Supper Club - Summer {2}

A few weeks ago, we hosted Summer Supper Club at our home!

There were two very special reasons as to why this supper club was a BIG deal.  One, it marked two years of planning meals and trying new recipes together and two, it was the last supper club that we would spend together as a "team".  For those that have been following what we eat for quite some time, you know that I have worked with the other three ladies in our supper club for the past five years.  You might have also caught that some of us our moving on with our careers {as hard as it was to decide that} and we won't be teaching at the same school or grade level any more {but that deserves a post all of its own}.  But, it doesn't mean that supper club is stopping!  We will just cherish our dinners even more now that we won't be spending five days a week together!

Couples:  Chad and myself, Adam and Holly, Kristin and Abel, Angela (who is expecting baby #3 this year) and Ryan

 Ladies in the club and some of my very best friends.

Holly and I, she likes to take pictures about as much as I do and this is our signature pose - you know the one where she holds the camera out if front of us and we cheese it up!  Always turns out to be our favorite!

 A really quick reminder on how The Supper Club works, now that you know who is in it and why we have only four couples...
1. No kids.
2. The host comes up with the menu and then divides out the recipes to each of the supper club members to prepare for the party (we have four parties per year, each couple takes a season).
3. The host always provides the main dish/side dish with a variety of beverage selections.
4. Remember that it is sometimes best to semi-prepare your dishes and do last minute baking, chilling, slicing, or arranging at the home of the host.
5. Menu items should be new and adventurous.
6. Portion sizes must be small so that you have room to taste every course of the evening, so feel free to reduce recipes in half where ever you see fit.

To me, the decor is just as important as the food, but we were hosting a fourth of July party just a few days later and my family was in town so it made for a very hectic, pulled together, last second decorating!  However, I loved the pictures of supper club pasts hanging up between the windows for couples to take home at the evenings end and the simplicity of the painted mason jars and fresh flowers on the table.  The wreath that I had hanging outside on the front door was perfect too for our Caribbean theme!

 How did I do the wreath?  Easy, stuck paper umbrellas into a styrofoam wreath.  Took about an hour to do and hopefully set the mood!  I totally didn't come up with this on my own, but found the idea here!

The painted mason jars?  Easy too!  I took acrylic paint in the different colors of turquoise that I had laying around, mixed some with white to get the lighter colors, painted the inside with a paint brush and moved flipped over every few hours to try to prevent runs!  For the most part it worked pretty good and unless you were inspecting it closely, you can't really see any imperfections!  To add fresh flowers, I used paper cups on the inside of the mason jars, as the water would just wash away the paint (over time).

Ok, you know who eats, you know the rules in case you want to start your own supper club, and you know what the decor looks like for this Caribbean themed dinner, but wanna know what we had to eat?!  Thought so!  Click on the name of the the item to take you right to the recipe! 

The drink:

Laua Coconut

 Holly did such a good job decorating the coconuts with everyone's names on them instead of shaving them!  Smart idea, as we needed to keep track of which drink belonged to which person!

Appetizers:

Plantain Chips with Warm Cilantro Dipping Sauce

Caribbean Meatballs

 Salad:

Black-Eyed Pea and Pumpkin Salad

Main Dish:

Jerk Chicken and Cinnamon-Honey Glazed Sweet Potatoes

*this jerk chicken should come with a warning label!  It is HOTTTTTT!  We put in half of the habaneros that it called for and it was still really spicy!

In between dinner and dessert {as we were stuffed} we went out for a dip in the pool, always the entertainment portion of our evening as we have the pool!  Probably why we have hosted in the summer thus far! 

Dessert:

Rum Cake with Rum Raisin Ice Cream and Island Fruit

Dessert was a perfect way to end our second year together!  Always fun to try new things and get together with a special group of friends!

***If you would like to host your own Caribbean themed supper club, I do have the menu to send out saved PDF, however, I don't know how to link it up here, but I would be happy to send it out to you, just leave me your email in the comments section!

If you missed out on any of the supper clubs so far and would like to start your own or get recipe ideas, please visit the Supper Club Tab under the main picture on my blog to see what we ate!

Linking up party food/decor at some of my favorite party places!

InstaFriday - Life As Usual

While family was here last week, it kinda felt like we were on vacation too!  So with the return of everyone to their homes, we returned to life as usual or as normal as possible anyway!

 Before life went back to normal though, we did get a few more days with the family!  Chad took the day off on Friday and we headed to the water park at my parents place (the kids spent the night Thursday night and just about every other night they could)!  Lola conquered the water slide and grandpa held on to both Ava and Kyan as the big dipper splashed down!  We enjoyed dinner on the golf course together.  The kids favorite part, as always, is to play on the green (no one is golfing usually - it is the driving range/putting green section).  They were very into playing freeze tag at one point and I was able to snap a picture of all four of them frozen, before the music (me) started up again!  It was a perfect day!

