High Five for Friday

I'm following in the footsteps of one of my favorite bloggers, Lauren Elizabeth, to share the highlights of my week in High Five for Friday.  It's been a great week!

1) Last weekend Steven and I had the honor of standing with our dear friends in their wedding.  They had a beautiful wedding and the weekend was filled with fun events and delicious food!

Love walking down aisles with this guy! :)

2) One of those foods was peaches!  My friend is from a town in SC that is known for it's peaches and since this is prime peach season, she used them as a theme for the wedding.  The bridesmaids carried baskets of peaches instead of bouquets, peaches were used in center pieces and as decorations, and they cut the peach, blueberry, and blackberry gluten-free cobblers instead of cake (my friend the bride can't eat gluten)!  After the wedding, those of us in the bridal party helped to clean up and in doing so got to snag the remaining peaches!  I added a few more to my "bouquet" basket and filled up another one.  This resulted in a peach cobbler for a Sunday school lunch, peach smoothies all week for breakfast, and a half dozen sitting in my freezer ready to become another cobbler or pie soon!  It was a very good week in this regard...peaches are one of my FAVORITE fruits!

They were as good as they look!

3) The weather the past few days has been awesome and very rare for July in SC.  It's barely hitting 90 around here and the humidity is low.  Steven and I have had some fun evening walks and of course it's made for some great hair days! ;)

4) Fridays are usually Date Night for us and tonight we are trying a "new-to-us" restaurant Il Giorgione.  It's an Italian restaurant that caught our attention (and taste buds!) because they make their own mozzarella!  We've been loving Caprese salads this summer so we're excited to try it out.

5) Last but not least, my sweet little nephew Landon turned 1 on Tuesday!!!!!!  This first year of his life has gone so fast and he's grown from the teeny-tiniest thing to a squirmy, wormy, goofy little guy.  He's been such a blessing and so much fun for our family!

Can't wait to squeeze and giggle with this little guy again!!!

Summer Loving

Today is July 7th, which means that it's almost the middle of July (it also means that the month and day add up to the year - 7 + 7=14 - 7/7/14!!!).  And it seems to me like whenever you hit the "middle" or halfway point, it means the end is quickly approaching.  With the end of July comes the start of August which for me means the start of school which means craziness!!!

We had such a great 4th of July weekend and it got me thinking last night how great of a summer we've been having too!  I'm already starting to feel a little sad that it will eventually come to an end!

So here's what has been making it great...

We're married!!!  Last summer had it's busy moments as we were in the last few months of planning our wedding.  Actually, it felt more like waiting for our wedding because a lot of the big stuff was done and it was too soon to work on the last minute things.  The back and forth trips to each other's homes every other day were starting to wear on us and since the end was in sight, we just wanted to be there already!!!  Now we're married and we have one home, one schedule, one set of groceries.  We're the Belles and not just Elizabeth and Steven.  There's so much I love about being married, but this is definitely up there as one of my favorites.  So far this summer, we've had some fun date nights, cooked some great meals, planned and hosted our Bible study, enjoyed time at the pool, and had a few weeknight adventures.  Our schedules aren't as full and Columbia, being a college town, also has a slower pace in the summer so the days overall have felt a little less hectic than usual.  So great! :)

The weather!  I live in South Carolina.  It's the summer.  It's going to get hot and it HAS been hot, but it really hasn't been unbearable.  Maybe I'm getting used it and maybe a trip up north helped too, but regardless, the weather has been really nice here this summer, especially this past weekend (Thanks to Hurricane Arthur!).  Last summer rain and storms seemed to be a constant theme, but so far there have only been a handful, which is to be expected, and they haven't really made a dent in too many plans or driven people too crazy...yet! ;)

Time off!  Our vacation to Delaware could not have come at more perfect time.  We were both needing some time off and some time away.  We had a great time and enjoyed perfect weather and, as I said in an earlier post, came back very refreshed.  It was an added bonus to come back to a 4 day work week since the 4th of July was Friday.  The long weekend was also so refreshing!  This week we're taking off some time to be in our friends' wedding and then we'll be taking some time off in a few weeks to see my mom, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew.  I love having things like this to look forward to!

Even though it may seem like the summer-like temperatures will never end, I know the pace of summer and "summer things" will in another few weeks.  Here's to savoring the remaining weeks of summer and being intentional about enjoying everything that's special about this season!  And don't worry...I'm nuts about fall! :)

When simple and familiar is always better...

The Friday of our vacation was date night for Steven and I and my sister and brother-in-law.  They were going out to celebrate their anniversary and the grandparents were thrilled to have a chance to have my nephew all to themselves so it also turned into a date night for us!  The week before we left for vacation, my dad had sent us a list of good local restaurants.  I probably spent about 30-40 minutes trying to figure out the perfect place...looking up menus, trying to find the one that would have things my husband would love (i.e. scallops or crab cakes!).

Before we left, I was pretty sure we'd be going to a seafood restaurant on one of the most charming streets.  Our plans changed a bit once we got to Delaware because we were recommended by two couples to try a Mexican restaurant nearby (We LOVE Mexican food!).  The first recommendation was from my aunt and her husband and the other the next day from a random couple who passed us while riding bikes and thought we were lost (We weren't...just had stopped to take some pictures).  We took the second recommendation as affirmation that we definitely needed to try it out.  Plans set!

Well on Tuesday night, my brother-in-law starts talking about a craving he has for fish tacos.  My husband also shared his affinity for fish tacos and we assumed the Mexican restaurant we were planning to go to Friday probably has great fish tacos so maybe we should all go try it for lunch the next day (we had other dinner plans the rest of the week).  My sister and brother-in-law had my dad watch my nephew and the four of us set off for our fish taco double date!

The restaurant was very cool, the food was really good, and we had a great time together, but the restaurant didn't leave Steven and I wanting more...especially two days later.  Back to square one for date night plans.

Usually when we go to Delaware, we get my favorite pizza Grotto Pizza at least twice, my brother-in-law sometimes gets it three times in the span of a week...it's THAT GOOD!!!  We had been on Tuesday night and thought we might get it for lunch later in the week, but it never worked out.  I was really starting to crave it again as the end of trip got closer and closer.

I would say I'm pretty close to being described as a "foodie".  I love good food, I love to cook, I love great restaurants, I love unique food made with the best ingredients possible, I don't like chain restaurants and avoid them at all costs, especially on vacation and here in Columbia where we have SO many incredible independent restaurants.  I had mentioned going to Grotto's for our date night in a half serious/half kidding tone.  My sweet husband said, "For date night?  I want to take you somewhere nice."  He also mentioned how we needed to take advantage of the Mid-Atlantic seafood.  I did agree with him and went back to perusing menus.

Friday came along and we still had no plans.  Steven was golfing and put me in charge of picking a place.  I confided to my sister that all I really wanted was Grotto's.  Little did we know that while they were golfing, Steven mentioned something about wanting Grotto's one more time to my brother-in-law.  When he came home, Steven said, "We're going to Grotto's!  A little birdie told me!"  At some point my sister told him I had wanted it and he shared how he told Matt he wanted it too.  I was so excited!

We had the best date!  The pizza was perfect and so was the company! ;)  We had a great rest of the night too looking for flip flops for Steven and going on some rides.  It was a wonderful way to end our vacation.  And as for that Mid-Atlantic seafood...it sometimes makes it way down here to the South, but I can't get Grotto's anywhere else!

Love doing life with this sweet, smart, and goofy guy!

Grotto's!!!

It's perfect!!!  And so is he! ;)