Wedding Playlist

   The best decision I ever made was marrying my husband. The second best decision I ever made was having him make a CD copy of all of the songs we had playing during the reception. We, like I think a lot of other people, decided to compile our own playlist for our reception which made the evening even more personalized. We hand picked every song and had everything from Michael Jackson to Sam Cooke and from Hanson and The Cure to Neutral Milk Hotel. We had over 5 hours of music, including first dances, father-daughter dance and the song I walked down the aisle too (I didn't want the conventional "here comes the bride" song). 
 And now, nearly 8 months since that wonderful day, I will be driving down the road and the song that I walked down the aisle too will come on as I'm shuffling through the CD, and it takes me right back. I usually can't make it through the whole song without tears swelling up in my eyes. And I remember holding onto my father's arm as we rounded the corner, and how all of the butterflies in my stomach floated away the second I locked eyes with the love of my life. All I remember after that was the song and the look on his face, I couldn't even tell you who else was in the room. (I mean, obviously I know who else was there, but in that moment there was no one else.) I had found this piano version of the song that I wanted, and even though it cuts off a little early on the end, I had made it to the end of the aisle and the song was turned of long before that point.


 The rest of the music is our favorite songs, songs that mean something to us, songs that we use to sing to each other over late night calls and every time I hear them I remember all of that. It's a wonderful trip down the memory lane of our relationship and a constant reminder of our love.

Preparing for the Big Game!!

  It's that time of year again where we gather around the tv to hoot, holler and root for our favorite players and team, and our home is no exception to this. I'm not sure about my husband, but as for me, I've got my money on Abilene. What? You haven't heard of her. Oh yes, I said her. She's a 10 week old Australian Shepherd mix with the bluest eyes you've ever seen. I guess I should explain that the event I'm referring to is not football, at least not in the conventional sense. The game I'm referring to is the Puppy Bowl!

  No, we are definitely not big sports fans in this house, in fact I wouldn't even say that we're "little" sports fans. But we still enjoy the tailgating food and drinks, and what's football without hot wings! This year we are working on cutting down the costs of our grocery bill and stretching our dollars a little further since we're trying to save up for our first home. The biggest way we saved money with the hot wings, was not to use wings. For half the price of a bag of frozen wings, you can get a dozen big drumsticks! I'm using a simple recipe that I found HERE on Pinterest that looks super delicious and easy to throw together.
  We'll also be having a quick and easy Asian meatball (which I've talked about before HERE) and Ryan's favorite salsa that I make, my corn salsa. (Well I actually got the recipe from my best friend, but you know how that goes.)
For the corn salsa you need :
2 cans of corn, drained and rinsed
1/4 red onion, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
1/2 green pepper diced
1/2 orange pepper, diced
1 can of olives, diced
about 4 tbsp olive oil
about 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
salt & pepper, to taste

  Just mix it all together and it's ready to go! What I love most about this salsa, is that if you don't have all of the ingredients, then you can kind of just throw together what you have. For example, I only had red peppers, so that's the only pepper I used. If you don't like olives, leave them out. If you want to dice up and throw in some avocado, do it! (It's a great addition! If you do add them make sure to squeeze in a little lime juice as well.) And with the salsa we'll be making our own tortilla chips!
  Whatever game you'll be watching tomorrow, I hope that you're surrounded by food, friends and fun!