Wine Cork Wreath

So, one of my favorite bloggers (La Tache over at Smiling is Good For Your Teeth) posted awhile back a Wine Cork Wreath DIY that she found here. Ryan and I have been collecting wine corks for ages and I have been trying to think of something to do with them... this seemed perfect! We love our red wine, so much that our kitchen is even wine themed! We save corks from special occassions (and write on them what they are from) in our bottle shaped cork saver, but our everyday corks were just getting thrown into my old jars until I found a project for them.

I was pretty excited so I sat down to do our wreath about three weeks ago. I got the first layer done pretty quickly too.

 

It was looking great and I hadn't burned myself yet. All good things for sure as hot glue and I tend to have a rather bad history together. The scar on my left hand from third grade can attest to that.

 

So for the whole first layer you do a flat covering to hide as much of the straw wreath as possible. Now you remember I said I started this three weeks ago? Well... I ran out of corks. So I ordered more from Amazon. Ryan made fun of me for spending money to buy used corks online but hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. So I waited a week before starting the next layer.

 

The next layer was a lot more fun so a week ago, when my 130 extra corks came in, I began the hodge podge second layer. And I ran out of corks again. The initial site said she used about 180 corks for her wreath. I used heck of a lot more. I had close to 100 to start, ordered another 130, ran out of corks again, and just did another order of 130. I did end up with some corks left over but truth be told, not many. So yes, you will more than likely need more than 180 corks. I did anyway! My second shipment of corks came in yesterday and I finally finished my wreath and proudly hung it in our red wine kitchen.

Ta Da!

I was debating getting a red wine colored ribbon to add a bow to it, or maybe a large L for our last name, but for now it is proudly hanging in our kitchen. I enjoyed doing something crafty again, it is definitely something I think I need to get back into! Have you done anything crafty lately? And not too hard? Share in the comments, I need some more ideas!

Valentine... a little delayed

So, this was scheduled to post a week ago and didn't actually post. Just when I think I am getting back into the swing of things.... Ah well.

 

Our Valentine's Day was a really nice one, I have to say. Ryan finished his first cycle as an instructor and had a long weekend and I was finally recovered enough from being sick from my surgery to go out and do things. We woke up in the morning and I gave Ryan a small painting I made him. I did not photograph it because it wasn't that good but he seemed to like it! We got ready and drove down to Topsail Beach to walk on the beach a bit. It was absolutely freezing so we only walked for maybe five or ten minutes before retreating to the warmth of the car, but it was still gorgeous to look at!

 

 

After the beach we continued on to Wilmington where we had a late lunch/early dinner at an all you can eat sushi place we kept seeing but never actually went to. It was absolutely delicious and we were full to the brim by the time we at our six or so special rolls! We then stopped at Trader Joes for some munchy foods for later that evening. My parents also sent us some Georgetown Cupcakes to celebrate me feeling better, Ryan's upcoming birthday, and of course Valentine's Day.

 

I also redecorated our mantle for the occassion. After my surgery my mom and I had made a trip to Hobby Lobby and everything (aside from my angels) came from there. It was my first time ever in a Hobby Lobby and I must say I need to avoid it lest I spend a TON of money on a regular basis!

 

We ended with a low key evening at home with our stuff from Trader Joe's. We had a bottle of wine, cheese and crackers, and a chocolate lava cake with frozen raspberries for dessert. Ryan lit a fire in the fireplace and we put the Frank Sinatra station on Pandora and had a nice evening together. Dancing may have been involved.

 

Overall it was a very low key Valentine's Day, but we spent it together, which is always a bonus in my book!

 

4th Anniversary Celebration

For our anniversary I mentioned we do the traditional gifts; paper, cloth, leather etc. For four years it is fruit/flowers so we just decided to go do a wine tasting at Duplin Winery and not worry about presents or anything this year.

The night of our anniversary itself we cracked open our bottle of Limoncello that we got from Pompeii and were saving for a special occassion... this worked! It was strong but delicious.

 

Then on Saturday we went to the beach and then drove out to Duplin Winery... we've lived here two years and never tried the free wine tasting so we figured now was as good a time as any.

 

 

We had some awesome wines and some delicious pineapple habanero dip in a gorgeous room! Sadly we were too late to eat at the Bistro and they were having a fifty year class reunion that evening so we saw a lot of well dressed older people arriving that were so adorable. 

 

I'm not a huge muscadine fan, it's a tad too sweet for me, but we had a few wines that were delicious. And the mixed icies they let us sample were heavenly!

 

Overall a great way to spend an anniversary. We went bowling later that night and I broke 100! Huge accomplishment for gutterball me!

Wine Walk

This past weekend Ryan, Rylie and I drove down to South Carolina for some needed family time and Mother's Day. I had to work Friday so we had a late start (and somehow I drove all four hours) but we had a really nice weekend. Saturday we went to the Lexington Wine Walk and had a blast! We took a cab both ways so my mother in law, Ryan and I could all enjoy ourselves and we definitely did!! 

