Five on Friday

Stephen and I are very excited because this weekend we are going down to South Florida to celebrate his parents' 60th birthday with his siblings. Should be a very fun weekend! Onto my Five on Friday...

One
Last weekend, Stephen's coworkers asked us to join them at a local gun range for the morning. We had a great time and enjoyed spending the morning outside (even though it was 90+ degrees - ugh where are you fall??)

Two

Stephen and I are OBSESSED with Bath and Body Works candles! Fall & Christmas candles are our favorite and when we realized we didn't have anymore fall candles, we had to go check them out - BOGO at Bath and Body Works was a super win in our books! We got "Pumpkin Apple" and "Harvest Gathering". The Pumpkin Apple candle is so delicious! Shout out to my sister-in-law who told me how amazing the Pumpkin Apple candle was!

Three

Another fall item I'm obsessed with right now is this adorable fall print out. I found it on Pinterest and had to go snag a cheap frame at TJ Maxx to put it in. I love it and can't wait to find other cute print outs for all the seasons/holidays.

Four
Back in March, I had the opportunity to model for the Collection Bridal over in Orlando. It was for a big wedding industry party put on by The Knot. It was so much fun and it was recently featured on An Affair to Remember's blog. Seltzer Films made a video for it as well and you can see it here. Anyways, it was such a fun experience and the blog/video was just posted so I wanted to share.

This is a Monique Lhuillier dress and it represented "Winter". It was stunning and so much fun to wear!

All of the girls. We were representing the four seasons.

Five
I've finally joined the gym again! Long story short - there are no gyms where we live so when a gym close to work had a great line up of cardio classes, I had to resign up. I was sick with allergies last week, so Monday was the day! I've gone 3 times this week (had to miss 2 because of our trip) and will probably end up going everyday of the week the rest of my month long membership. I LOVE doing the classes they offer at the gym - they are so much fun and I always feel great after!

Fall Banner

A couple of weekends ago I had the urge to craft and make something for fall... so I made a "Happy Fall Y'all" banner! Who isn't happy when fall comes?

First, I measured and cut a triangle from regular copy paper. Then I taped it (lightly) to some leftover scrapbook paper from my wedding. I then carefully cut along the edges.

 After cutting the right amount of triangles, I wrote my saying on them then flipped them all over and hot glued them to a thick string of twine.

Now it's done and ready to be hung :) You can see the banner hung with all my fall decorations here.

Pumpkin Bread

In my Five on Friday post, I mentioned decorating our apartment for fall and baking pumpkin bread from A Blonde Ambition blog - I got both done. Woo hoo!
Our apartment is small so the biggest challenge with decorating is storing everything once it's time to take the decorations down (can't WAIT for a house!) Anyways, here are the two main things that have fall decorations on them:

I love this adorable print out!

The pumpkin bread turned out sooo delicious and it was super easy to make!

Ingredients
- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups white sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 2 eggs
- 1 can pumpkin puree
- 1/4 cup vegetable/canola oil
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

Directions
1. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugars, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, baking powder & nutmeg.

2. In another bowl (big), combine the eggs, vanilla, sour cream, pumpkin, oil & unsalted butter (melted). Stir the dry ingredients into the large bowl and stir until combined and moistened.

3. Pour into a greased 9-in x 5-in loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 65-70 minutes or until a toothpick, inserted into the center, comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes before removing to cool on a wire rack.

Five on Friday

Since it's about middle September I'm claiming it's fall in the Hirst household. I know the official day of fall is a few weeks away and it really won't feel like fall in Florida until November/December (if that) but I'm ready to bring out the decorations and start baking up a storm!

One
I have officially transitioned from pinks to reds and darker colors when it comes to nail polish. I love this color from OPI, it's the perfect fall red and it has a great name - paint my moji-toes red.

Two
I'm excited to decorate our little apartment for fall on Saturday. I also can't wait until we actually have a house so we can get more Christmas and fall decorations and not be limited to the one plastic bin in our laundry room that our decorations are stored in now.

How I'd love to decorate my house one day. Source

Three
I want to find something pumpkin-y to bake on Sunday to go along with our fall weekend. This pumpkin bread from A Blonde Ambition looks delish and I might have to try.

