A Day at the Beach

Every summer for the past 16 years my family has spent a week at the Jersey Shore (but not like the show at all!). We used to stay in a house with three of my dad's best friends from childhood and their families. But, my brother and I are a bit older than everyone else's kids (my parents were the first to get married and have kids) and it got hard for all of us to fit into one room, as we had to do in the house with everyone. So, now we stay in our own apartment a few blocks away, and meet up with everyone else on the beach during the day, and sometimes go back to their house after dinner. It works really well for us, because we still get to see everyone, but we all get the space of our own room! Plus, it allowed another family to come in and take our old spot, so another two kids get to grow up with the same great experience!

Today was a perfect vacation day, hanging out on the beach with everyone, swimming in the Atlantic (which feels like a bath tub after that heat wave in June!), family dinner, chilling out and watching Master Chef as I type.

I thought I'd share a few of my favorite pictures from our vacation so far!

 The view from our deck!

 A shelf from my favorite (incredibly fancy) market!

 New York Jersey bagels, still warm from the oven.

 My mom with a bottle of Pino Grigio. Don't worry, that wasn't all for us, we were sharing with all the ladies on the beach (6 of us to be exact!)

My dad and his boogie board (his favorite beach past time!) This was one of my favorite pictures to take, as I was standing in the ocean, up to my waist, shooting away!

Copic Markers Question...

Does anyone have a preference...Sketch or Ciao?

Thank you!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday {7 10 2011}

Yay! Welcome back to another Scavenger Hunt Sunday!

I'm here on Long Beach Island, looking out over the Atlantic, posting pictures...AHHH! I love it here. We've been coming to Long Beach Island with my dad's friends from childhood and their families every summer since I was nine - I cannot believe its our sixteenth year here!

But I digress! (Coke for breakfast probably wasn't the best idea, but it went so well with the fresh, hot everything bagels! Mmmmm, New York bagels, I missed you!)

Ah! Digressing again! Well, here are my pictures for this week :)

1. Things that look like a letter of the alphabet

This cute little guy is on the shower curtain in the house we are renting here. I think he is so adorable, and his yellow fin looks like a letter V.

2. Weather

AJ and I walked down to Navy Pier on Wednesday, and I saw this lighthouse waaaaay out in the distance (love the zoom on my camera)! I love that the  red and white lighthouse is showcased by the blue blue lake, and blue blue sky on this gorgeous day, because the lighthouse is there to guide ships through storms and bad weather!

3. Bling

My promise ring needed to be resized, but I was resisting bringing it in, because they had to send it out for two weeks to have it done. And there was no way I was giving my ring up for two weeks! But, right before I left for Chicago, I brought it in because I was afraid I'd lose it on the beach this week if I was still big! I couldn't pick it up until I was back in New York for vacation with my family! But, I have it back now, and I'm refusing to take it off again!

4. Tangled

When I saw this prompt, I immediately thought of my curly hair in the morning, so I woke up, threw on my glasses and grabbed my camera!

5. Dark

This picture was taken on the beach on Fourth of July. It has quickly become my favorite picture of the summer!

Well, I'm off for a beach walk with my mom! I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the weekend, and has a great week!

Airport, Bikes and the Linen Closet

I'm sitting here in the airport. But this post is not about the airport. This post is about something silly that happened last week, in the linen closet.

Saturday afternoon, AJ and I went to the mall and bought a vacuum and an iron.

On the way home from the mall, AJ said, "Babe, when we get back from the mall, I need to go to the gym." I said, "Okay, no problem, I'm going to nap!" (I should probably go to the gym too, but really? The gym? Sweating? Asthma? No thank you!)

But when we got home, I didn't want to nap. I had a new vacuum! I wanted to organize the linen closet to fit my new vacuum!

Now I realize this doesn't sound like a big deal. Nor does it sound very silly.

But there was one very large problem. AJ stored my bike in the linen closet when he first moved all the stuff in.

I couldn't move the bike out of my way. It was upside down, and taking up all the floor space.

But, I could reach the shelves!

So, I put empty boxes we wanted to store on the top shelf. Cleaning supplies, extra tolietries, and bags for grocery shopping on the middle shelves. And AJ's tool box on the bottom shelf. 

While I'm doing all of this, AJ is doing push ups, crunches and stretches before he heads to the gym.

Only now, I couldn't do any more organizing. I couldn't fit my vacuum on the shelves! It needed to go on the floor. I needed the bike out of there. Now. And I could move it! Right? No.

