New London Food Stroll and Blog Reccomendation

Hi peoples!  Just a quick stop by today to share about the New London Food Stroll that I attended last week.  New London is a cute little New Englad town right on the water here in CT that's undergone some major updates in the past 15 years.  I used to go to New London all the time as a teenager to a little club called the El n Gee to watch rock concerts- which is still there!  Since then, New London has really become a fun, artsy town covered with murals and filled with yummy restaurants and bars.

Cute little Main Street, right?

Robb and I came to New London a few months ago when he had two of his photographs on display at their Hygenic Art Photography Show (one of which was an honorable mention! woot woot) but it has been a while since I've been back. I finally went back down last week for their annual Food Stroll.  It was the kind of food stroll I like, you pay for the ticket and then gorge on free samples :D (I hate it when you have to buy samples individually!). I never realized how many restaurants were crammed into downtown New London, we were going into a new restaurant every few steps to try out their food! Thank goodness for all that walking because I might have totally pigged out that night haha.  Lots of delicious samples, including many seafood dishes which I was quite happy about!  I think my favorite was a seafood paella with fried plantains and a teeny tiny mojito to go with it.  Perhaps I liked this the best because it reminded me of Puerto Rico ;)

Anyways, I went with a few friends- including Amanda, who has already written about the night on her blog which you can find HERE.  Amanda's blog is full of great content like fashion, decorating, crafting, and lifestyle posts .  She showcases her amazing and unique sense of style (plus she's cute as a button!)
 and has a weekly blog post called "Etsy Everything" where she shares some really awesome Etsy shops and their products.  So head on over to her blog and show her some love- you won't be disappointed!

Puerto Rico Part 3: What We Did

Hi everyone! I promise this will be my last post about Puerto Rico :P  This post is about what we did while we were down there, which quite honestly wasn't very much lol!  That's the point right?  Well you already know that we went out and got dinner and cocktails a few nights, and had a nice dinner at home, so pretty much the rest of the vacation was lounging!  Robb ended up shooting far longer than we had anticipated so we hung around the house most days.

Which of course lead to a sunburn of epic proportions (ps nice cleavage)

One day I went snorkeling in the back yard and found these little treasures :)  I tried to go a few other days after that but the ocean was too rough so I couldn't see anything :(

I also figured out the perfect recipe for beach waves.  Take that Pinterest!

I thought it would be fun, since I bought a new wardrobe before my trip, to show you guys all the cute outfits I wore.  But literally I only wore 3 outfits, i mean it was HOT.  Most days was a bathing suit (which is why I came home with about 50 bug bites.  quite literally. that might be an underestimate).  But at any rate, here are my beachy outfits that I managed to wear (you might notice I like stripes lol).

Our villa has a little atrium inside it and we kept discovering crabs in the living room!  It was so funny!  At first we thought one had escaped from the beach so we put it out on the sand, only to find it dead like a day later.  Then we realized that the crabs came from the atrium and were terrestrial crabs....oops :/.  We kept finding crabs downstairs though so after that we returned them to the right place!

And here are a few last instagrams from our trip (you can follow me at UserName: GlueMeetsPaper)

 Robb is always the photographer :)

The last day in PR we decided we would actually leave the house and explore around, maybe go horseback riding or jet skiing but of course it was a torrential downpour that entire day lol.

We had a great time but missed Charlie bear bunches!  He stayed with his grandparents and had an awesome time with them.  We did facetime everday but we also came up with this little calendar.  Robb asked me to make a little countdown chart for Charlie so he'd know how long it would be until we got home.  Of course he asked this the morning of the day we were leaving so I didn't have time to do anything super fancy but Charlie helped me pull this little guy together.  He put stickers at the end of each day as a marker for how many days until we came back :)

Puerto Rico Part 2: A Sunset Dinner on the Beach

Hi again! I'm here today to share some pictures of a really beautiful sunset beachside dinner Robb and I had, cooked by yours truly :)

We knew we wanted to do an on location dinner shoot at the house for promo photos but we figured we'd just grill up some hot dogs or something.  But then one morning we saw a food truck selling fresh fish so we decided to grab a fresh whole yellowtail.  There was also a little fruit and veggie stand nearby so I picked up some red onion, limes, avocado, and local mangoes.  YUM.  I wanted cilantro but it looked pretty bad so I held off. 

Anyways, it's always hard cooking in someone else's house but I thought we pulled it off pretty nicely!  I discovered some cumin, cayenne, and Adobo seasoning in the cupboards so I was able to make a pretty tasty dinner! 

I made a mango guacamole by dicing mangoes, an avocado, 1/2 red onion and then adding some salt, cumin, cayenne pepper, and the juice of 1 lime.  I love adding cumin to guacamole- it makes it taste so freaking good!

The fish was a little tougher since I had never cooked a whole fish before.  I sprinkled the whole thing with salt and Adobo seasoning and then stuffed the cavity with 1/2 lime cut into wedges and 1/2 red onion.  I wrapped the whole thing in tin foil and then we cooked it up on the grill. 

Here's our finished result- it was super tasty, fresh, and light.  Plus a beachside dinner at sunset can't be beat #amiright?

We had a few meals at home to try and save money but we did have some really awesome meals/cocktails during our vacation.  SO much of the food in Puerto Rico was fried so we had a bit of a challenge trying to find something light and relatively healthy.  Here are a few of the culinary highlights of our trip :)
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LeFarm, Westport, CT

Wesport in the springtime, the town looked like a movie town, so pretty!