Four
We're such old people and love to walk around at an outdoor mall/area in a bigger city near us. This is usually what we do if there's not much going on during a weekend. I'm looking forward to playing with Christmas-gift-idea-gadgets at Best Buy, looking at adding more to our fall decor at Jo Ann's and finally using gift cards we got as an anniversary gift to go out to dinner.

Five
After taking tennis lessons on our vacation, Stephen and I are ready to get back on the court. Unfortunately our town doesn't have any public courts so we're going to try to sneak onto some YMCA courts... we'll see how successful we are.

Stuffed Zucchini Boats

This weekend was very relaxing - I spent pretty much all of it in bed. Sunday was the only day we left the house after coming home and that was to go to church and the grocery store. I really needed those days in bed because I am feeling a lot better from my horrible allergies. Publix had a sale on the pre-cut, throw in the oven quick cookies so naturally, we had to get some.

Now onto the recipe:
Stephen and I love these stuffed zucchini boats we found here. I've made them for my sister when she came to visit and loved them. They're relatively easy and quick to make which makes for a fun meal that's "different". I still haven't figured out what side dishes go with them best so let me know if you have any suggestions!

First, saute the garlic and onions until softened in a large skillet. Then add the corn (you can use fresh, frozen or canned corn. The original recipe calls for fresh but frozen was easier so just cook it longer to make sure it is completely unthawed). Once the corn has thawed, add the cooked chicken and parsley. 

Second, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cut your zucchinis in half and carefully scoop out the insides. Add them to the skillet for a few minutes to mix with the other ingredients. Once everything is mixed and cooked, remove the skillet from the heat and set aside. Add the crumbled feta cheese to the skillet and mix. 

Third, place your zucchini "shells" on a baking sheet and fill with the mixture in the skillet. We usually have enough left over to have another meal with just the mixture since it makes so much and our boats are stuffed to the brim. Top with shredded cheese and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Ingredients
- 2-3 medium sized zucchinis
- 1 cooked chicken breast
- 1 ear of corn (or half a bag of frozen corn)
- 1 small vidalia onion, diced
- 1 clove of minced garlic
- 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
- 1/4 cup shredded cheese of your choice (we usually use mozzarella)
- Fresh parsley
- Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Saute the onion and garlic in a large skillet until tender. Add the corn kernels and let unthaw. Once the corn has unthawed, add the cooked chicken and parsley.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut the zucchinis in half and scoop out the insides. Place the zucchini insides in the skillet from step 1 and cook until softened. Remove the skillet from the heat and mix in the feta cheese.

3. Place your zucchini "shells" on a baking sheet and stuff with the skillet mixture. Top with the shredded cheese and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Sandpiper Bay Vacation

Last week Stephen and I went on vacation and not only could it not have come at a better time, we couldn't have gone at a better time. For our honeymoon, we went to an all inclusive in the Dominican Republic which was great but there were some issues with the food... I got a bacteria on the last day and had to get antibiotics after getting back to America. Needless to say, we love the "all inclusive" aspect but didn't want to leave America. We googled all inclusives in America and found Sandpiper Bay by Club Med only a few hours south of us. We were pumped because not only did it have American food that we'd be used to, but it also had TONS of activities for us to do. A good comparison would be this is a cruise on land that also included free tennis lessons, golf lessons, sailing and paddle boarding. There were a lot of people our ages there who ran all the activities and events and it was great getting to know some of them throughout our stay.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon and left on Friday which gave us the perfect amount of time at the resort. One of the reasons it was a great time to go was because it was the end of their busy season. Sunday and Monday it was crowded at the resort but Tuesday-Friday it was relatively empty which was great because we went from no seats at the main pool to any seat you wanted. There was no line for any of the water activities and the tennis lessons had the perfect amount of people in them.

Now onto the plethora of pictures....

The view from our room

Our room wasn't in the best of shape but it served it's purpose. The website said they had remodeled in 2009 so we assumed there were nicer rooms and we just happened to not end up in one of them. It was also interesting since Club Med is a French company so the room had a European feel to it.

Our room

Stephen already claiming his spot and checking out the TV

After dropping our stuff in the room we grabbed a late lunch which was delicious and headed to the adult pool for some late afternoon relaxing.

