As you all probably know by now after seeing all of the Ryan Cook’s features on our blog, Ryan is the chef in or family. I love to cook and love to be a part of the process… but I am just not quite talented in the cooking department!
It would be really easy for me to just take advantage of Ryan’s strengths and let him cook me dinner all the time… but I don’t. I can happily say that I am Ryan’s Sous Chef. When Ryan cooks, I am right there by his side to chop or stir (stirring is my favorite! ;) ) or lend a hand wherever I can.
Cooking is not always easy… especially if you are adventurous and like to try difficult recipes. I think any chef would say that they enjoy a little help when whipping up a special meal. Our advice to share today from the Amazing Life Manifesto is to cook together. Enjoy the process- not just the result. This is helpful in so many ways. It makes the job easier for the chef; it provides more time together to soak in life; and cooking together provides a result that you both can celebrate accomplishing together for a good meal or laugh together when it doesn’t exactly turn out as you had expected. It is no longer a chore that has to be done… it is something that you can enjoy doing together!
Happy Sunday! We are so super excited to share this extra special weekend blog post with you all! We absolutely LOVE entertaining and planning fun little parties for our friends. Being able to give our friends and amazing couples a fun date night away from the everyday stresses of life makes our hearts smile.
We are honored and over the moon excited to share that one of our recent parties is featured on Style Me Pretty at Home today! Be sure to jump on over to Style Me Pretty to see the full feature!!! In fact we are so excited we have decided to give away a $25 gift card to Williams-Sonoma to one lucky blog commenter. More details are at the bottom of this post!
One of Ryan’s favorite things about the fall is the amazing assortment of fall beers especially pumpkin flavored beers. This got us thinking about how we could share his love of beer with some of our closets friends. What we came up with was “Brew on the Roof” an evening of beer tasting with friends. We decided to skip the boring old email invitations and created a super fun invite created out of a Williams-Sonoma bottle opener and shredded beer cartons. We even created our own DIY tasting boards out of old barn wood and cooked up some super tasting treats featuring a Ghirardelli Chocolate Stout Cake.
Below are some of our favorite photos from the party. Be sure to check back throughout the week as we will be featuring some super fun DIY Projects and Recipes to help you host your very own couples beer tasting date night!
Be sure to bookmark our blog to learn how to make these “Brew for Two Sampler Packs” for your very own tasting party. We will be featuring step by step instructions later this week.
This chocolate stout cake was heavenly!!! Did we mention the icing was created from Ghirardelli Chocolate and that we would be sharing the recipe on our blog later this week! Plus we will also be including step by step instructions on how to create your very own DIY cake flag banners!
A beer tasting party wouldn’t be complete without mini tasting glasses and DIY tasting boards.
Ok, we might be crazy, but we even created our very own Couple’s Tasting Sheets to match the theme of our party. You can download the tasting sheets here.
Now for the super fun giveaway. One of our favorite stores to get ideas for fun couples date nights is Williams-Sonoma. As we mentioned above, our invitations featured bottle openers from Williams-Sonoma. These were the inspiration for the rest of our tasting party!
Now is your chance to win a $25 gift card to Williams-Sonoma to help inspire your next party. Just leave us a comment below to enter. Double your chances to win by also liking our Facebook page here. The winner will be randomly selected and posted on our Facebook page this Friday!
So I may have graduated with an electrical engineering degree and spent the first 5 years of my professional career designing circuit boards and playing with lasers, but there is just something romantic about using candles for light instead of a lamp. And that brings us to this week’s Friday Favorite.
Friday Favorites – Home Decor: Pottery Barn Hanging Lanterns: Recently, while walking through Pottery Barn we saw a super fun design display with hanging lanterns. We thought a moment and decided hang the two lanterns we already had from our ceiling. One extra hole in our ceiling later a few candles and our Pottery Barn Lanterns have become the perfect addition to our rustic chic styled living room. Happy Friday.
Ok, according to our Facebook friends, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are by far the favorite over Skittles! That tells us that we have some pretty awesome friends! ;) (And for those of you who chose Skittles… we will let it slide this time! ;) But we absolutely recommend that you go have yourself a Reese’s and take in the amazingness! ;) ).
We hope you all had an amazing Halloween yesterday and are now enjoying a continuous sugar high like we are! ;) Last night we celebrated Halloween with some of our favorite photographer friends and it was amazing! Even though the trick-or-treating in CT was postponed due to Sandy, we still dressed up and handed out candy… to each other! ;) Yes, it was pretty much awesome! But, the best part about the evening was sitting in the front lawn watching an outdoor showing of Beetle Juice!… cozy, under a warm blanket, of course! Yes, our friends Justin & Mary KNOW how to celebrate Halloween! ;)
Our J&M Halloween adventure was so much fun for Carl and Ellie! We loved every minute of it! Thanks J&M for having us! ;)
This morning, we find ourselves safe from Sandy and incredibly grateful for everything! Seriously, everything. (BIG and small!) On Sunday, we set out for a little adventure. We had an engagement session planned for Mystic, CT and Watch Hill, Rhode Island on Monday. Obviously, Sandy had other plans for us- so we moved it up and made the trip early. As we pulled into Mystic (a completely empty Mystic), we were greeted by a police officer telling us that there was a mandatory evacuation in effect as of 7:00 p.m. that evening. Ohh gees… what in the world were we doing?! lol.
Sandy was gentle with us and we had an engagement session of our dreams that day! A gorgeous gorgeous location and a couple with such beautiful hearts! Much more to share on that soon. Seriously- can’t wait!
Amongst the wind, wondering if we are crazy, and a beautiful engagement session that reminded us that there is so much joy in our lives just by the people we are surrounded by, we came accross a special surprise that reminded us of the little things that make us smile and make us break out into a dance party! ;)
On Sunday, our Pumpkin Spice Latte Recipe was chosen by Style Me Pretty in their Top 10 for their Fall Recipe Contest! WAHOO! That, my friends, was the perfect reminder that there are little things in life that can certainly bring an unexpected dance party into your lives.
We know that Sandy has caused havoc in millions of people’s lives over the last few days (and continues to do so! :( ). Our hearts go out to every single one of you all who have been affected in anyway. Please stay strong and remember that there are people surrounding you who are there to remind you of the things in life that can certainly bring an unexpected dance party into your lives. We are sending you all PSL dance parties!
For those of you who may need a break from the devastating news, we encourage you to check out all of the amazing Fall recipes that Style Me Pretty compiled. (Most especially our Pumpkin Spiced Latte!) ;) And when you check the PSL out, please leave a comment… because the recipe with the most comments wins a prize! ;) WAHOO!
Sending you all great big hugs and a lot of love!… Ohh and BTW, Happy Halloween!!
Our advice to share today from the Amazing Life Manifesto is to cook together. Enjoy the process- not just the result. This is helpful in so many ways. It makes the job easier for the chef; it provides more time together to soak in life; and cooking together provides a result that you both can celebrate accomplishing together for a good meal or laugh together when it doesn’t exactly turn out as you had expected. It is no longer a chore that has to be done… it is something that you can enjoy doing together!
