Alone

Summer Wedding

9:00:00 AM


Last weekend was stocked full of fun and excitement. 
After rolling out of bed at 4 on Saturday morning, slowly getting dressed, munching on a Blueberry Clif Bar (my fave) and going off to work, it was time to come home at 11 and get ready for a wedding.  My step-cousin was getting married. 
I hadn't been to a wedding in a long time and I was pretty excited that two of my friends were going to be at the dinner after the ceremony! 
I was feeling a bit anxious, I could probably blame it on the 24 ounce iced coffee I had, but once I was seated with my friends, I felt much better. 
The reception was set in a medium sized room, the decorations were so nice. I always like to look at them, and of course the plates had a little candy set on them! 

We spent the time talking and wondering how the caterers knew which plate everyone was going to get, which we discovered it was our name tags on the table that gave it away. 
The food was great, the dessert afterwords was amazing...who doesn't like mini cheesecakes? Three different flavors? I'm in! 
I had Chicken Cordon Bleu (left photo), and mini cheesecakes (chocolate, turtle and lemon!) I did sneak one of my friends who wasn't at the wedding two of the little desserts to work with me the next day...as I had been standing at the table for a bit charging my phone. 
The night was spent watching the younger kids take over the dance floor, and even some of the older people got in on the fun as well. 
Over all, it was really nice spending time outside of work with my friends as we don't really get the chance to do that often. It's always fun getting to see family members, and sometimes realizing that you wish you'd stay in touch more often. 
I did not drink coffee the next day, as after the one I had had me feeling like my bones inside my body were vibrating. I think I'll stick to my raspberry ice tea, two sweet n'lows and maybe a shot of blueberry flavor to go with it...if I feel adventurous! 
Thanks for reading! 
What's your favorite part of going to a wedding? 
Make sure to tell me in the comments! 
xx







Biking

What I'm Loving this Summer

12:00:00 PM




So far, being back home from University is a lot more relaxing, though I've got work and an online math course on the side, I'm still finding time to pick and choose a few things I'm loving this summer and I thought I would share them with you! 
What's Summer time without a list anyway? 


Books:
I've just finished John Green's Paper Towns, and if you remember my post way back before the beginning of my summer (right here), I wrote how I had wanted to read it and I did, quickly in fact. Paper Towns was a good book, though I'm not quite sure if it ranked among my top five. 
I am loving We'll Always Have Paris by Jennifer Coburn, which I picked up in the "beach reads" section of my local Barnes and Nobel. It's definitely given me more motivation to go and have a long trip throughout Europe..soon. 

Blogs:
I don't normally point out other blogs, unless there is a fun tag that comes along, but right now, I also love baking therefore I've been spending a lot of time over at Sally's Baking Addiction, I even just made up this recipe here. Because I tend to mindlessly eat while doing something like math...oops. 
Also, I'm obsessed (a little bit) with Eleanor Calder and Max Hurd's blog thetrendpear.com. The pictures are great, the outfits are on point and I don't follow a lot of fashion blogs but I love it. 

Biking:
I've really started liking to bike recently. I never really had a bike of my own, I usually used my moms but one has been handed down to me and I can go without lowering the seat every time, so that's great! 

New Ingredients:
This is something I hope to show you all in upcoming posts. I've really started liking the whole wheat flour and I've used that in these two past posts (here and here). But I've also started to enjoy Almond Butter and Coconut Oil! 
The clouds have been sticking to a once or twice a week, all day downpour so it'll be easy to get in a few recipe posts this Summer! 


What have you been loving so far this Summer? I know it's a bit early in the season, but let me know in the comments!! 
(This is also my 100th blog post! Can you believe it?! I can't! ) 
Thanks for reading! 
x
Kenzie

breakfast

Anytime Crepes

3:11:00 PM


The best thing about trying something new is that you can come back and try it over and over again until it works out. That is especially true for cooking, which I found out while making these whole wheat-crepes. 
Crepes are the kind of food that are light, and made especially to wrap your favorite filling in a nice little jacket, and are fun to enjoy! Crepes are also quite easy to make, so I've included a recipe! 

Here's what you'll need: 

*1/2 cup skim milk
*2/3 cup water
*2 table spoons vanilla
*1 cup all purpose flour (I used whole wheat flour as it's more filling)
*1 tablespoon sugar
*1/4 teaspoon salt

A little side note; I had accidentally forgotten to add in 1/4 cup melted butter...I started melting it and the phone rang so I had turned off the microwave and couldn't quite figure out why my crepes weren't spreading as easily....this would be why, but they still tasted great! 
They're pretty simple to make as well; 
-In a Medium sized bowl, mix the milk, water, melted butter (if you decided to use it), and vanilla. 
-In a smaller bowl, mix flour, sugar and salt well. 
-Whisk the two mixes together until the batter is smooth
-Warm medium sized skillet on medium-high heat, coat pan with non stick spray and pour in about 2 tablespoons of batter, you can add more or do less depending on how big of a crepe you would like
-Swirl the pan to allow batter to spread, I also helped it along with running a spoon gently over it
-Cook until edges are crispy and golden. This is quite difficult to do with whole wheat flour, and I haven't baked with it long enough to know just how it works, but it seemed to be fine once there was a bubble or a small hole in the batter. Then flip to the other side. 
And repeat with remaining batter!!

