Road Trip USA: Navigating the Northeast

My family just completed a month long road trip visiting the Northeastern states - 21 to be exact!  It was a great trip, and we created amazing memories visiting historical landmarks, hiking in national and state parks, visiting family, and just enjoying time together.  We just got back at midnight Friday, so Monday came quickly for this monthly dinner! A bit stressful getting it all together, but a great time catching up with friends and sharing parts of our vacation.

Invite:  Of course the invitation was red, white, and blue for this theme of traveling the US.  I added some graphics of the more popular national landmarks that we saw on the trip to the invite as well.

Decor:  I really only had one day to prepare for this dinner, so my decorations stayed simple.  I decorated my dinner table with patriotic decorations I already had and souvenirs we bought on our vacation.  My husband loves to buy pint glasses from various places, so I used those.   I also added the 3 ornaments I purchased on our trip and a few of the magnets.

One of the places we visited on our trip was the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden were we saw the iconic cherry/spoon fountain.  Had to have a little fun with a photo.

I decided to recreate this for my place cards.  At first, my plan was to make a cherry out of red chocolate so it would be edible.  However, I could not find a chocolate mold that would work.  I bought two off Amazon, but one was massive (like a mini apple), and the other was tiny (like a pea)!  Instead, I used a real cherry and just hot glued them on to plastic silver spoons I bought at the dollar store.

I also used some of the many magnets we purchased on our trip to place on the napkins.

Above my drink table, I used a silver United States map I already owned and cut each of the 21 states we visited out of cardstock to place on it.  This took some time, but wasn't too difficult. I probably could have used my Cricut, but I was worried about matching up with how the states are drawn on the metal sign.

When we first started traveling with our kids, we started collecting pressed pennies.  The kids love trying to find these machines in the places we travel, and they take turns "pressing" the penny.  I love that this is a super inexpensive souvenir! We have the pennies from our vacations all in a jar on our travel mantle.  I decided to use a few of the pressed pennies from our trip as wine charms.  I glued them to cardstock and attached them.

When we visited George Washington's home at Mount Vernon in Virginia, we saw his vineyard and grounds.  We purchased a bottle of Mount Vernon red wine when we were there, and since we didn't drink it on our trip, it made a perfect beverage for this dinner.  We didn't purchase any white wine on our vacation in the northeast, so I just served a general white wine.

In addition to wine, I also had Sam Adams Boston Lager.  We are all wine drinkers, so the 6-pack went untouched for the night, but a couple of the guests took one home.

Menu:  My menu consisted of some of the most iconic foods from a few of the states we visited.  We started with an appetizer of Wisconsin Cheese Curds.  YUM!  I made these in my air fryer and served them with ranch and ketchup.  I used this recipe.  These take time to bread, but once that is done, the air fryer makes cooking and clean up easy.  I created a tag for each menu item, and incorporated a popular slang phrase from that state/city.  For the Wisconsin Cheese Curds, I used the phrase "yous guys."

For the main dish, I served Philly Cheesesteak Hoagies.  These were also easy to make and tasty.  I cut up the green peppers and onions early in the day and marinated the meat more than the 20 minutes the recipe calls for just so I could have a few more things done ahead of time.  In Philly, locals also use the word "youse," so I included that word on my menu tag for these hoagies.

Of course, french fries go great with Philly Cheesesteaks, and a popular food in Delaware is vinegar fries.  I have been using my air fryer to make fries for my family lately, but since I was using that for the cheese curds and this was a large batch of fries, I decided to use the oven instead.  These Salt and Vinegar fries worked out great.  I sliced the potatoes earlier in the day and kept them in water. Then just prepped them quickly and stuck them in the oven to bake.

For dessert, I made a Boston Cream Pie.  I haven't made this type of pie before, but the recipe was pretty straightforward.  It is a bit more time consuming to make than some other desserts.  I made it the night before the dinner and then assembled it the morning of the dinner.  Representing Boston, I had to call it "wicked good" for my menu tag.

Favor:  My kids LOVE to collect the sample bottles of shampoo and conditioner from the hotels on our trip.  My son's suitcase was practically full of them by the end of this vacation.  I decided to use these to create a fun and funny favor for our dinner.  I gave each guest a shampoo and a conditioner from one of our stops.  I created a tag that read, "Hotel Greetings from _____" and picked one of the cities we stayed overnight in on this trip to fill in the blank.  I also added a "Thanks for Coming. Love you!" message to the tag, but replaced the word love with the iconic love statue that started in Philly.  

While it was a bit crazy and a little stressful to pull off a monthly dinner only a couple days after returning from vacation, I haven't missed a month of these dinners in 14 years, so I didn't want to miss now!  Plus I got to see my amazing friends.  A win win to top off a fabulous vacation! 

Get Ready to ROCK!

After over a year of monthly dinners on Zoom because of the pandemic, we were finally able to meet in person!  I cannot tell you how happy it made me to be able to sit around the table with my girlfriends and chat, laugh, and interact like we did before the pandemic.  

