Happy Friday Everyone!
One – Brian’s Birthday Celebration at the Ritz Carlton
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Happy Friday, friends! Well, it is the long dreary month of January… but, we always have Brian’s birthday to look forward to this month. We spent one night at the Ritz to celebrate. I’m sharing my new sweater vest from H&M in the first photo (before we left the house) and when we arrived we had champagne and chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us in our room.
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I changed in our room for dinner and wore a dress I have had for a couple of years, but I love the darker floral print and the long sleeves. I got these blush ruffle booties off of Jane (but, they’re on Amazon, too!) and I just love wearing them leading up to Valentine’s Day! We had dinner inside the Ritz at their new Italian restaurant called Casa Don Alfonso. It did not disappoint!
I wish I had gotten a better photo of us! I took this selfie of us while we were waiting on the lounge for our table. Oh well! I had the most DELICIOUS lasagna that night… it may have even been better than the lasagna I had our last day in Venice in St. Mark’s Square.
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The last morning there, I got all dressed up for brunch downstairs in the same Casa Don Alfonso restaurant. I don’t get a lot of excuses these days to dress up, so I had fun packing my outfits. The brunch buffet was delicious and Casa Don Alfonso has the best cappuccinos!
Two – Update on the Teens 🙂
Nathan had his first band concert since before the pandemic started. It was called Christmas at the Chapel and was beautiful. They’re headed out for a band tour to Jefferson City and Kansas City in the Spring and I hope everything calms down before then for them.
Autumn is at a new school this year, so it was neat to see the Christmas program that they had for the first time. Autumn picked out a cute sweater dress with puffy sleeves from Abercrombie and she straightened her hair. She did a flute solo while the other 7-8th graders played the hand bells.
And, the first Monday of Christmas break… Autumn got braces! She has been doing great with them.
Three – A Little Holiday Recap
We hosted Christmas at our house and had my mom and dad over. My dad almost didn’t come, because he’s just really weak these days. But, I was glad he came over even though he sat on the couch most of the time. We missed my brother and SIL, but they had a big trip coming up and needed to stay at home this year. Hopefully next year will be a little more normal (we keep saying that, I know, I know…). We went really simple with food this year, we catered sandwiches, a salad and then I had chips and a charcuterie board.
For the party, I made a sangria with a mason jar mix that I got from a local boutique here. It was so good! It had these large candied cherries in the bottom and they had absorbed the mixture and were so delicious. We also made our Christmas cookies. I always do homemade sugar and gingerbread cookies with a royal icing. We sit as a family and decorate them.
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For New Year’s Eve we had fondue at The Melting Pot. On New Year’s Day we went to Top Golf for lunch for some fun!
Four – Latest Book, Shows and Movies
I’m really enjoying this series by Elin Hilderbrand. I just wrapped up the second book in the series, What Happens in Paradise. I’m excited to find out what happens in the last book/book 3! These are really easy to read, feel good books that give you a taste of family life on St. John’s with a little mystery!
Over Christmas break, we were able to watch Emily in Paris, Season 2! Oh, did I love it! So much drama, fashion and it is set in Paris. What is not to love?
We also watched the new Netflix movie, Don’t Look Up. Oh, mannn. What a movie. The ending was… so bizarre. And, it was just a good one to watch with the family. It is about a comet that is going to hit the Earth and destroy it.
Five – A Couple of my Fave Things!
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I couldn’t think of just one thing I wanted for Christmas this year, so Brian got me a few things off of a list. I really like Uncommon Gifts, they really have a lot of original gift ideas. I found this Merlot Infused Tea and I knew I wanted to try it. It smells so good when you pop open the can and it even has a tea infuser inside it. Fresh tea is so much better than bagged tea!! It really does smell/taste like Merlot and is good plain! One other item that Brian gifted me were these wrist/ankle weights from Bala. They are 1 lb each, so pretty light weight. I prefer them on my wrists when I walk, warm up, do chores around the house or during Yoga.
I hope everyone has a nice and relaxing weekend!