So, I went and got AJ and said that thing every girl says, but never ever turns out to be true, "Babe, I need your help, but it'll only take two seconds." And he said "What happened to your nap? Is this really necessary right now?"

I decided it was.

AJ managed to flip the bike over (Did you know tire tracks will come off of walls with warm water? They do) But we still couldn't get it out of the closet. We pushed, we pulled, we stood it up on its end. Nothing worked. So I said, "Watch out, babe. I'll do it!" And immediately fell under the awkwardness of the bike.

That was when AJ made a comment about my bike being too big for me (I know, I'm short! But it isn't too big! Its a nice size for me!). I got defiant about my bike's relative size.

I got on the bike.

That was when it dawned on me, I could just RIDE the bike out of the linen closet.

I put my foot on the pedal.

Nothing happened.

I pushed a little harder.

And the entire bottom shelf, tool box and all, came crashing down!

A Quick Thank You Card

I saw a very cute Thank You card over at Fourth House on the Right and I knew it was perfect for AJ's graduation thank yous!

I cut the blue paper to 4 1/4 x 5 1/2, and the yellow to 4 1/4 x 5 1/4. I used a scalloped edge cutter to edge the bottom. (Next time, I would cut the top a little smaller if I was going to use my scalloped edge cutter again! But if you were going to use a border punch, like Becky did, the size would be perfect! My border punches were just a little girly hahaha)

Then, I printed "THANK YOU" using Collegiate Heavy Outline font on gray cardstock, cut it into strips and adhered it across the top. I added a few graduation themed brads and that was it!

The whole thing came together in minutes (he only needed 4, so it was super fast and easy). I'm definitely going to use this format again!

There is sauce on my ceiling

Yep, that's right. On the ceiling.

So, this requires some back story:

I wanted to make a nice, easy dinner. I had homemade pizza dough frozen from when I made breakfast pizza, sauce left over from dinner a few nights before (I'm so used to cooking for my family, I always make too much of everything!) and pre-sliced fresh mozzarella in the fridge. So, tonight's pizza was going to be easy peasy to put together! The only thing we needed was soda, so AJ ran downstairs to the little store to pick it up.

I stretched out the dough and threw it in the oven to crisp up before I added the sauce and cheese.

I squished the cheese between paper towels and two plates to get out the extra liquid. Did you know that is what was causing the puddles on my pizza?! And I thought it was too much olive oil! Nopes, it was too much liquid left in the fresh mozzarella! But I digress, this story is about the sauce.

I washed out the baby sauce pan and lid, and threw some of the leftover sauce in the little pan to heat up over a medium heat.

Wow! That was such an easy dinner. Ohhhh, *insert any Food Network show here* is on! Yay!


So I watched Food Network.


Mmmmm, everything is smelling so good in the kitchen...I hope AJ gets back from the store soon!



I was getting hungry, but my timer hadn't gone yet, so I watched some more Food Network.

Hmmmm, the sauce is popping really loudly, let me go check it.


So I turned the corner into my kitchen, and I saw the lid to the sauce pan on the counter!

Then, I looked at the stove. There was sauce EVERYWHERE! All over the stove, popping out of the little sauce pan.

Then, I looked at the wall next to the stove, there was sauce splattered on the wall.

And on the microwave over the stove.

And on the cabinets over the microwave (really?!)

And on the oven (seriously?!)

Okay, no big deal, I can wipe this down...before AJ gets home! Then, no one will have to know how dumb I was forgetting the lid!

So, I get my step stool, I start wiping down everything.

Great! Everything came off the walls...and the cabinets...and the microwave...and the oven...and the stove...WHAT IS THAT ON THE CEILING?!?


Cue AJ coming back from the store...

AJ: "Hey babe, what are you doing?"

Me: "Ummmm, can you get the sauce off the ceiling?"

For the record: Neither one of us can reach it. I don't know what to do about it...suggestions?

Lazy Day

I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!

I was so lazy today! I woke up at 12! I know, noon, but I couldn't sleep last night. I was up at 2am, 3am, 4am, when AJ got up for work at 6am, then he woke me to say goodbye at 6:45am. Then again at 10am (when I should've gotten out of bed), but I didn't get up until noon!

Which means the grocery shopping didn't get done today, but I'll go tomorrow, the sale doesn't end until then anyway!

I did manage to clean the kitchen up and vacuum the living room (with my new vacuum - yay!)

Anyways, since nothing interesting has happened, I thought I'd share a few pictures from this weekend :)

Hanging out on the roof deck Saturday night!

Clean apartment!

Yummy yummy cupcakes! And the turned everyone's tongues blue and red! But they were worth it :)

More fireworks :)