 Saturday morning I headed back up to my parents to hang out with my brother and his family for a few hours before they headed to in-laws for the night.  When I got there, Lola was playing with the Barbie and horse again.  She had been glued to that thing the entire trip!  It was a very emotional goodbye when it came time to say goodbye to Joel.  Lots and lots of tears were shed and promises this time were made to stay in touch.  Miss them lots already!  To take our minds off the goodbye, we headed back into the pool, where grandpa became a mermaid, after Lola taught him just how mermaids are!  She was Ariel, he became Jeriel!  It was adorable and my dad has the most patience in the world when it comes to his grandbabies!  He would seriously do anything for them!  After our swim, it was time to get the house in order and drive my parents to the airport.  Lola went with, as Kyan and daddy headed to the Diamondbacks game together.  Lola always wants to go to the airport and every time we pull away, she starts sobbing.  It is so sad.  Usually it takes her until we are half way home to get her to stop and this time it took just about as long.  Poor thing.  When we got home, we headed out for our walk in her new jogging stroller, courtesy of grandpa!  After our walk I asked Lola what she wanted for dinner and she begged for Ah-So!  That's my girl!  Her favorite thing to do is dip the shrimp into their soup!  And she isn't bad with chop sticks either!  We snuggled on the couch until the boys got home!

 Sunday was a day of rest, with Kyan sleeping in until almost 10am!  He was catching up on all of the late nights from the week before!  We hung out by the pool and I even got some alone time out there and enjoyed my book (Have you read the Divergent Series?  I finished book two this week- there are three and the next one doesn't come out until next year, boo...but they are so good!  If you liked Hunger Games, you should read them)!  Went for a walk with one of my former students that lives in the neighborhood!  It was very nice to catch up with Emily and she hung with me the entire time and got in some online PE hours!  I got a knock-off brand Camelbak and it seemed to do the trick pretty well, but had some issues with it staying cold!  With quite a few suggestions, I think I have it figured out!

 Monday began my crafting week!  I have a lot of stuff I want to get done for my classroom, so I started on a bunch of projects, including my pencil sundail welcome wreath!  I had a few visitors run errands with me before I walked (they swore next time to bring their walking shoes and not TOMS and flip-flops)!  It was hooooooooot out, and I felt all 111 degrees.  Ewwwwwww.  When I came home, Kyan was teaching Lola how to play Crazy 8's!  It was the sweetest thing ever!

 Tuesday I was feeling the effects of the cold I got from my daughter and I skipped walking.  I probably should have tried to sweat some of it out, but I just couldn't do it.  Instead, I cooked, well, I threw some yummy stuff in the crock pot and it did it's thing, while I crafted some more!  After eating some Hawaiian BBQ Pulled Chicken (click here if you want the recipe, and trust me you want to try this, so delicious)!  Lola wanted to go for a little dip in the pool before bed, so I took it as a perfect opportunity to sneak in a few pages of reading while she swam!

 Stayed up way too late reading and got up way to early to read, but I'm telling you I got sucked in to the book.  Finished my wreath for the classroom and can't wait to put it up next week!  I got the idea from here, but put my own little touches on it (birds, leopard print ribbon, flowery thumbtack)!  I will be able to pin new messages when I want to on it, as the circle part is made of cork!  Love to watch her sleep.  She fights it almost every day, and every day she zonks out almost immediately once she stops protesting her case!  The sky was beautiful on my walk Wednesday night.  I am at 28.8/45 miles for July.  

 We spent our day on the couch Thursday, something that I haven't done at all this summer.  Sure, I lay down and take naps with Lola on occasion, but we literally were couch potatoes all day!  The kids and I watched cartoons and I painted Lola's toes (she requested flowers, polka dots, and sparkles) and my nails!  Something I will probably not have the patience for myself ever again, but I love how they turned out!  Plus, I am trying to wait to get a mani/pedi right before school starts, so going to just stick to painting my own for a little while longer!  When we finally got off the couch, we headed to Panda for dinner before we went to watch our girl Alyssa swim at her final meet of the summer!  The kids did their best to cheer loud for her, but only lasted two out of her five races!

That's our week and now we are counting down the days until I have to go back to school for training before school actually starts!  Can't believe how fast this summer has gone.  I get my keys back to my classroom on Monday and I am sure a lot of my week will be spent there getting things ready!

Linking up with Jeannett this week over at Life Rearranged, who happened to just have a baby!  Congrats on the new addition to your family!  

Do you link up your life in phone pictures each week?  Friday is my favorite day of the week, love to look back and see what we did without having to drag out the big camera anymore!

Happy Weekend!

Extended Family Pictures

 This post needs to come with a WARNING!  It is picture heavy for sure!  