They had random areas to relax and watch the bay

The weather was so perfect which made it hard to leave for dinner

The adults only pool: notice how crowded it is here and then notice how no one's there in a later picture

So relaxing

The area for the water activities

Every night they had a different theme and different activity. Most nights they had a show and then an after party. On Sunday night we missed the show because we had a late dinner but we went to the glow party.

Unfortunately, this turned out blurry

Their club/bar. This was before the show was over so it was empty 

They had some LEGIT acrobat people

The next morning we woke up and went to a sailing lesson. It was great and sailing ended up being pretty easy! We sailed at least once a day and some days we sailed twice. Stephen loved sailing.

Pre-sailing lesson

They had delicious food! There was a main buffet restaurant, a small, outdoor restaurant and a reservation-only restaurant. Usually we ate at the buffet restaurant which had a wide variety of different styles of food.

The adults only section of the main restaurant

We took some dessert back to the room for a later snack... so yum

Monday afternoon we took a nap then woke up in time to take a trapeze lesson. Oh boy, scariest thing ever... I literally barley made it up there. Thankfully for my first try, I made it up there with the help of some of the workers but the second time I did it all on my own. I know, totally embarrassing but I'm very afraid of heights and there was nothing to constrain me on the ladder to the top. On the other hand, Stephen was a pro and did amazing on the trapeze and was even qualified to do a "catch" (only people who are successful at the trapeze can do a catch). I'm so glad we learned how to do the trapeze and we planned on continuing this throughout the week but we were so sore there was no way I could've held on. We definitely have a whole new respect for people who do this - especially those who are really good at it!

Practicing the steps on the ground... all fun and games till it's time to climb

One of the professionals - she was AMAZING!

Practicing the trick on the ground before in the air

I ended up not being able to do this once in the air - I was too freaked out

Stephen climbing up the ladder

Ready to go!

He did it!

Um so embarrassing... he had to talk/walk me up the ladder

About to go!

We did it!

Here are the videos of Stephen doing his tricks! The second one is the one of him doing the catch.

Ready dinner that night

They had ice cream sundaes and ice cream sandwiches which were delicious!

We played a game of Boccie Ball before that night's show

 That night they had a show called "Nova". It was a space-themed show with acrobatics and dancing. It was pretty funny/silly but the acrobatics was legit and neat to watch.

Tuesday morning we woke up early, had a tennis lesson then headed over to try out some paddle boarding. Thankfully the bay was super calm which made paddle boarding so much easier!

After paddle boarding, we relaxed at the pool for the rest of the day. Notice how empty it is now...

On our honeymoon, everyone seemed to get the memo that if you brought your own water bottle, they'd fill that up instead of giving out tiny cups. Stephen got me this adorable monogrammed tumbler for my birthday to use for this trip but no one brought their own cups! We were so thankful to have these though during our tennis lessons.

Dinner Tuesday night

 Wednesday we woke up for another tennis lesson then headed right to the pool to cool down and relax.

The lap pool

That afternoon, we participated in a regatta. We won the first heat then lost the final heat. It was fun sailing in a small competition.

We were Team Sailfish

That evening we had dinner then attended casino night. That was a lot of fun and we enjoyed playing Blackjack and even won something small!

Delicious desserts!

Casino Night

On our last full day, we went to our last tennis lesson of the week and Stephen won King of the Court! We relaxed by the pool and sailed the rest of the day. That night we ate at their reservation restaurant which had a nice atmosphere but we liked the food at the main restaurant better. We finished off the night with a trapeze show which was fantastic!

Stephen and his "Aztec Gold" metal

The menus at the restaurant lit up when they were opened

My dinner 

Bummed this turned out blurry but it's the only picture we have 

Trapeze show

Friday morning we woke up and Stephen went paddle boarding one last time. My allergies got the best of me and I wasn't up for it so I just watched. Then we went to the lap pool one last time and ate our last lunch.

It was a great trip and we had a lot of fun! We're so thankful the Lord blessed us with beautiful weather the whole trip! We're glad we ended the trip on a Friday and therefore have all weekend to recover and catch up. I'm definitely enjoying laying in bed and watching TV while it's storming outside.