GILLIGAN'S ISLAND THEME PARTY

This past weekend we celebrated a friend's birthday by throwing a Gilligan's Island theme party.  I love theme parties.  Especially those that warrant the making of a tropical island rum drink served out of actual pineapples.  It just tastes better when you drink something out of a pineapple. 

When we were considering the theme for the party, we talked about throwing a luau or tiki party.  Ultimately, though, we came up with a Gilligan's Island theme to put a different spin on things.  There's just something so romantic about being stranded on a deserted island.  As long as you're with good friends and surrounded by food and delicious drinks.  Also, Wade wanted to wear a funny hat all night, so it worked out great that he and the birthday boy could dress up as Gilligan and the Skipper. 

I took pictures throughout the night and loved how the lighting changed as the sun went down and the tiki torches came up.  It really made our backyard seem like an island.  Or maybe it was just the rum drink talking.

The birthday boy and his beautiful wife!  We could not have pulled this shindig off without them.  Seriously, we made them work way too hard.  We had the best time, though!

Here's that delicious rum drink served out of a hollowed out pineapple.  The recipe is actually the Lakeside Cooler recipe I shared a few weeks ago.  To change it to an Island Cooler recipe, just add a frilly umbrella and serve it in a pineapple.  Done and done.

I used the streamer poles I made for our Mother's Day picnic to add a little more color.

Then as the sun started to set, the lights came on...

we brought out the cupcakes...

and we lit the tiki torches!

Everything was basked in a beauitful warm glow. 

I love these awesome ladies!  You guys are THE BEST and so much fun! 



Pretty lady:)

The pictures got a little blurrier by the end of the night, but you get the idea.  Happy birthday, Corky!

OUT AND ABOUT IN MINNESOTA: TAYLORS FALLS (PART 2)

After looking through the little town, we walked over to the park along the St. Croix river, which was absolutely amazing.  We walked along the pathways and stared into the deep sink holes scattered around that seemed to go on forever.  The natural beauty of this place was breathtaking. 






My dad and me



We thought this sink hole looked kind of like a heart. 

Looks like someone is trying to climb out of one of the sink holes

My parents <3

 After exploring the falls, we stopped in Stillwater along the way home to get some much needed ice cream.  It was a great day.  See part 1 of our trip to Taylors Falls here.



OUT AND ABOUT IN MINNESOTA: TAYLORS FALLS (PART 1)

On Memorial Day, we took a special trip to Taylors Falls, which is about an hour away from Minneapolis, to see my great grandparents’ farm house.  It was amazing to see the place my mom would go to visit her grandparents in the summertime as a little girl and walk the same stone steps that she used to walk.

On our way to the house, though, we had to stop and check out the giant mouse and cheese wheel on the side of the road.  Stellar advertising.  It made me want some cheese!

 

My cousin being his hilarious self:

It was wonderful to hear all the stories my aunt and mom told about the little town and where they used to play.  It was like a step back and time, and I loved seeing the place through my mom's eyes.

My mom and aunt--two peas in a pod:)

The house was right next to the little church my great grandparents went to.  

Then we went into town and enjoyed a nice long lunch. 

Nothing like picking out some candy after lunch:

The town was so cute.  There is a section of houses near downtown that are all white with green shingles.  I don't know how they got everyone on board to paint their houses the same color, but it was beautiful.  There was one house, though, that had blue shingles.  That has to be where the town dare devil lives.  Breaking all the rules.

Our next stop was the national park known for its sink holes along the St. Croix river.  More pictures to come...

PEICD (Projects Even I Can Do): PHOTO TREE

Although we moved into our house 3 years ago, we're still in the process of decorating and adding personal touches to each room.  This wall in our living room is big, but I didn't want to hang another large picture since we already have one on the other side of the window.  I wanted something more fun and whimsical. I had all these 4x4 Hipstamatic prints that I had just gotten in the mail and had no idea what to do with.  I thought about gluing some to a large canvas and hanging that on the wall, but I wanted to be able to switch the pictures out as we took more. 

Then I remembered the branches that Wade had spray painted for a craft fair I went to, and I thought this would be a perfect way to display the pictures.  Just clip them to the branches with clothespins and you're done!  Now it's super easy to switch pictures in and out, and it also makes a great conversation piece in our living room.  I love that it fills the wall, and it's interesting to see all the different photos. 

Here are some more pictures of the tree.  Since our living room is darker, I took some of the pictures outside.

Can you see the paint swatches in the entry way?  It's been like that for a while.  Our summer goal is to get that finally painted.  What's on your to-do list?

LAUGHING AT MYSELF

Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself.  How else are we supposed to get through our workaday woes without a good sense of humor?  Here are a few recent learnings I've had that I'm still laughing (cringing) about.   

#1.  After lunch the other day, I realized that my pants felt looser on me.  Immediately, I assumed that it must be because I had been sick this week and had lost a ton of weight.  Boy, was I happy!  That is until I was on my way into a meeting and realized that the button on my jeans was undone, leaving my belly free from its usual oppressiveness.  I'm not sure what was more embarrassing: asking myself aloud if my pants were undone and then realizing they were along with everyone else within earshot, or being depressed afterwards because once I buttoned them they felt way more restrictive than normal.

#2.  So like any new blogger, I steadfastly keep track of the stats page in Blogger to see how many page views my site has each day.  Well, a few weeks ago I realized that I had hit an all time high in page views!  I was so pleased with myself and knew that this was the beginning of something big.  I took a screenshot of the webpage and saved it to my computer to look back on proudly in the future.  I noticed that the top traffic sources were names I didn't quite recognize, but assumed that they were some sort of referring sites.  I decided to click on one.  I mean, the name of it is "topblogstories" so I assumed that one of my posts was so good it had been picked up by another site.  Sadly, that was not the case.  Luckily my browser blocked the site from coming up since I'm sure my computer would have gotten a virus, but let's just say that the subject of the site was not family friendly.  Upon futher research, I learned that Blogger is plagued with these spam sites hitting blogs and driving up the page views.  I'm still going to keep the screenshot, though:)

There are so many tough lessons to learn as we wander through life, so laugh at yourself whenever you can.  Then write your funny or awkward stories in the comments below so I don't feel so bad sharing my embarrassment.

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