Memorial Day Weekend

I hope everyone had an amazing weekend!  We are so grateful for our troops who lost their lives for our freedom. It's overwhelms me.

On Saturday, someone asked me to help decorate a wedding cake. She had an order for a wooden looking wedding cake and a picture of the cake that the bride wanted her to duplicate. She was terrified that she wasn't going to be able to pull it off and begged me to help knowing that I had experience decorating cookies.  Holy stress balls!

When we got to the reception site, she assembled the three-tier cake, handed me a icing bag, and told me to make it happen.  I could have crapped in my pants!  I was only prepared to help and even that made me nervous.  I'd never even decorated a cake before let alone someone's wedding cake!   I tried to tell her no, but she was shaking so badly with anxiety that I knew I was going to have to do it.  Although it was unbelievably scary, I had so much fun doing it!

My very first wedding cake!  Yay!

Photo of the one she wanted us to copy
(with the heart on the second tier instead of the top).

On Sunday, the padres took the kiddos so that Brent and I could get away for a night in Charleston.  We go there quite often, but are rarely able to enjoy the city as tourists.  In fact, Brent had never even walked the battery or seen Folly Beach.  We also stopped by Jack's Cosmic Dogs along the way to try their famous hot dog.  I'm not a fan of tubular-pig-naughty-parts, but since it was written up by Southern Living and highly endorsed by Alton Brown, we gave it a shot.  It was just a plain hot dog with sweet potato mustard and blue cheese slaw.  Honestly, it rivaled the Sonoran dog we had in Arizona.  Delish!

Here are some pictures of the battery.  With another tropical storm off the coast, it was too windy to fully enjoy and we were getting showered by the crashing waves.  Needless to say, our touristy walk along Rainbow Row didn't last too long.  So instead, we dipped into Pearlz, one of my favorite oyster bars ever, and guzzled down plenty of Sunday Funday specials while gnawing on crab claws.  It was perfection and even more awesome that it was just the two of us.

Oyster Shooters!!

After that, we shopped some, went to Starbucks, and enjoyed perusing the market.  It was great.  We headed to the hotel which was brand new and were lucky enough to be upgraded to one of the suites.  When I saw the bathroom, I knew there was zero hope of us making it back out for dinner. Not only did it look relaxing, but there was a tv next to the bathtub. It was what the doctor ordered fo sho! Brent left to pick up sushi, while I soaked away layers of stress and momage. I even ate dinner in there! Ha! Chopsticks and pruney fingers? Yes, please!

I even took a picture!

Our Garden

This post will officially make me sound like a granny, but I don't care because we have a garden!  Woot!  Brent grew up on a fairly large piece of property and has always been determined to at least grow tomatoes in our yard every year.  Each spring, he'll come home with a few large plants and stuff them in the ground. I'll acknowledge it with an eye-roll or two, but am always amazed when the bush actually produces a tomato.

He constantly talks about wanting to plant more stuff too.  I've never really responded in a supportive manner, only because I just didn't get it.  We're not farmers.  We don't own a pig.  But this year, when he tossed half-a-dozen seed packets in the buggy at the store, I looked at him like he was ridiculous, sighed, and bought them anyway knowing fully well that nothing was going to grow.  They weren't even actual plants.

But wouldn't ya know... only a few weeks later, we had baby veggie plants!  And now?  They're huge!  We still don't have any actual vegetables, but I am in complete shock that the seeds did in fact grow into something.  Who would have thought that those seed packet things actually worked!?  I always saw them as a waste of money for kids who wanted to play pretenzies with their fake little watering cans.  Cucumber seeds?  Seriously?  Dude, if you want to eat a cucumber, they are on aisle 5.  Already grown.  And you don't have to do any work.

Until this year, I honestly thought you most likely had to live on a farm with tilled up planting beds and big farm looking equipment to grow a vegetable in your yard.  I'm fully admitting excessive stupidity here, but planting edible things in our backyard in suburbia was nothing our family participated in.  Another reason why Brent makes me better.  Here are some pics of our plants and I'm proud.

Pumpkin.  The kiddos are responsible for these!

Kale

Jalapenos

Tomatoes

Cucumber or zucchini - we can't remember.

Mint

Dill.  (Trying to be artsy with my macro setting.)

Tropical Storm

This morning we woke up to the first tropical storm of the season.  Like most mentally balanced people, we took it as a sign that it was a great day to head to the beach.  It did turn out awesome though because there were zero tourists, it was cloudy and cool, and we never felt a drop of rain.  I happen to be partial to the beach during storms since Brent and I shared our nuptials on the beach with a looming hurricane in the background.  We aren't skerd.  Wyatt fluttered around in the surf whole time singing little songs under his breath.  I can't remember a time where I've seen him more content.  It filled me up.

Taking it all in.

This shirt's got to go!

Loving life.