At the beginning of the pandemic last March, my daughter and I began painting rocks to decorate our yard and place around the neighborhood for others to enjoy.  I thought this would make a fun craft to do during a monthly dinner, so I have been waiting to do this theme until our monthly dinner group could begin meeting in person again.  This month was the time! So...let's get ready to ROCK!

Invite:  I put together the monthly dinner invitation on Photoshop with images I found online.  I used a font that looked like paint to match the theme.

Decor: I kept the table very simple and craft-friendly.  I used a cheap plastic tablecloth so that if paint dropped on it, it wasn't a big deal. The centerpiece was just the craft supplies we would need for the fun.  This included a basket of various paint colors, a paint can with brushes, a tray of paint markers, and a glass bowl with rocks to choose from.  I also added some rocks that I painted to the table.

I used bright pink napkins for a fun pop of color.  I added a small paint palette and paintbrush to the top of the napkin and tied a ribbon around all 3.

I was originally planning to paint a rock specifically for each guest and use it as a placecard, but I ran out of time.  Instead, guests drew another guest's name from a paint can when they arrived, and they spent the first bit of the party designing a rock for that person.  It was sweet to see what the girls came up with.

With summertime approaching, I decided to serve a simple drink "on the rocks" for guests.  I went with a low calorie and refreshing drink that mixes a shot of Smirnoff pink lemonade with Lemoncello La Croix.  I painted a lemon-themed rock to place next to these ingredients.  This might be one of my go-to drinks for the pool this summer.

I also served red and white wine, and tied them to the theme with the wine labels I created.  I loved the pandemic mask of a wine glass rock!  Cracked me up.  I also painted a rock with a wine theme to place next to the bottles of wine.

Menu: I wanted all my menu items to keep with the rock theme.  I painted rocks to go with each dish, but also wanted the rocks to be silly/fun to add to our painted rock garden.

For an appetizer, I started with a pepper jack cheese ball that I shaped like a rock.  I called it the Pepper Jack Cheese Rock with "Boulder" Flavor. The recipe calls for some of the shredded cheese to be reserved to roll the ball in, but I put all the cheese inside the ball and crushed blue corn tortilla chips to coat the cheese ball with to give it more of a rock color/look.  This cheese ball was easy to make and very tasty.  It was polished off quickly by all of us.

Three Cheers for Softball

We are in the midst of softball (and baseball) season in our house.  Love watching my kids play sports, but I can never get those gosh darn softball cheers out of my head!  If you've never been to a softball game, the girls are constantly chanting to pump up their team. They really are catchy, and I find myself using the chants in our daily lives throughout softball season because they are just stuck in my head!  Like "1-2-3-4 what do you think that fork is for? EATING. EATING" is how I've changed the words in one chant when my kids use their fingers instead of a fork at the dinner table.   Or "2-4-6-8 who do I appreciate...Cleaners. Cleaners" when the kids actually stop playing their devices long enough to help me clean the house.  Since I can't get them out of my head, I decided to make them my theme for the monthly dinner!  So here goes Three Cheers for Softball, and all I did to make a fun dinner party out of this theme.

Invite:  I made the invite with a softball field background and a giant clipart softball.  I used sporty fonts and incorporate a softball cheer as well as softball lingo into the text of the invite.

Party Details:  I always have fun creating wine labels for my monthly dinners.  For these labels, I wanted to come up with a softball cheer to fit my theme, but somehow tweak it to be about wine.

For the white wine, I used a cheer that the girls to for a batter from their team when she comes up to bat.  They chant, "Ella is a friend of mine (rip rip), she can RIP it anytime!"  I simply switched a few words up to apply to wine!  I also photoshopped a heart-shaped softball to be the white wine inside of the glass.

For the red wine, I used a team chant.  I made Wine Drinkers a team name and just changed the last line from "if you can't hear us, we'll shout a little louder " to "if you can't hear us, drinking'll sure make us louder."  I photoshopped a softball jersey with the new team name on it as well.

I made a simple softball napkin by folding a yellow napkin in half and adding softball laces I cut out with my Cricut machine.

Menu: I am hosting my monthly dinners virtually still because of COVID-19, so all parts of the meal have to be packed up to go.  I used a round container for this meal, so I cut the menu into a circle to fit on the lid.  If you don't know softball, you probably won't get the softball cheers I used, but I'll explain them a bit for those that aren't blessed with hearing these cheers over and over every game for not only one daughter and her games, but two!

The main dish was St. Louis Ribs that I smoked on my Traeger smoker.  I bought them already seasoned from Costco, so all I had to do was place them on the smoker.  Five hours later, they were delicious.  One of the cheers the girls chant often is "R-I-P  I-T Rip it for me baby, Rip it!"  I just swapped the P for a B to spell out R-I-B and make it RIB it!

I also served a bases "LOADED" baked potato with shredded cheese, bacon, chives, and a ramekin of sour cream on the side.  This went with the cheer, "Bases loaded. Pitcher's Nightmare. Bases loaded. Batter's Dream" which the girls chant when they have runners on every base and they want to encourage their next batter to knock them in.

