I ordered a shrimp boil at a restaurant while we were in Florida and found it both delicious and intriguing.  It's a brilliant concept for seafood lovers, and I was quickly scouring Pinterest for a recipe to use at home.

Because my mom loves shrimp, I decided to debut my very first at-home shrimp boil for her birthday.  I loosely based my boil on this recipe, but after doing lots of reading on the subject matter I just kind of "went with it."  And, luckily, my local grocery store was running a special on shrimp.

Seriously, this was probably the easiest meal ever.  Just throw some potatoes, corn, and shrimp in a pot of boiling water with some spices.  The end.  The only thing I would've done differently is not use so much of the spice packet.  I only added a little over half of the spice packet to the water, but the corn came out way too spicy.  I also made corn bread to go with this meal (regular and Mexican).


Jason loved this meal and has been asking for me to make it again (impressing him with my culinary skills is hard to do).

We hosted my family for dinner and the boil was a big hit, and I think my mom was pleasantly surprised.  It was the perfect birthday dinner for a shrimp lover like herself.


Sources//  boil recipe, spice packet, cornbread recipe, Mexican cornbread recipe

August marks the end of summer but also the beginning of fall, my favorite season.  August also means the start of a new school year, and even though I don't go to school anymore and don't have school aged children, I'm always tempted to buy a brand new shiny notebook and pack of pencils every August.

{amazon.com}

Which is why the school supply aisle is one of my favorite things about August.  I'm also tempted to buy a box of crayons because who doesn't love brand new, never used crayons?





One thing I always do in the summer is binge watch a TV show on Netflix.  Every summer, I pick a show (either that I've seen or haven't seen) and watch it start to finish.  This year, it was That 70's Show.  I used to watch this show with my parents all the time when I was living at home.  I don't know why, but I always loved this show.  So I chose to re-watch it this summer.  In the actual 70's, I'm pretty sure my dad was Hyde and my mom was Donna.  Oh, that Fez.  He cracks me up.

{hercampus.com}

Speaking of TV shows, one show I love to watch in the summer is Pretty Little Liars.  I've probably mentioned this show before, but I love it.  I love how dark and twisted it is.  The summer finale aired a couple of weeks ago and I'm still obsessing over it.  I still don't know how I actually feel about the "real A" being revealed.  I may have to get back on Netflix and re-watch the series completely.

My August list is pretty short this month because I've been busy trying to squeeze every last ounce of summer out of each day before the weather gets cooler and things get busier.

I'm still super excited about fall though.

As soon as we arrived in Florida, we checked into our condo and got dressed for the beach.  Katherine's first impression of the beach was complete amazement, although (spoiler alert) the beach experience that Disney depicted wasn't exactly accurate.  Initially, she loved loved the sand between her toes but wasn't sure about the constant uncontrollable motion of the water.  In fact, over the next couple of days she spent her time going back and forth from the sand to the pool.  Jason was a real trooper (pun intended) with taking her to the pool while I stayed on the beach. 

Hello there, dear readers.

I feel like it's been a while, although I've probably gone longer than this in between posts.  It just feels like it's been a long time because we've been jet car-setting for the past ten days.

We just got back from Katherine's first official vacation, where we traveled to Florida's "emerald coast."  It was our first trip by ourselves (just the 3 of us), and Katherine's first trip to the beach.  She had been studying up on the topic by watching Teen Beach Movie and Teen Beach Movie 2, and was convinced she would surf and dance and sing on the beach just like the main characters in the movie (at least she's stepped up off of Frozen for the moment).  Our trip was full of fun, unexpected characters, and lots and lots of sand.

Did anyone get in the ocean?  Was there surfing/dancing/singing on the beach?  Did someone poop their pants in the car, twice?  Did someone try to party all night on more than one occasion?  I'm ready to give you all of the details:

We left St. Louis at the conclusion of Katherine's gymnastics class on Friday (like, literally left town right when class was over), with a lunch stop in Cape Girardeau on our way to Kennett.  We stayed the night with Jason's parents Friday night, and Saturday we decided to drive down to Mississippi to break the trip up a little more.

