Weekend Favorites

Hi friends. How was your weekend? Mine was full of fun, family, and festive happenings. Let's recap with Holly (Pink Lady Blog) and (Sarah Sunshine and Books) and their Hello Monday blog hop. 

Backing up to Thursday or as I like to say, my birthday eve. Daughter1 had planned a fun birthday outing for  just the two of us, which was a treat. She has three littles and trying to spend a few hours doing something with just her mama took some maneuvering, but she made it happen. 

She and Little Miss arrived about 9:30 to pick me up. Little Miss was so excited to hand me her card and a box of one of my favorite candies-lemonheads, which she needed to sample. I mean how can you not? They also brought me the prettiest vase filled with flowers. The vase looks like a book, one of my all time favorites in fact-Anne of Green Gables. 

We drove to her sister-in-law's home about an hour away so Little Miss could spend the day with her cousin and her other grandmother while Mama and I had some fun. We went to a kitchen shop I absolutely love (The Cook Station for locals reading here) and it's one of my favorite places to browse. 

How many times can I say the word favorite in a single post? Birthdays are for favorites so pretty sure there's no limit.  

This store carries Vietri and Juliska both which are two of my favorites. I wanted to take this whole set of dishes home for Thanksgiving.

My daughter had reserved us seats in one of their cooking demonstrations which includes lunch. The chef  chats while he's cooking and then you eat what's been prepared. Everyone gets a glass of wine too so it felt like an occasion. 

Today's recipe was a most delicious French Onion Soup with a light salad on the side.  I'll definitely be re-creating his recipe at home. 

Such a nice relaxing few hours where we could chat, which is not something easily done when the kids are with us. I love having the kids with us, but time with a daughter where it's just the two of us is so special. Another favorite you might say. 

We picked the boys up from school on the way home and they all came in to say hi to Pawpaw and we were greeted by this-

Balloons, flowers, and chocolate cake. Yum! The kids were ready to dig in but we told them to come back on my actual birthday and they could help us eat it then. 

I facetimed with daughter2 and her littles and everyone was excited to wish Nana a happy birthday. I love it. Daughter2 sent me Laura Wifler's new book (This Side Of The Sky) and I have been savoring her beautiful way with words.

If you don't follow her online I recommend. Daughter2 and I both love her writing and I was excited to get this in my hands. I'll review it when I recap my September reads in a couple of weeks. 

Hubs made a yummy dinner on the griddle that night, using the left over flank steak from earlier in the week-steak fried rice. I'd made the rice first thing that morning as it needs to sit in the frig for a bit before it goes on the griddle. 

We added broccoli, mushrooms, red pepper, onions, peas and carrots and then soy sauce and sesame oil and the requisite scrambled egg. 

So good!

I woke up on my birthday to a beautiful sunrise. The heat has been obnoxious with temps in the  90's so we spent the morning swimming and...paddle boarding. 

Whoohoo! My first time on the board since my ankle mishap. You should know I'm not a natural and hubs likes to take ridiculous photos of me trying to stand, which is not super graceful, but hey I am up and I am paddling and I am a year older so go me. 

Daughter1 and her crew arrived about noon and we all swam and jumped off the dock and then had lunch on the patio. And cake. Can't forget that! Hubs always gets me a chocolate cake with a raspberry filling because it's my favorite. 

We swam some more after lunch before everyone headed home and then hubs and I had dinner reservations at a place we both love. A favorite if you will. 

Hubs had called ahead and told them it was my birthday so even though I still had half a chocolate cake at home I ate the chocolate mousse the restaurant served me. It had toffee chips all around and wow was that ever delicious. 

The sunset driving home was a stunner too...

Saturday was another scorcher of a day and we were up bright and early to tailgate with friends who had invited us to the Clemson game. 

It was an early game (noon) so we did breakfast type foods as our tailgate menu. I made deviled eggs and sausage balls and hubs brought the fixin's for Bloody Marys. I also brought some fruit and cheese and our host made ham and cheese sliders, cinnamon rolls and pigs in a blanket. They even brought me a small cake, Clemson colors of course, which was so thoughtful. 

Look who stopped by to say hey y'all...

I wore the same shirt I wore to the Tennessee game because it was once again 80 million degrees outside and the shirt is technically more Clemson orange than Tennessee orange. Go Tigers! Go Vols! 

My son-in-law brought the two boys to the game so they stopped by the tailgate before we all went in to the stadium. Game day is a sea of orange and the atmosphere on a college campus during football season is the best.  C-17 flyover the stadium-

We did not play well the first half and were losing into the 4th quarter when lightning moved in and everyone had to leave the stadium We didn't hang around because we knew it would be a long while before the game picked up again, plus the outcome wasn't looking like it would be in our favor, but! Lo and behold they came back and pulled off a win. A wonderful way to wrap up a birthday. 

Did you know birthdays are my favorite?