Along with these, I also made a melon BALL salad with watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew.  I shaped them into balls to go with the chant, "1-2-3-4 What do you think our feet are for? WALKING. WALKING."  The girls chant this after their teammate is walked by the pitcher and gets a free base.

For dessert, I decided to make a pie that could go with the chant softball players use when a batter on their team doesn't swing at a bad pitch "G-double o-D  E-Y-E. Good eye. Good eye. Good eye."  I simply swapped the good "eye" for good "pie."  I served a Snickerdoodle Cream Cheese Apple Pie.  This was easy to make and delicious.  I will totally make it again as I got a lot of compliments on it. 

Favor:  For the party favor, I made softball sugar cookies.  I made them big like softballs, so they were about 3.5".  I frosted them in bright yellow and piped on the red stitches.

For the tag, I used the standard after game cheer, "2-4-6-8 Who do we appreciate?" The "team" for this dinner was of course, my Monthly Dinner Girls!  I made the tag to match the invite and the menu so everything looked similar.

This dinner was fun to put on, and it would be a fun one to have for a softball end-of-the-season party.  I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed coming up with these dinner cheers! Now, if I can just get them out of my head for a bit, I'd be set!

Soul Movie Monthly Dinner

 

I really enjoyed Pixar's new movie Soul.  It was a cute movie, and it made for a fun family movie night.  I decided to use this movie as inspiration for our April monthly dinner.

Invite:  I used the Soul movie poster as background for the invitation, so I went with blues, whites, and yellows as the color scheme.  We did this dinner on Zoom again as we wait for everyone to be vaccinated.  I would host it outdoors at my house, but we are currently redoing our backyard, and it is a disaster zone of construction.  Hopefully in the future we will be back to in person dinners.

Party Details:  Some of these party details you won't understand unless you have seen the movie, but many of the party details are iconic parts or references.  The premise of the movie is a man named Joe Garder who is a middle school band teacher, but wishes to be a famous jazz musician.  Right as he is about to get his big break into the music business, he accidently falls into a manhole and his "soul" is separated from his body.  The adventure continues from there.

Joe Gardner is a piano player, and he has great passion for Jazz music.  I created piano napkins to represent this passion.  I bought plain white napkins and then used my Cricut to make the keys.

For my wine labels, I played off some popular quotes and symbols from the movie that stood out to me when I watched it.  In the movie, all souls start in the "Great Before" where they must earn/discover passions to fill their badge spots.  When they find their "spark" the badge is complete and changes into an Earth Pass which enables them to start their lives on Earth.  To play off this concept for my red white label, I created the blank badge and filled it with images of wine and wine bottles.  I added the words "Wine...definitely my Spark!"

Also in the movie is a character named Terry that counts souls to send on to the "Great Beyond."  In the movie, Terry is obsessed with the count and when this count is thrown off by Joe's escape, he is desperate to set it right.  For the white wine labels,  I created an abacus like the one used in the movie for counting souls, but changed the dots to white wine glasses.  I used Terry's line from the movie "Umm...That's weird. The count is off" and then added "Guess I'll have another glass" to the the wine label.

Menu:  You could definitely serve soul food for this theme, but I went with a easier menu.  New York pizza plays a role in the movie for it's taste and smell as one of the characters, 22, comes to Earth for the first time.  I decided to make individual pizzas for each of my guests.  Guests had the option of toppings: pepperoni, sausage, green pepper, mushrooms, olives, and mozzarella cheese. 

You can order pizza boxes off of Amazon.  The ones I ordered ended up being too small, but I went to a local pizza parlor near my house, and they were kind enough to give me 8" pizza boxes which was perfect.  I designed a label for the front of the box with the pizza parlor scene from the movie.  I chose to incorporate one quote from the movie "You can't eat dreams for breakfast," and then I added "but you can eat pizza."

I also served a green salad with grape tomatoes, feta, bacon, egg, and sunflower seeds.  This was my "sign-spinning salad" after the Moonwind character in the movie.  I find this character hilarious, and love that when he is on Earth, he is a sign-spinner for a store - 50% off Everything!  I used PhotoShop to create a image of Moonwind for the top of the salad container and made a sign (50% off Salads) that I attached with a brad, so it could spin around.  Just a little fun detail.

For dessert, I made meringue cookies with chocolate chips.  I added a tiny bit of teal food coloring to the mixture before baking to have it be the color of the "Great Before" and the souls in that realm.  These are tasty and super easy, so it was a good fit.

Again, the tag was made on PhotoShop. I included the line from the movie, "You're really great at jazzing," but added "and friendship and eating dessert" to match with my menu and theme.

Favor:  When the character 22 is on Earth, she begins to collect things that have meaning to her and make sure smile.  I packaged some of these things for the favor.  I gave guests a mini bagel and a red tootsie pop which are two of these items.  I also took an empty spool of thread and made a yarn tag around it.  This is another item that helped 22 find her spark while on Earth.  The tag read "Your Friendship is my Spark and Purpose" just to use some of the language of the movie.

This theme was fun and would be great for a viewing party or birthday party.  All was easy to make and yummy to eat! Nights with my friends fills my "Soul" and this was another great dinner.