After you allow them to cool, you can add in your favorite fruits! 
I soon discovered, we had no whipped creme and I haven't been feeling like a chocolate-eating person lately so I opted for some vanilla yogurt as a filling! It was great and a healthy alternative! I put strawberries inside, along with raspberries as well as on the top and sprinkled the crepe with some powdered sugar! 
This was definitely one of those recipes where I had went to bed thinking about having a crepe and by the time I woke up I had to make one!

 You can also use these for desserts, or a fun snack if you'd like! 
Making these was a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll make some again this summer! 
Thanks for reading as always!
xx
Kenzie
Have you made crepes before? What are you favorite add-ons? 

70s

Traveling Back in Time

9:30:00 AM


 If you've been reading my blog for awhile, or at least a few posts back, you know that I wanted to get out more and try new things. Thursday started off by running a few errands with my mom and my sister and I tagged along because some shops in my downtown area were putting on a new event called 'First Thursdays'. It happens from now until October on the first Thursday of every month. After wandering about the mall for a bit we decided to head outside to see if any of the shops were ready yet and to see what it was all about. (We were about 30 minutes early...)

The first shop we went into was the bakery. This bakery sells delicious cupcakes (my favorite has to be the Peanut Butter Cup one). Ugh. As soon as we walked in I spotted them. Five summery yellow colored Macarons. I've been searching for these for over a month! I've never tried them before but I was too excited to really care, dropping a five dollar bill off and taking a few photos of them. Saving them for dessert. 

French

I didn't buy any cupcakes, I'm trying to cut back on sugar. Slowly. 
Tucking my Lemon-Strawberry Macarons into my camera case, we went off to the other shops. 
There was a deli serving Sicilian Pizza and other goodies, sporting an 80s themed card board bus in front of its windows. 
(Sorry the photo is a little blurry)
Hippie Van

Though it would have been fun to try some Sicilian pizza, the three of us already had our minds set on Sushi. Off we went down the red cobblestones and into a sweets shop. (I really am trying to tone down the sugar, I promise I didn't buy a thing!!)  We also stopped into the downtown grocery. Somewhere we probably would never stop had it been a regular day downtown, and honestly we may not have even traveled down that far. It smelled delicious, everything looked delicious and it was fun to see the little place. 
There were some living statues outside of one of the shops, I met the girls dog, he is ADORABLE. I didn't snap any photos of him because I was too busy petting him, not really sorry about it. I did take a photo with her though! 


Summer

As we went along, popping into shops on our way to get food, we learned what each place had to offer, a lot of them were places I probably wouldn't go into, but I would now after attending the event. 
After circling the streets, we decided it was time for our sushi stop. 
I tried something new, again, this time a Salmon Avocado Roll, while my mom got the usual Spicy California Roll, and honestly I really couldn't tell a difference between the Salmon Roll or the (non spicy) California roll..I couldn't really taste the Salmon though it was still good though! 
Spicy California Roll Sushi

After eating sushi and a fortune cookie, along with a taste of my sisters giant box of chicken fried rice, it was time. I had walked with them for about an hour and all along they rustled in my camera bag, calling my name. 
Strawberry Macaron

I bought a box of five Macarons (that's how they came) without knowing whether or not I would like them. And I LOVED THEM. Even though they're not authentic French Macarons, they are still tasty and I cannot wait to try out real ones very soon (when my parents get back from their trip to Europe...no they're not taking me :( ) 
With our bellies full, we returned to the car to go home. My mom and I finished off the day with a 10 mile bike ride when we got home. It consisted of me not being able to stop because the bike is high, and a bug being stuck in my eye. It was all okay though! 
I think this event was interesting and I actually had fun going into each store, not all of the stores participated so hopefully more will. Each store that did participate had an old fashioned post card that you were meant to pick up (and turn in for a prize if you collected all 35). But I didn't want to return mine, I got 19. 
I also took this really cool photo. 
Time Warp

Have you ever done anything like this before? Or even tried Macarons before? What are your favorite kind? I hope your summers are off to a great start! 
As always, thanks for reading! 
(make sure to check out the links page to see where you can get more posts and things)
See you next time!
xx
Kenzie
(check out how to connect with me here!) 





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