

After we finished setting up the booth we headed over to Times Square to check into our hotel.  We freshened up and set out for dinner (a fabulous Thai dinner of pineapple fried rice for me and green curry for Abbey) and a trip to Ikea (one of our lights broke in transit).  We even saw a street festival of Ukrainian dancers.  Those guys can kick their legs!  

Sunday morning we started the show by attending the NSS Future Conference: Put it on Paper: The Importance of Pen and Ink in the Digital Age.  Seth Godin was the guest speaker.  He's a best selling author and marketing entrepreneur.  I really enjoyed listening to him.  Seth said something that has really stuck with me over the last couple of days: without failure there can be no success.  It's a little hard to digest and believe, but it's so true.

We had a great first day!  Lots of activity in the booth and so many positive comments about Syd Design.  It was very encouraging and we left for the evening in great moods.  Sunday night we ate at Max Brenner.  Abbey had the veggie burger and I had the grilled asparagus crepe.  So delicious!  But, Oh.My.Gawd. The dessert was to die for!  We split the crystal sugar churros fondue (complete with milk and dark chocolate and raspberry sauce) and the fantastic chocolate popsicle fondue (served with crunchy wafer balls and candied hazelnut bits).  I'd highly recommend stopping by Max Brenner for dessert next time you are in NYC!

So there ya have it!  The first two days of NSS.  Next week I'll post Part 2 of NSS.http://smockpaper.com/

Blogger Book Club - The House on First Street - Part One

This is very strange...I posted this last week, but it isn't showing up anymore.  It must have to do with the issues that Blogger was having late last week.  I'm just reposting it for my own sanity.

Our current Blogger Book Club read is The House on First Street by Julia Reed.  I knew nothing about this book before I started reading it.  I didn't even read the synopsis!  Last week we read chapters 1-9.  I was a bit behind on my reading and ended up reading it all between Sunday and Monday nights.

  

Here are our discussion questions for Part One:

1. Have you visited New Orleans before? Do you think a visit to the city is necessary to connect to this book?  I have never been to "The Big Easy".  I've heard it's beautiful, wonderful, and a great time, but I have yet to make my mark there.  I do think it would be easier to relate to the book if I had been there before.  I've found that I definitely connect more to books when I've been where they are set.

2. What are your thoughts on Julia's writing style? Do you like the way she tells stories?  To be honest, not really.  Not so far anyways.  It was sort of a struggle to get through the first eight chapters and to keep my attention focused.

3. To me Julia took a laid back approach to the evacuation warnings and even devastation. What was your reaction to her approach? How do you think you would have handled a flood of such proportions?  I don't think I would ever take a laid back approach to a hurricane, but I've never experienced one before so I don't know that my opinion is valid.  I'm sure it's annoying to have to board up your windows, but basic supplies, and sit in traffic for hours...all because they "say" something is coming.  But, it could only take one time to stay back and wish you hadn't.  Natural disasters scare me, BIG TIME.  They are so out of our control and they do so much harm.  Even if we evacuate, we might have nothing to come back to.

4. Julia instantly was solicited by her editors to do pieces on the disaster. Do you think she gave an accurate portrayal?  I don't think her portrayal was accurate for the majority of those devastated by Katrina. 

These Three Things

Sometimes it's hard to remember these three things, but try really hard to.  They will make a difference in your life.

via here

Blogger Book Club - The House on First Street - Part Two

We finished up The House on First Street last week.  The second half was better than the first, but I probably wouldn't push the book on anyone else.  Now, maybe if I'd been to NOLA before my feelings would change.  Here is the last round of questions:


From the first go around it seems there was a general negative feeling towards the author. Do you feel any guilt for criticizing an author who was brave enough to put part of her life in writing for the world to see? 
No, I don't feel guilty for my earlier thoughts.  It's just how I felt.  Yes, she was brave enough to put her story out there, but I don't know how many people can relate to Katrina through her eyes.  I have to imagine if I experienced the devastation first hand, I'd be ticked with her book.  



What surprised you the most about the details of the aftermath of Katrina?
The vast amount of refrigerators that were just taped up and left to get disposed of.  I couldn't imagine the smell and all of the wasted food.  And, the issue of having no place to put the deceased.  I just can't even begin to wonder what that was like. 


Did it surprise you how much money Julia spent on food for the relief workers?
Yes, it totally did!  When she ordered for 700 I was wondering if she was going to expense it for work, but I really don't think so.  The book revolves around food quite a bit...and, not mac and cheese type of food.  Like, the really good, fancy stuff!  Good for Julia for providing the relief workers something they could really look forward to.


After reading about Julia's acts of service and coverage of Katrina in the second half of the book, has your opinion of her changed?
No, it hasn't.  I don't think she is someone I'd be friends with...acquaintances, maybe.  I have to wonder if maybe she should have kept the book to herself.  So many people's lives were changed forever because of Katrina and Julia really didn't get it.  


I'll park this read on my book shelf and won't pass it around to friends and family...but, that's just my opinion!  

Headin' To The Big Apple!

I'm off early tomorrow morning to NYC!  I'm going for Syd Design work with Abbey.  We are not only attending the National Stationery Show, but exhibiting as well!!!!  If you happen to be visiting NSS, please stop by our booth- #2255.  The show runs Sunday - Wednesday, but I'll be coming back late Monday night.  I'm so so so excited!

I wasn't quite sure what to pack so I have a mix of skirts, pants, and dresses!!!  Have a great weekend!!