Once we got to the walk we received our wine glass and wine coozie! I didn't even know wine coozies existed! All along the street local businesses had table with wine, food and freebies. Our coozie collection has grown, a ladybug necklace somehow stayed on me all night and light up bracelets made the night flash. There was live music and I had a hook up at the table with the sparkling wine so I was a happy camper!

I even got to slow dance with my husband :D Perfect night!

 
 And my sister in law is adorable! We were all up late Saturday and needless to say Sunday was pretty lazy and quiet!! We left to head home pretty late in the afternoon and somehow I ended up driving three quarters of the way again :P We got home late and Ryan went right to sleep as he has been on the range ever since. Poor guy is getting up at 3am everyday! Today I didn't work so I saw him for a whole two hours before he went to bed. Only two more days and we will have a similar schedule once more. 
 
 

 The Dup had fun too despite hating the car (and the cat... But that's another story!). This is the closest I've ever seen her to sticking her head out the window of a moving vehicle. My dog is weird. 
 
 

Vacation Part 2

Our days were mostly spent at the beach. We'd body surf, sun go to River City Cafe for lunch, shower and change and go out at night. Oh. River City Cafe was this cafe right by Ocean Annie's and one day Ryan and I got the OMG Burger....

Not my picture, but from Google.

We split it thankfully! To quote the menu:
“OMG” burger platter - two patties topped with two fried eggs, hickory smoked bacon, swiss and cheddar, lots of mayo, lettuce, tomato and fried onion strings, stuffed between two grilled cheese sandwiches and served with a pile of fries, two giant fried onion rings and slaw (The bun couldn’t handle it!)

SO GOOD. Yes I ate my whole half.

Next off... Ripley's Aquarium!

Ryan really wanted to go here as he remembered coming when he was younger. It was in this section of Myrtle Beach called Broadway at the Beach. I had to practically drag Ryan away from the mermaids show, it was mainly weird old guys and little kids in line! My husband has a mermaid problem that stretches back to the first time he saw the Little Mermaid. :P Dork. Anyway the aquarium had this really awesome tunnel that you could walk through (or ride the moving sidewalk) and observe all sorts of sea creatures.


It was so cool. We saw tons of sharks, fish, eels, turtles, stingrays and sawfish as we went through. The blue light was from the sunlight way above in the skylights shining through the water. I felt like we were just in a tunnel under the ocean.


Turtle!! There may or may not have been Finding Nemo "DUUUUUUUUUDE!" quotes!


Check out all those sharks! This was all just one big tank with the tunnel winding through. Everyone seemed ok with everyone else...


Sawfish! I hadn't seen one of those in ages!

Then we saw some jellyfish *shudder* in this cool blue window. Even though I hate the things I couldn't resist getting a picture. It looked really awesome, like a porthole with this bright blue light and floaty orange things... (sorry I just had a margarita at work for my co-worker's last day, may not be best to drink and blog)!


Ryan and I then tried to pet the stingrays. None of the little kids would shove over on the smaller part of the wall so I never got to touch any, but gangly Mr. Long Arms did!


Horseshow crabs on the other hand were much more within my reach. They seemed to like getting pet as they kept grouping on the edges to see who could get the closest!



I LOVED this stingray sky light. It was literally about fifteen feet in the air and looked pretty sweet.


After the aquarium we walked around the lake thing on the boardwalk and fed the ducks and koi. There were little food dispenser machines for a quarter, like they have in petting zoos. The koi were vicious, practically jumping out of the water! The ducks held their own though. We then saw a brand new store, the Boardwalk Winery! It even had a grand opening sign. Score.


They were offering wine tastings, seven different wines of your choice, for $3! For $1 more you could keep your glass... which was actually a wine glass (a small one but still, not a cheapy plastic one)! Deal! All the wines were more of a fruit base that was of the nongrape variety. They had blackberry, peach, mango, plum, raspberry and any combinations of them. We were chatting with our pourer guy and ended up having about ten tastes since he liked us! He even mixed us his favorite, Medium Blueberry with Dry Mango/Peach. Delicious.

Slightly tipsy (a trend for me considering my current state) we started walking through the heat again when I saw....



The Bodies Exhibit is something I really wanted to see for a long time. Ryan has been before when it was in DC but I missed it. It was only $10 so it was worth it to me. They didn't seem to be real. I highly recommend going if it comes into your area.

After that was dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, another tradition of Ryan's. The food was very good so I was not complaining in the least.

Part three will follow soon!

Corned Beef and Cabbage FAIL

I love Saint Patrick's Day. I am pretty heavily Irish, I mean my maiden name begins with O', a dead give away! One of my grandmothers was 100% Irish, and her husband was at least half (my real dad's parents). My mom always went out of her way to make the holiday special for me even though she has no Irish blood. She would make corned beef and cabbage and Irish Soda bread and all sorts of things. Did I mention Ryan and I met for the first time at a Saint Patrick's Day Party???

You catch my drift at this point. It is one of my favorite holidays.

So I was pretty excited to cook my first big Saint Patrick's Day dinner.

