4th of July

We went down to Gainesville, FL on a whim and visited Matt's mom and grandparents for the 4th of July. His grandparents have just been moved to assisted living and they seem to be adjusting well, which is good for everyone. The place is really cute, too! It kind of reminds me of a dorm for seniors. Everyone has their own apartment and they have all sorts of social activities. They even have cocktail hour some days! They had a photoboard set up for the 4th of July so we took a few photos for Grandmom and Grandad. Here's me and Matt's Mom being patriotic:

After Gainesville we headed down to Ocala to grill out and shoot fireworks. On the way we stopped in Micanopy (a really tiny town on 441) to try out a pizza place I'd been wanting to visit. Blue Highway certainly lived up to the hype, and if you're in that neck of the woods, I suggest you try the thick crust pizza. It was to die for. It was so good, that I got carried away eating it and forgot to take a photo of the actual pizza.

Since I grew up in South Carolina shooting fireworks, I don't mess around. This year the grand finale was 'Red, White, & BOOM'!

It was so great and much needed to get out of town and enjoy a change of scenery for a while. We've kind of been up to the same old-same old too much these days, and it was amazing how relaxed I felt just after the first hour of being on the road. I hope everyone else had a fabulous 4th of July!

Palmetto Cookies with Royal Icing

After learning that one of our coworkers was leaving Augusta to move to Charleston last week, we decided to throw her a little farewell party last night. The theme was the lowcountry, of course, and I was so excited that I had a chance to use my new palmetto and crescent moon cookie cutter.
I used store bought cookie dough, since I was a little pressed for time and put it in the freezer ahead of time to make it easier to roll out and cut cookies and once they were baked and cooled I iced them with royal icing.

Here's the recipe I used, it's super easy!

Royal Icing:

2 large egg whites

2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

3 cups of sifted confectioners sugar

Combine egg whites and lemon juice with blender. Slowly add sifted sugar and mix until icing thickens. Mine turned out a little thick at first so I added a few teaspoons of warm water to soften it up a bit.

This was my first time icing cookies with homemade royal icing and although I need to work on my technique a little bit the icing tasted delicious and I think the final product turned out pretty cute!

Now I'm on the hunt for a South Carolina shaped cookie cutter. Wouldn't those two be so cute paired together?

Twilight Fever

I still haven't seen Eclipse, which is fine by me. I enjoy Twilight, but you probably wouldn't call me a 'Twi-hard'. I certainly wouldn't have enjoyed the midnight premiere with all the 15 year olds screaming about Edward and Jacob every time they are on screen.

I did see this lovely mini van on the highway last week and had to take a photo to share. Either the kids are super huge Twilight fans and their parents support them or the entire family adores the books and movies.

If you can't read it text on the top of the van's rear window and monogram it reads: 'And so the lion fell in love with the lamb.' That's some serious Twilight love!