Mani Monday - Kiss Nail Dress Stickers

Hello again! Things are slowly but surely returning to normal over here in blog land. And today I have a fun mani AND pedi for you guys! I got a coupon in one of my magazines for these nail stickers, so I thought I would give them a try, since I haven't done anything really fun with my nails in a while.

The strips were $5.99 after my $1 off coupon. I also grabbed this Essie polish in Boom Boom Room ($7 I think?), and this Covergirl mini polish in Purple Freeze for $2.99. I was excited but skeptical to try the Covergirl polish, because I have tried the Maybelline polish and its terrible! It's super watery and I needed like 5 coats for good coverage. But the Covergirl polish I was pleasantly surprised with! I like that it's a mini so I could try it without spending too much. 

For the nails where I made a design, I just cut the strips with scissors!

I love the way they turned out! I have used the Sally Hansen nail stickers before, and those are more like real nail polish strips, where these are just stickers. I did feel like these stuck better to my nail, especially around the edges, where I usually have problems with the SH ones. I also really liked that these came with enough for fingers AND toes! There are a bunch of patters and I definitely see myself buying these again. My favorite part? The pedi! This picture is kind of weird but I LOVE the way my toes came out :) Now the question is how long will they last...

Insta Friday - Vacation Edition

Today is the first day of summer, so I'm re-living our beach vacation and sharing my Instagram pics!

Our first view of the ocean!

Rylee and Uncle Jeffry building a sand castle 

Rocking the beach hat

This is the life!

Lunch at the SeaWitch. Highly recommend it!

It's dangerous with a Rita's right across the street!

Morning at the beach

Under the pier

Carolina Beach pier

Running from a seagull attack!

Creepy state park. We went looking for venus fly traps. Found cactus and a cottonmouth snake instead. Yikes!

Eating our weight in fresh crab. Yum!

Like I said; dangerous! That's our house in the background :)

Wilmington HD

Wine on the beach. Does it get any better?

Brodangs

Snuggles before we leave

Jeffry doing what he does best: creeping on sleeping babies lol

Another Harley stop somewhere in VA

You can't stop at a 7 Eleven and not get a slurpee

Colonial HD

Yummmmm fresh Krispy Kreme!

I missed these two!!

So happy to have their snuggles when we got home <3

Happy summer everyone! I've printed out some of these pics, and picked up supplies to make a shadow box, so stay tuned for the reveal!

Classic Pub Food

Last week it was super rainy and depressing. (I thought seasonal depression could only happen in the winter!) So I was really wanting to put a pot of soup on the stove. One of my all time favorites is french onion soup. I have never made it, but saw a recipe made one on the Martha Stewart show and it looked pretty simple. This recipe is even vegetarian, as it doesn't have any beef broth in it! Here is the recipe I used for French Onion soup. There's even a really helpful video.

Here's what the prep looked like. A dutch oven full of nothing but onions, and a cookie sheet of croutons!

Once we got to this step, it was a waiting game. The onions just hung out on med-low for hours, and needed a stir every so often. They probably could have even cooked longer than they did, but Jeffry was home and I was starving!

So this happened...

And then this happened.... 

What goes better with a steaming bowl of french onion soup than a patty melt?! These ones are super simple. Marble rye, swiss cheese, and a hamburger patty with salt and lots of cracked pepper. Oh and a smear of grainy mustard. Patty melts are usually made with caramelized onions, but I thought we were getting enough of those in our soup.

And the finished product:

All it needed was a frost Guinness!

Man this post is making my hungry! Now to decide what to make tonight.....!

My New Found Jam of the Moment

This afternoon I stumbled upon a song on a playlist that I usually only have on my phone in the summer. And I played it on repeat my whole drive to work. So I'm sharing it with you. BTW I am aware that the video is super weird lol.

I hope you like it! Short and sweet for you today loves :)

Upstate Tavern - Restaurant Review

Last week sometime, a new restaurant opened up near us, at our local casino, Turning Stone Resort & Casino. Jeffry and I usually east out on Mondays, his only day off and the day I work late, so we decided to go. It's a little bit of a drive, but it was worth it. So worth it that I decided to do my first restaurant review!

The name of the restaurant is Upstate Tavern, and I'm a sucker for anywhere touting local food and a homemade brew. 

Right away I was loving the design of the place. It's reminiscent of the inside of an old factory, with exposed brick, reclaimed wood and what looks like old factory windows, a common sight in the Syracuse area.

Honestly, I think the place could do without the TVs. It's not a sports bar. If you want to watch the game go to Tully's.

Here's a pretty good view of the windows. Ain't he handsome? :)

Hex tile on the floors

Can you tell I was digging the atmosphere? The wait staff's "uniforms" were a little strange I do have to admit. Jeans, black and white plaid shirts, and every single one of them wearing black Chuck Taylors. Cute concept, I don't know about you but I wouldn't want to be on my feet all day in a pair of Chucks. Maybe they get free foot massages at Ska:na: after their shifts? If that's the case, where can I apply?

Oh and seriously, I'm getting myself a set of these:

Are they seriously not the cutest things you've ever seen?! If they wouldn't have spilled I might have just put them right in my purse. #JKJK

Now lets talk about the food!! They have what we would think of in New York as New York style food. Spiedies, salt potatoes, beef on weck, and Hoffman hot dogs. Typical every day eats around this neck of the woods. I want to try every single thing. Of course I can only base my opinions on what Jeffry and I ordered but it was so good!!

My pot roast. I do wish the carrots weren't so al dente. A little too crunchy for me.

Jeffry's wings and salt potatoes. The wings were perfectly crispy!

So some final thoughts: The food was delish, the atmosphere quaint and the prices not so bad! One thing I did not take a picture of you might notice is the bathroom. From a design stand point, boooooring!!!! I had high expectations for it and it let me down. Could have been a fast food place bathroom it was so dull. Oh, and I ordered the Upstate Lager and that was yummy too! I can't wait to go back and try something else, this might be my new favorite place!

Road Trip Essentials

Last week Sunday we started the 13+ hours down to North Carolina and I must say I love a good road trip. As a kid, my family had an RV so we drove everywhere! Including all the way to California and back. Now I will admit that driving in a car is not quite the same. No couch to stretch out on, no bathroom, no fridge or pantry. So here are my essentials when it comes to car road trips.

1- You can still get sunburned in a car! Neutrogena is my favorite brand by far, and this is new this year so I'm giving it a try. And yes you read that right, SPF 70 is not a misprint...

2- Gotta have my phone for GPS and for tunes! Can't have a road trip without awesome tunes! This time I've thought about trying a podcast or even a book on tape. Nadine gave me the idea.

3- Gotta have my sunnies! I have super sensitive eyes and even wear them when its cloudy. Mine are from Banana Republic and I love them

4- This one might sound weird but I like to have a towel when I'm the passenger. I usually like to take my shoes off so ill put my feet on it, or use it as a blanket when the AC gets a little chilly

Another tip is that when your on a long trip it's nice to have scheduled stops to break it up. For our last trip to Knoxville and this trip to Carolina Beach, I mapped out all of the Harley shops along the way. This trip there are 10! I've planned them out to we're doing 5 down and 5 back. This tip might not be so good for anyone wanting to be spontaneous, but it's nice for us to have little mini destinations.

And of course you can't take a trip anywhere without snacks! These are some of my favorites:

- fresh fruit
- candy, usually twizzlers, starburst or something chewy that also travels well
- good ole H2O
- beef jerky. Travels well and is a really yummy high protein snack
- BelVitas. I'm obsessed with these. Low in calories, high in nutrients, fiber and taste!

So there you go! The things I won't leave home without!