MORE WITH THE MEEKS: July 2011

The Queen turned 80

"Mymother" aka grandmother Jane/The Queen turned 80 this month. Doesn't she look great?

Queen Jane w/ 2 of her sons and 4 son-in-laws

Wine is a must!

Happy Happy birthday Mymother!!!!!!!

My sister, Heidi, started making earrings (sometime last year) just for fun but it quickly turned into more than just a "fun hobby"..she now sells them in 3 stores, working on possibly 5. Very exciting but I'm sure its a bit overwhelming at the same time...she never intended to profit from these=)

Where do I come in? I guess I do the marketing for her =) Walking advertisement is more like it. I also help her make them from time to time. There really isn't one "style" she makes...they are glitzy, hand-wired & funky. Here are a few of my favorites..

These earrings are VERY affordable and currently can be found at Willingham's, The Cricket Box & Pear Orchard Tan & Salon.

Independence Day!!!

This year Nic and I stayed around Jackson for the 4th of July. We spent Saturday out on the reservoir with some friends followed by a cookout, Sunday I cleaned house while Nic painted our master bathroom and Monday we slept in and played in the kitchen all day! It was wonderful not being on the road for a change!! Usually Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day we always go to the lake with my family but not this year=( The house currently has NO electricity and still under pretty heavy construction. So for the first time in 15 years (basically since I was in 5th grade) none of us went.

Monday evening we had a few friends over for dinner. Nic tried out some wonderful new recipes. For appetizers we had fried tomato crostini's, sweet pea crostini's and vidalia onion jam. He did a grilled chicken w/ uncle Barney's Sauce (recipe in the July/August Delta Magazine), Marinated Tomatoes w/ fresh herbs (also Delta mag), garlic mashed potatoes and my FAVORITE salad ever....spinach strawberry pecan salad. This salad is the best thing ever. I could eat one every single night and never get tired of it. The wonderful recipe came out of "Gathering of Friends" vol 1. I didn't have the patience to actually type out the recipes for y'all so here is where you can find them=)......

Nic and I both LOVEEE food so he (not I because I don't like to cook) likes to try new recipes and make up new recipes all the time. He's always tells me how much it means to him that I never complain about the foods he cooks and that I try/eat everything he makes. I mean...I love to eat and if I'm not cooking it myself-why would I complain?! My duty is to set the table-which I LOVE to do and then clean the kitchen after we eat...so spends all day cooking-I set the table and clean...it works nicely.

30 mins before our friends arrived Monday night, one called to say she couldn't make it so.. I decided since we would only have 6 people now-we definitely all needed to sit together. While Nic was cooking, I read through the Delta magazine and had seen where they had several Memorial Day parties with such cute red/white/blue decor so...I figured I would try and throw something together myself. Slightly strange mixing Annieglass with Cassafina (to me, anyways) but its the only red I had and I thought the gold actually was quite festive too.I wish I could have planned sooner and done a cute 4th of July centerpiece but I ran out of time.

Sweet Pea Crosinit's

Fried Tomato & Vidalia Onion Jam Crostini's

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Uncle Barney's Grilled Chicken

Marinated Tomatoes w/ fresh herbs

Spinach Strawberry Pecan Salad w/ homemade strawberry balsamic vinaigrette dressing

A funny little story I'll leave you with...When Nic and I first started dating, he would cook for me at his apartment-trying to impress me, HE would set the table. A girl he used to date had given him Ducks Unlimited China over the years for Christmas or holidays or something? Her mom owned a a store that sold that stuff so they thought a 20 something yr old guy would like it?! Anyways.... when he set the table for our dinners, he would pull out this "nice china". The meal would go a little something like this....steak, steamed asparagus, some carb and then a salad--these would be served on the plate and/or salad plate. Then to drink-he would pour my wine into the fancy Ducks Unlimited COFFEE MUG. Of course I ate everything he prepared and sipped on my coffee mug of wine but it was so strange to drink wine from a coffee mug. After probably about 3 or so dinners of him doing this-I guess we were more comfortable with each other so I finally asked why I had to drink my wine from a coffee mug and if I could bring wine glasses over for the next meal. Oops..bitch move. He was embarrassed and explained that he just wanted to set the table with all of his nice stuff and those were part of the DU set so he just figured he needed to have them out. Sweet Nic started giving me beautiful Riedel wine glasses every year for Valentines after this--no more drinking from coffee mugs.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day!

"Freedom is nothing else but a change to be better"

"Liberty is the right to choose. Freedom is the result of the right choice."

Beach Bums

Our vacay in Seaside was wonderful-although we woke up bright and early EVERY morning, we got lots of much needed R & R.

To start the week off, we both had AMAZING massages. This is something I think all women (men too) should treat themselves to-its recommended monthly but I think bi-monthly would be sufficient. The lady that did my massage was amazed at the knots in my neck, shoulders, etc and assured me that these are probably causing my migraines=( With that said, "I'm sold" and I'll definitely be making more frequent visits to see her now!

The drive down Sunday was pretty easy-hardly any traffic, thankfully!. When we arrived, we put our stuff up, grabbed a drink and then spent the majority of the afternoon and evening walking around to the local shops. We walked the beach and "booked" our chairs for the week.. I was determined that there would be TONS of people on the beach that week because of the holiday, but luckily it really wasn't that packed. We went by The Red Bar to check out the menu but the "good" entertainment didn't start until Monday so we decided to just have a drink and come back another night. We ended up having dinner at Shorty's Surfside & Topside. Our sushi appetizer was delish but our entrees were not. This place is right across the street from The Red Bar-we thought sine the line was so long, it must be good------> WRONG! The menu looked/sounded good but the food was served kind of "cafeteria style"---no taste/flavor and I think my Mahi Mahi had been sitting on a warmer table all afternoon-YUCK. Again, this place is not recommended!

Monday morning we were wide awake at like 6 am--go figure...first day of vacation and we can't sleep in. So...Nic got up with me and we went for a walk. I soon realized we weren't the only crazy ones up. I couldn't believe how many bikers, walkers and runners were up so early but any later-the heat would have been MISERABLE I guess! When we got back to our cottage-Nic prepared breakfast......egg sandwiches-MY FAVORITE!

The famous, high calorie... Egg Sandwich!

We laid out on the beach for a few hours and then headed to Destin for some late afternoon shopping...definitely the highlight of this trip in my opinion! We did dinner Monday night @ Bud & Alley's.

My pictures aren't very good quality- I took most of them with my phone because my camera was too much of a hassle to carry around!

Nic and I went walking through Watercolor and Seaside every morning to help pass time since we woke up so early (between 6-7:30 literally EVERY day). On Tuesday as we were walking, we ran into Holly, Martha and Kate (my best friend, her mom and her little girl). Holly flew into FL on Monday night from Fayetteville, NC. It was such a wonderful surprise to run into them! I haven't seen Kate (now nearly 9 months old) since Christmas so I was very happy to see them.

Holly and I did a "girls night" one night and talked for several hours over wine. It was great catching up and having girl time with no babies or husbands around--very rare occurrence~!

For the remainder of the week Nic and I took naps on the beach, dined at every restaurant around Grayton Beach and took late night strolls around Seaside/Watercolor. Every evening ended with one of us standing in the LONG line at Dawson's for ice cream & fudge.