We stopped here on the way to JFK prior to leaving.  It was scrumptious!  It was pricey but totally fresh, unique, and tasty.  I got fried risotto balls with clam butter for a starter and shrimp and grits for dinner.  Robb got foie gras to start and beef cheeks for dinner-- this was one of the rare occassions in our relationship where he out ordered me!  I almost always choose the better dishes but Robb's food was definitely outright fantastic....unfortunately this trend continued our whole stupid vacation haha.
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Escape at Casa Verde

BEST drink of my entire life.  No, for real.  All the drinks were made with super freshly squeezed juices, so the mojito was to die for.  That was great, but the BEST drink I've ever had EVER was a Cucumber Watermelon cocktail.  OMG.  It was muddled mint and cucumber mixed with fresh watermelon juice and vodka, chilled, strained and absolutely deliciuos.  Dinner was great too, but man those drinks were fantastic! (and if you wondering if Robb out ordered me here- yes he did, he ordered that drink first lol)

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Villa Confresi

This place had wonderful beachside dining.  We went right at sunset which was superb.  While we were admiring the sunset we got these awesome cocktails made in a coconut!  Robb saw this online and was obsessed with getting a coconut drink from this place and they did not disappoint.  You can see approximately 100 drinks on our table for just the two of us haha.

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Ode to the Elephants

The view from the roof top where we were eating

This was a cool Thai place in Rincon.  It was up many flights of stairs to a rooftop restaurant with awesome views overlooking the forest and the ocean.  The food was very yummy and reasonably priced but the service left something to be desired (this seemed to be a trend in PR)

Okay guys, one more Puerto Rico post and then I'll be done, promise ;)

Puerto Rico Part 1: Where We Stayed

Hi everyone! As I've mentioned I'm planning a couple posts about my stay in Rincon, Puerto Rico.  Today will be Part 1- all about the beautiful house we stayed in!

We were very lucky as Robb's boss is one of the owners of 2 beach front villa's- called Pelicans Pass.  Since he needed better interior photos Robb got the chance to go down and shoot, plus we had access to both villa's for most of the time there which was pretty sweet.

These villa's were HUGE and literally right on the water.  It was a beautiful place to stay and I couldn't have asked for a better location.

Here are some of the photo's of Pelican Pass that Robb took while we were there! 

Layouts to Share (about freakin time right?)

Yes yes, I actually have scrapbook layouts to share! Although I'm sure it's impossible to get sick of looking at pictures of Charlie on a scrapbooking blog, right?  right?  Anyways I banged out these two layouts the past couple days to try and get back in the groove of things (and also to avoid doing laundry).  These photos aren't great cause they were taken with my iPhone, lest you think Robb's lost his touch haha (he's busy preparing for shooting a TV commercial tomorrow!)

This one is Christmas themed so it's probably the last layout you want to see but all the Christmas calls are going to be coming up, and I had hardly touched my Christmas Noel Mignon kit, so I got to scrappin'!  This is our Christmas card from last year, the photo is inspired by an idea I saw on (what else?) Pinterest.

And here's a random layout I made using the very last bits of the Homespun kit by Noel Mignon. I tried something completely different and started designing the layout before I had picked my photographs and then pretty much placed my photographs on top of the paper collage.  Very backwards way to do things for me but it was different and fun, not entirely in LOVE with the result but it's cute enough :)

Mother's Day Weekend

Hi everyone! I had a really fun (and really busy) weekend, how about you?  I enjoyed myself but the house is totally trashed and I still haven't put away the laundry from our trip.  Ooops :/

Anyways, Saturday Robb and I brought Charlie to the circus!  I haven't been to a circus in SO long I forgot how much fun they are.  Charlie actually sat and watched for almost 2 hours before we had to leave early, so that was pretty impressive considering what a squirmer he is lol.  We got cotton candy and a snow cone (all of which Charlie refused to eat) but Robb and I enjoyed them!

 We got Charlie a super over priced little spinny light thingy which he LOVED.  He kept bopping himself on the head with it and then cracking up lol.

Wasn't his circus outfit cuuuuuute?

On Sunday an Edible Arrangement (my faaaaavorite) arrived at our house in the morning!  Yippee! And my grandfather had sent some Mother's Day flowers as well, he's so thoughtful :D  Afterwards Charlie and I headed to my parents beachhouse for lunch and some beach time.  It was sunny at the house but once we walked to the beach (of course Charlie rode in his wagon haha) it was so windy and freeeeezing.  Charlie had a blast though, running around like crazy!

Can we walk to the beach now mommy?  Beach? Beach? BEACH!!!!

So all in all a very fun and relaxing weekend (following a fun and relaxing vacation!), but now it's back to the grind.  Work, eating healthy, excercise....booooooring! haha :)

Hey Mama's!

Happy Mother's Day to all the fabulous Mom's out there (in particular, my wonderful Peggy!).  I hope you guys have an awesome Mother's Day!

I actually (gasp) have a paper crafting project to share with you today, imagine that!  Here's the card I made my Mom (Peggy).  I used Noel Mignon's kit "Primrose Lane" which is just perfect for a girly soft mother's day card.  Although I doubt this will be better than last year's card, which was featured on the COVER of CARDS Magazine!  That was pretty awesome :)  I graciously let my mom know that since her Mother's Day card was on the cover of a magazine it was probably the best card in the world which made me the best daughter in the world for making it for her (duh, lol).

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the card and also enjoy your day, ladies!  I'll have more scrappy projects to share soon along with some pics from my trip to PR!

Puerto Rico!

Well we made it!  It was a little dicey there with Charlie getting sick right before we left but he was feeling 80% better by the time we left so we were more comfortable leaving him :)  And now we're back!  I want to do a few posts about our trip (not that we did much except day drink, eat, and lie on the beach lol) but here's a little taste of my last week (ain't I a stinker?)