So, off we went on Saturday.  Katherine had been complaining of tummy trouble Saturday morning, but refused to sit still long enough to focus on her "job."  I guess riding in the car loosened her up because about 30 minutes into the trip, we heard a few muffled sounds from the back seat followed by an unpleasant smell.  When we asked, Katherine proudly announced that she had pooped.  We stopped off in a sketchy interstate town in Arkansas so that I could change Katherine's diaper.  Unfortunately, she had filled her diaper and then some.  Poop everywhere.  All over her, her clothes, luckily not her carseat.  I changed/cleaned her on a towel in the front seat of the car because I wasn't able to get her inside without getting it everywhere.  An entire package of wipes later, I had her cleaned up.  We managed to locate her suitcase in the backseat just enough for me to grab her a random outfit.  I threw her soiled clothes in a plastic bag (that luckily I had packed for just an occasion), and proceeded to get her dressed.  As I was placing her in her carseat, I noticed her clean clothes now had smears of it on her.
"Her clothes have poop on them again!  Where is this coming from?!" I said to Jason, who had been helping with the clean-up efforts.  We inspected her.  No sign of where the mysterious extra poop was coming from.  I looked down to see that....yep.  It was coming from me.  My shirt had poop all down it.  I guess in my haste to get her cleaned up, I had gotten myself poopified.  My suitcase was not coming out of the car without completely unloading the whole thing so I decided to go to the gas station bathroom to clean up.  Yep.  No soap in the bathroom.  Anywhere.  I mean, I can't.  Whatever.  So, I pretty much bathed myself in a bottle of hand santizer and off we went.  Again.

We made it to Jackson, Mississippi where we were going to stay for the night.  As we got Katherine out of the car to eat dinner, we noticed that she had pooped again.  And again, had destroyed her clothes.  I already had dried poop on my shirt so, what the hell.  I paraded myself and Katherine through the McAlister's Deli dining room to the bathroom, where we again cleaned up and changed clothes (but not before I ran out of wipes).


After dinner, we headed to our hotel for the night.   Katherine was stoked about her first hotel stay and couldn't get enough of the elevator rides.  She also enjoyed the hotel pool, where she floated and jumped until almost 10:00 p.m. when she was forced out by her mean parents resulting in a two-year-old fit fest.  She also refused to go to sleep and proceeded to jump and climb in her make-shift pack-n-play bed.  She was wound up and nothing was bringing her down.  At a little after 11:00 p.m. we got her out of her bed and put her in ours to keep her calm, which worked because after about five minutes in our bed, she went right to sleep.  So another first for Katherine, getting to sleep with mommy and daddy.

The next morning, we were at it again after a quick breakfast in bed.  We made our way south through Mississippi and Alabama while Katherine watched Despicable Me's 1 and 2 over and over again.  It's been so long since I drove through the south, that I forgot how much I miss it.  I miss the small towns and the friendly southern accents.

We arrived in Florida in just enough time to check-in to our condo and get dressed for the beach.

And....that's where I'll stop for now.  Tune in for Part 2 where I'll answer the question of "How many people from St. Louis can we meet in one condo?"

Let me start off by saying I am not a salon professional or hair stylist, and most of the time my hair looks rough.  However, I have found this styling method to work wonders for me and I would like to share it with you today.  So, let's begin shall we....

{Reviting graphics ,huh?}

My hair is very thick and wavy and most days the only way to "fix" it is to actually style it with some sort of heated hair tool, only to have to redo said style the next day.  I found a few different tutorials for an at-home salon blowout on Pinterest and sort of combined a few different "pins" into one process.
I wash my hair at night every 2-3 days and use Redken Guts 10 and It's a 10 smoothing balm on my freshly washed hair.  In the winter months, I dry my hair completely before going to bed.  In the warmer months, I either let my hair air dry or lightly dry it to get some of the moisture out.  The next morning is when I style my hair.
The tools: I use Big Sexy Hairspray, giant Velcro rollers, duckbill clips, OGX Blowout Cream, comb, and a 2 inch curling iron from Hot Tools.

First, I clip all of my hair up in sections and starting from the bottom, I curl small sections using the curling iron, then immediately roll it in the Velcro roller.  Sometimes I have to secure the roller with a duckbill pin.



I continue to move up my hair using the same process (curling iron then Velcro roller) until my entire head is in Velcro rollers.

{Please enjoy my "hairspray face."}

I spray my entire head with hairspray, then let it set for about 10 minutes.  This is usually when I either put on make-up or get Katherine dressed and ready for the day.  This gives my hair time to cool while in the Velcro rollers.  

After I take all of the rollers out of my hair, I put a dime size amount of the blow out cream in my hands and run them through my hair to smooth it out.  I finish it up with one more spritz of hairspray.


All together (when I'm not interupted by a toddler) this process takes me about 10 minutes, making it a great "busy mom" hairstyle.  Plus, it lasts for up to three days without having to restyle it.

To make sure I get the most out of my "blowout," I use amika dry shampoo on days 2-3 and Sexy Hair Powder Play if I need extra volume.  (I literally can't say enough about the Powder Play.  It's amazing.)

So there's my at-home blowout routine.  I will tell you that throughout the process today, I had a toddler at my feet handing me random objects and singing Frozen songs.  But, that's a typical getting ready scenario.

It really feels like this summer has literally flown by.  I can hardly keep track of what day it is, and for about three days last week I thought it was already August.  While most of the blogosphere is preparing pumpkin flavored potato chips, I'm still trying to soak up every last bit of summer.  

{Photo credit:  Mandy Hanson}