Top Ten....

One day between using our favorite plates and cooking rice in our beloved rice cooker, Wes and I thought that maybe it would be a fun idea to post a blog of our top ten most used KITCHEN wedding gifts. We chose to only do kitchen gifts because it would be impossible to pick from all of our gifts. Pretty much everything we own was a wedding gift! So, I grabbed my pen and we started listing out the things we use the most. It was much harder than we thought it would be! Some things are so apart of your day-to-day living that you don't even realize when you use it. So, here they are... the line up, in no specific order...

Soup Bowls from Ikea:


Our kitchen timer:

The aforementioned rice cooker (everyone should own one of these bad boys, Thanks Courtney and Carlos!):


Cups from Crate & Barrel:


Our eating utensils (and then also the awesome utensil holder which is from my brother):


The Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book:


Plates from Target and Crate & Barrel:

The plates from Anthropology (Rachelle, these guys are perfect for everything!):


Our French Press:
Our Kitchen Shears:


Our Toaster:
And of course, our pots and pans:

Okay... so maybe that was our top 12, but honestly... its so hard to just pick ten when you are including basics like pots, plates, and eating utensils. Realistically this list should be twice its size when considering all the things used every day; such as our salt and pepper shaker, knives, place mats, spatulas.... Maybe this blog should just be titled: "We love the stuff you got us!" We use our wedding gifts and we love every one of them. I hope that they last until we are wee-little old people and our grandchildren are grabbing cookies from our Anthropology plates. :)
We love you all!

Blog Makeover!

Hello all blog readers,

We have officially given the blog a makeover! I wanted to make a point of posting about it because:

1) I didn't want any of you who come to our site to be confused when the normal brown doesn't pop up. Yes, you are viewing our blog.

and

2) Some of you don't actually visit our blog website and instead just read the blogs through email. If this is you, come to the site and check the new page out. Its bright and fun and exciting! :) Click here for a direct link from your email to the blog page.

Not only did we change what the page looks like but we removed the "newly" from the "newly married" in our blog sub-title. We figured after two years it wasn't so new anymore (just like how we finally decided to remove my garter from around the mirror in our car about a month ago.)
So here's to a fresh new look! Hope you guys like it!

Raviolis and Wine

a bunch of unused ricotta in the fridge means that we are having homemade spinach ricotta raviolis for dinner tonight. And the best part is?? It's being paired with some yummy wine. I am officially a red-wine fanatic and get really excited about the opportunity to pair some with a yummy meal. I really just wanted to hop on and post the last couple pictures from Mckenna's visit here. And they really are the last couple as I only have about 6 from the last few things we did.

On saturday night we went to Voodoo Doughnuts. Basically anyone who has visited us has been on a late night venture to Voodoo Doughnuts. No one has ever seen anything like it and so we really wanted Mckenna to catch the experience too. However, we have never had a wait like we did this time. The line was seriously around the corner. People would walk by asking us if the line was for a show and we'd be like "it's for doughnuts." People's reactions were hilarious. Anyway! We waited 40 minutes so Mckenna could see the craziness. For any of you who haven't been there, Voodoo is a famous for making very unusual doughnuts: fruitloops, bacon, peanut butter and oreos, etc...

It was a great adventure and a great doughnut...

waiting in line

the line

Our doughnuts

Sunday Morning
Our yummy chai that we made in the morning with my milk steamer.
So good!

Ok, so Mckenna has never had hashbrowns before. In fact, she didn't know what they were when I asked her. Wes and I looove hashbrowns, especially Potatoes O'brian. So, I felt like it was something that Mckenna had to have atleast once in her life. I made her scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, and peaches. I couldn't believe it as we sat in front of our plates and I had to tell her "people usually eat it with ketchup." ha ha So cute. Anyway, they were a success and she liked them! :)

It was such a great time having Mckenna here. We had a blast and now I'm just recovering from my busy last 3 weeks. Its been a great vacation/summer so far... now, time to start work again and also sink back into normalcy. Which I'm actually pretty excited about.

Friday and Saturday with Mckenna!

Our past two days, in pictures...

Wes made yummy looking eggs in bread and snuck a picture on the camera without me knowing.

Thursday night Mckenna and I went to Mcmenamins for dinner and a movie. (for the amazing small total of $25. After the movie we popped over Sticcato Gilato. Yum!

After ice cream we were in the mood to make some art so we busted out the kid supplies and did some painting.

On friday, we had to "move out" of the house we were watching back to our apartment. We cleaned up the house and then we headed over to Powell's book for Mckenna to experience. We had a great time looking through cook books and wedding magazines in the coffee shop. After this we went to:

The Rose Garden

Gorgeous, right?
(Ashley, I so wish you could have made it inside!)

Can you say, "Alice in Wonderland"???

"You painted the roses red!"

Us

Then we headed home and took a walk to the grocery store. We got some last minute things we needed for dinner and because we had a couple hours to kill we decided to pick out a couple drinks to take to Laurelhurst park (Iced tea and juice), lay out on a blanket and do some coloring.

Laurelhurst park

(notice the little duck by the bench in the above picture?)

Our yummy dinner that night: Mckenna's favorite mustard chicken, and my favorite roasted carrots and rosemary potatoes.

After dinner we walked to Palios- the all famous coffee shop that Wes and I love.

Mckenna loved it too.

We played speed scrabble and sipped our coffee drinks.

And TODAY we went to:

duh-duh-duh-dun:
The Coast!!!

We took a day trip to the beach and had a blast. It was so good to feel the sand between our toes.
This is our attempt at building a sand castle.

Mckenna's mermaid

and notes of love to our family:

(oh and Mckenna's boyfriend)

Our pretty toes in the sand...

The NASTY covered twinkies in the candy store- the one on the far left is maple covered. yuck.

Seaside OR, woot-woot!

The end! Mckenna leaves tomorrow. I believe we might try to head out to Sauvie Island to pick some berries. We will see. :) It's been a great time. Love, Katie and Mckenna