While my brother's family was in town last week, I asked my sister-in-law if she would be willing to take pictures of all of us!  She agreed and we did our best to get as many pictures in as possible in an hour (there are some that won't be named that don't have a ton of patience and they aren't members of my immediate family, eh-hem....dad)!

Couldn't be happier with how they turned out!  Don't think we have ever done pictures with all of us together ever, so it was a nice treat to give my parents.

 I mean, how cute are my parents?!  Love you mom and dad.

 The four of us.  I remember being little and having these done, but never as an older child.  Do you get family pictures done every year?  If not, you should.  The one below is my favorite of the four of us.  Think it pretty much shows exactly who we are.  Thank you Rae for capturing it.

I really love my little brother.  This trip out here for them made me realize how much I really miss him.  He and his family will be going overseas for the next three years (he works for Raytheon) and while I know it is what is best for his family, I am selfish in that I want he and his family to move next door to me.  Wishful thinking, but if I had it my way, I would live next door to every single family member, mine and Chad's.  I am lucky to be blessed with such wonderful family.

I really do wish you guys the best of luck!  What an experience y'all are going to have over in Saudi Arabia.  

And a few favorites of my family! Love them.

Was a hot and sweaty shoot, but couldn't be happier with the way these turned!

Love you BIG family.

InstaFriday - We ARE Family!!!

Another week has flown by, this one couldn't have been better!  Having family in town is the best!  Are you on Instagram?  I am jenni_roseland if you would like to follow and see our week before Friday's post!

 Kids got haircuts in preparation for all of the family coming into town this past week (plus, I may have scheduled a photo shoot while all of us were together)!  The hubs cut up the habanero peppers in preparation for our Summer Supper Club.  Jerk Chicken in the making (look for that post soon, I swear, all of the pictures are ready to go)!

 I painted the inside of mason jars and put flowers inside them for a little supper club table decor.  Hung between the windows were pictures of supper club pasts, the guest got to take home their pictures when the night ended!  Saturday marked two years (eight meals) of trying new foods together (and like I said above, a post about what we ate is coming soon)!

Sunday was really the day I was waiting for!  After church and painting Lola's toes in nice festive fourth of July colors, we headed up to my parents place to spend the day together - my brother and his family flew in from North Carolina and obviously, my parents were in town!  It was so nice to all be together!  As you can see, we pretty much swam the whole day.  Before my dad made us all dinner, my mom and I started off my July challenge (walking 45 miles in July) by going at the hottest part of the day!  While it was very pretty, it was hooooooottttt!

 Monday I had to go back to the dentist, more fillings and a mouth mold (worst thing ever)!  Ugh.  I grind my teeth, so a Night Guard was neccesary!  Headed back to my parents after I was done to join the kids in the pool, again!  Kyan fell asleep on the new raft they got and during a swim break, Lola was picking out the juiciest watermelon of them all to eat!  Walked around both lakes with my mom and Erin this time!  Was beautiful!

 Tuesday I picked up Fletchers remains and the Animal Hospital made us a very sweet heart with his paw prints.  They didn't have to do it and it wasn't something they made me pay for, just something they did.  Something so small, but it meant so much.  I had plans to meet up with my mom, sis-in-law, and friend to watch Magic Mike.  It was magical alright, but not really what I expected is really the only way I can put it!?  The cousins watched the firework show together!  The two little were not BIG fans at all! 

My favorite part of Tuesday was family picture day!  Here is just a sneak peek at one (really they were pictures of all of us together, but each of our families happened to get in a little one on one time and this was my favorite of ours)!

 Wednesday we had a BIG 4th of July party at the house and when I took a look at the clouds in the morning, I was worried we might be rained out all day!  It did pour for about an hour (and the kids played in it for sure) but we had to have a plan B for the cooking - so instead of making a bazillion hotdogs on the grill, we made them on the stove!  We swam and paused for an ice cream break and then ate some more!  Food, friends, family = fun for everyone!  Our fourth was a hit!  The boys played a new game called Torpedo in the pool (kinda like Marco Polo, but quieter) and it was hilarious!

 My favorite picture of them!!!  

 Thursday morning I woke up and headed to Last Chance with Meghan!  Been forever and a day since I have been there and the first time I have went with a professional Last Chance shopper!  I was hoping that I could score a pair of TOMS, and with Meghan's help and from a stranger in line, I found two pairs that fit!  Truth is I don't have the eye for shopping there, but hopefully I will be able to figure it out with future trips!  I got a pair of wedges and a sparkly silver pair of TOMS, a gold pair of Sperry's, two pairs of Havaianas, 3 short sleeve shirts and 3 tank tops, all for under a hundred bucks!  Saw Brave with the kids before heading back out to my parents house, where I walked around the lakes again with my mom!  Grandpa was busy being the favorite again!  He is so good with the kids, no wonder they all love him!

Life in phone pictures, how it goes these days!

Linking up with Jeannett, over at Life Rearranged again this week!