Last-minute cookout

After Adam's debut for the Wizards (last Saturday yay!), we randomly decided that we should have a cookout and invite the whole team. A few months ago, I'd probably panic at the thought of having so many people over in such a short amount of time -- when am I going to clean? Plan a menu? Cook? But, after living with Adam for a while, I've kinda come to appreciate all of his last-minute shenanigans. He's always reminding me, "Don't sweat the small stuff, Ash," and he's so right....who am I kidding, the house is clean and I'm not sure a bunch of hungry soccer players really care if I've cooked something with 27 ingredients or just one. Anyway, point of the story is that even though I knew I'd have a bunch of people arriving at my house mid-afternoon on Sunday, Cat and I decided to head to the Plaza, have a leisurly breakfast and shop. We got back to the house with an hour to spare, just enough time to half-way set-up and when all was said and done, we had such a fabulous time. Here are a few photos from our little cook-out :)

House Updates

Here are a few photos of decorating updates in our living room/kitchen area (The before & after)! We're hoping to put in a stone fireplace in about a month so I'll definitely post a few more then! Enjoy :)

Adam's handy work

As promised, here are a few pictures of the retaining/garden wall Adam built. I have to give Catherine (Adam's sister) some credit, too -- she did all the heavy lifting ;) Also, be sure to note Nixon's handy work on our diminishing hydrangeas!

Catherine's concert

The lovely Catherine came to visit us last week! The first day she arrived, we sat out on the deck and had a very funny conversation about how long we'd known each other. One of her friends in Virginia had asked if she liked her brother's wife and had she known her for very long...we both laughed because we've been close ever since she was five years old and really can't remember not knowing each other! When she was little, I used to babysit her and I remember reading her bedtime stories on more than a few occasions. She's not so little anymore and it's been so amazing watching her grow up into the amazing girl that she is. Anyway, don't want to embarrass her too much! We had a great time surprising her with concert tickets (5th row) to The Fray/Jack's Mannequin concert for her much belated birthday present (sorry about that!). Here are a photos from the concert...

Farmer's Market

Adam and I had the weekend to ourselves this weekend and our plan was to relax and pretend we were somewhere else...like a beach...turns out, that's kind of difficult to do when you're land-locked. But, we made the most of our time and ended up having a pretty productive few days. We ventured out Saturday morning to Kansas City's downtown farmer's market -- for those who live in the area and have not had a chance to check it out, I highly recommend doing so. The last farmer's market I had been to was in Spain and this one took me right back. It's so refreshing to be able to peruse all the fresh produce and people-watch. Needless to say, we came home with more than a few grocery bags full of deliciousness. We're hoping to make it out to the market at least once a month. We spent the rest of the weekend in Home Depot and out by our deck where Adam worked so hard in putting up lattice and a retaining wall structure for the flower bed. Once again, this is a project we thought would take an hour tops...after three days, we're almost done. I'll post a few pictures of that as soon as we finish up! In other very exciting news, Adam and I are finally going to Costa Rica! Those who are close with Adam know that he's been dreaming of taking a trip to Costa Rica for a LONG time. With a little luck finding a cheap rental bungalow and airline tickets, we're finally going to make that happen! Yippee!

**Gift Idea - TasteBook

I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for new recipes to try. I've been pretty good at logging all of my favorites, however, almost never do they look neat and quite frankly, sometimes it's a pain to copy them over and over from websites/magazines. Well, you can imagine my excitement when I came across this awesome website: http://www.tastebook.com. With the tools on this site, you can create personal cookbooks (with pretty covers and tabs!) by taking recipes from your favorite websites or from your own collection. You choose the format, layout, colors, images, and of course, recipes. Love it!

Brennan's visit Kansas!

My whole family came to visit me and Adam in Kansas this past week. They drove just over 16 1/2 hours from Virginia, stopping in St. Louis overnight. It was so fun sharing my house with them...it's funny, when we bought the house, I thought it was pretty huge (esp. for two people)...then my brother got here and it felt a little less huge, and when my family visited...wow, I felt like we should add a suite onto the house. Crowded as it was, we had such a great time. I felt a little guilty because I'm still new to Kansas and really didn't have any great suggestions for "must see" places to visit. But, we managed to entertain ourselves going to the Wizards game for the 4th, the Royals game next, visiting the Plaza and Union Station...it also felt good just to veg out. My sister Kaitlin made me get up early everyday to go running with her -- thank goodness for that! Finally someone to push me to exercise...but now that she's gone, I'm back to walking :) I'm so thankful that they decided to come visit. Can't wait for next time!