I went to Trader Joes after work on Wednesday and got all the essentials. Potatoes, onions, carrots, Irish Soda Bread (aka Blarney Scone! Hahahahaha... sorry) and Irish Butter. I just needed the actual corned beef. After wandering the store a bit I found the meat wall and got my five pound slab. It was already in a marinade with these giant peppercorns and big bay leaves and other things. Here I am thinking, "Sweet! One less thing to do!" So I get my stuff and go home.

After dinner that night I throw it all together in the crock pot. I paused a moment and debated rinsing off the beef and making my own marinade but... nahhhh. It would probably be better! Trader Joe's hasn't failed me yet!

Oh, but it did. Mistake one.

I throw it all in the crock pot and see the cabbage sitting aside. I am not a huge cabbage fan and my crock pot isn't huge, so I thought I would cheat and get shredded cabbage.

Mistake two.

I wake up the next morning, get the crock pot out of the fridge, and turn it on low.

All day I was so excited. Ryan would have his first home made corned beef and cabbage and our friends were coming over, it would be great. Well Lauren and Russ ended up not making it ( :( ) as Lauren got stuck at work, but we did wait til after 8 for them. I figured after nearly 13 hours in the crock pot this meat would be fall apart fantastic.

Oh, so so wrong.

The spices took over! Why did I not listen to my instincts and rinse the darn thing!? It permeated the vegetables and my poor shredded cabbage, mistake number two, was wilted and brown in the rubble. Oh crap. I tried to pour the juices out to reduce it to a sauce and ended up with cornstarch congealed blobs in potpourri water. So we skipped the sauce.

Ryan, bless him, was praising me up and down and eating it and saying it was delicious. As I chewed my Blarney Scone I looked at him and said,

"It's awful. I taste it too you know!"

"No, no it's not!"

Pointed look from me goes here.

"Ok, maybe just the vegetables...."

Ugh.

I felt so bad! The meat for some reason was not fall apart tender. It was rough. The flavor there was ok but the veggies were like cooked potpourri. It was terrible. We ate the meat with spicy mustard and lots of bread and butter, but the veggies were left basically. Anyone ever see Back to the Future 3? Remember when Marty is back in time and his great-great-great grandfather serves him rabbit he just hunted for and he takes a bite and spits little bullets onto his plate? That was us, with peppercorns or whatever the hell they were.

After we felt bad throwing out the veggies but they were inedible! What a waste :( But Ryan opened a bottle of White Zinfindel and I felt better.

And as Ryan put it, "Don't worry my love, you can practice again next year!"

Ryan's Valentine's

For Valentine's Day I got my husband two tickets to the DC International Wine Festival (thank you Groupon!), which was yesterday. I had to give him his present early obviously so we could go! Ryan looooves wine so this was perfect for him! We got up in the morning, went to IHOP, church, and then took the metro to the Ronald Regan Building for the festival. And I forgot my camera... that never happens! So excuse the poor quality cell phone pictures!

When we got there it was like a maze! People were wandering around and trying to find the entrance and tickets and security... oy. This girl looked at me and said, "Do you have a Groupon too?" I was like, "Yes..."

"Oh we're not going to get in til like 6pm!"
"Wait, what?"
"For about every ten people with tickets they let in one groupon person. Apparently someone was supposed to be here to collect them separately but aren't. Anyway, it's messed up. I am going to try and sneak in. My fiance did so yea, it's this way."
"But, but... that wasn't in the fine print!"

So I am blindly following her with Ryan following me. We get to the ticket area and the girl cuts left and is gone. I see a woman standing there with a stack of tickets. As I am looking a couple with the Groupon papers hand their papers to her and get tickets. So I shrug and drag Ryan to her, give her the papers, and we get our two tickets. Suspiciously easy! What wait was she talking about? We walked right in and got tickets! I walk to follow everyone else in to the main area and I see the line. All of them holding Groupon papers... easily about three hundred people long. And we cut them all.

Oops.

Buuuut we had our tickets... and our Groupon was already were collected... so we couldn't get it back or anything... *cough*

So we go in to the festival! It's crowded and basically every man/woman for themselves. You are handed a glass and then you go to the tables!


Our glass!

We went around and elbowed our way in to the front of tables and got some really good wine!! I liked this one white Tokai wine from Hungary, and this South African red wine called Cafe, which had coffee undertones! I don't like coffee but I loooved that wine! I want it! (:


Cafe is the one with the red label

The side rooms also had vodka, rum, and absinthe. That was good. It tasted like a mixture of sambucca and anise/fennel and instantly made your mouth cold. I only had a little bit but it was interesting. No little green men though!


The crowds

We also tried some good chili, crackers, tomato things, cheese... it was yummy! We also ran into Ryan's old Platoon Sgt (he got out and is in school now) and his girlfriend Katie, who is a doll. We went around with them and this other hilarious couple we met and just had a blast. I was pleasantly tispy and enjoyed the day immensely! We went to Old Ebbitt Grill after and then stumbled home on the metro! We had a great time together and I was very happy he liked my gift! Now only a week til his birthday.... crap.

A few more pictures:


Our favorite Spanish wine..... man oh man was it good! We're big red wine drinkers.


Ryan enjoying his present!


I was there too!



Ryan is taking me somewhere (?) for dinner so I will update you all tomorrow. Happy Valentine's Day!