Don’t forget to enter the Happy Serendipity vintage pouch GIVEAWAY going on right now!

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The other night, my husband and I quite possibly had the most perfect date night.  We had pizza + ice cream, I mean doesn’t that just spell perfection!?  Even better, the places we went to were right next door to each other.  Our first stop was Spin Pizza.  It’s the type of place where you go and place your order at the counter, find a seat, and then they bring your food out for you.  There are premade pizzas or you could opt to make your own.  The menu had tons of other foods like flatbreads or salads.

We figured we ought to check out the pizza for our first time there, after all it’s called Spin Pizza!  So we ordered the Tour de BBQ pizza (chicken sausage, BBQ sauce, sweet red onions, fontina, roasted corn) and the Goat Cheese & Arugula pizza (fresh mozarella, crushed tomatoes, and basil).  Soon after we ordered we knew it would take awhile and saw the table next to use ordered hummus & pita, so we said, why not?  We were already eating a bunch of carbs anyways, what’s the harm in a few more? 

Love that this came with a variety of dips, I’m totally a condiment girl, who’s with me??

Oh boy was this one scrumptious!  I mean it ain’t every day that you see corn on pizza.  And fontina, LOVE that cheese!

Ever since I made those pistachio and goat cheese grape truffles for my friend’s baby shower, I must say, I’ve been kind of obsessed with goat cheese.  And the arugula really did add another dimension of flavor, wowza!

And to class it up, there is a variety of wine and beer options available to enjoy with your pizza.  Look at the wine selection… they have everything from around the world and back!  And this quite possibly is one of my favorite pictures I’ve taken recently so I’ll be linking it up to Sweet Shot Tuesdays.

After we stuffed ourselves full, we decided to go for some artisan ice cream at Glace.  I mean, there’s totally always room for ice cream even if you’re super full, yea?  Raise your hand if you’re with me here, friends.  We tried the Pineapple Cilantro, Mango Lime, Venezuelan Dark, and the Mint Chocolate Chip (we’re talking real mint, not the artificial stuff).

What would be your perfect meal?

Rain, overcast, space needle, first starbucks, pike place, seafood, ahhh seattle we meet again! I’m so excited to be in this beautiful city witnessing the wedding of C+J. I’d like to think I was a semi-match maker for them since I was already planning on going out with J + friends when I invited C + friends to come along to the bar we were going to as well (this was about 4 years ago)… and the rest is history. I’ve also had a ton of fun helping C with any wedding questions that come along during the planning process. Of course I’ll be taking photos with canon 50d. But for now, I leave you a collection of items from seattle based designers, photographers and basically things that remind me of seattle!

1 christian louboutin “bianca” owned by i am stylish, so pretty!
2 alchemy goods bag (from a local seattle designer) seen on broken saucer
3 luxe clutch by laura bee designs (made in seattle)
4 a warm seattle snuggler by counting stitches
5 adorable it’s a raining cupcakes print by lipeony
6 amazing wedding photo taken by seattle based photographer yvonne wong
7 gold fill hand-wrapped tear drop with prehnite briolette by dotted line jewels
8 parfait organic ice cream truck spotted on the soho
9 darjeeling knot ring made by elephantine
10 pink light design seen on print & pattern

And in case you haven’t heard, there’s a 5 day wedding photography workshop going on right now hosted by the amazing jasmine star! She has loads and loads of useful information about tips on being a great wedding photographer (and just great photography tips in general).  Today is day 3/5 of live streaming videos and she’s actually going to be shooting a REAL WEDDING IN SEATTLE today, so you can follow in her thought process and see all that it takes that goes into shooting a wedding. For more information on the timeline, click here. Don’t worry, if you can’t watch it live, her videos are available for purchase afterwards. Neat stuff!

What are your weekend plans?

Have you heard of the Young Me / Now Me photo contest on zefrank.com?  I first discovered it through Photojojo, one of my favorite websites to go for photography tips, tricks, and camera goodies to buy, and thought it was a fabulous idea!  Young Me / Now Me is a contest where you find a picture of yourself when you were younger and try to mimic it as closely as possible many years later!  Give yourself a few hours and click on over to laugh your way through some hilarious photo pairings!   A few weeks ago when my dad came to visit me, we attempted our own Young Me / Now Me (actually, it was just an excuse to eat ice cream)! 

“I’ve always been a big fan of sweets and ice cream and as far as I can tell, I know exactly where I get it from.  The Young Me picture was taken at a local park near our house in Michigan.  This past Mother’s Day weekend, my parents came to visit me and the Now Me picture was taken at a local park near my house in Missouri.  The ice cream tasted just as good.  My dad still wears the same pants, watch, and short sleeve plaid t-shirts.  I must say, as cute as my outfit was back then, I just couldn’t pull off the socks and shoes look now.”

Thanks Dad for being such a good sport, love you!  And how perfect that I saved this post for Father’s Day (week)!  Now I challenge you all to find an old photo and recreate it!  I just know you will have as much fun with it as we did! 

As Earth Week draws to a close, I figured I just had to share some of my eco-friendly / earth related finds for this weeks Flavors to Follow.  I love the idea of repurposing and recycling materials that may have otherwise just been thrown away into something lovely, creative and useful.  Also, reusing grocery bags or snack packs instead of millions of plastic bags is really the way to go.  To be honest, I’m not always diligent about doing these things but celebrating Earth Week is always a friendly reminder that we all need to do our part to help keep this world a beautiful place to live in, awww so sappy.

giveaway: organic fabric on swankyswell + 11 other shops!!!
dine: eco friendly melted bottle cheese plates by mitchell glassworks found on modish
inspire: earth ice cream seen on drops of jupiter
serve: eco-cupcake stands seen on bake it pretty
jewelry: recycled silver necklace on elisa shere jewelry
wear: julie maes moo moo seen on the rikrak studio
eat: reusable sandwich wrap on the umbrella girl shop
paper: eco-friendly letterpress cards on night owl paper goods

What are some simple things you do to help save the Earth?

P.S. Sooki was the lucky winner of the little green contest I had yesterday!  I posted the word green 22 times b/c it was April 22! I will be sending you something green very soon!

This week’s Flavors to Follow is inspired by a sweets calendar I won on love ardently’s first giveaway! Each month is illustrated by 12 delightful desserts, cakes, candies, or pretty much anything sweet!  It’s packaged in a protective acrylic jewel case, which also functions as an easel stand, and also wrapped in a clear cello sleeve.  It’s a perfect addition to my work desk.    Here’s a peak at the monthly illustrations… so very very cute!

And here are my “sweet” finds for this week!

craft: paper candy gift topper on nice package found on creature comforts
decorate: candy colored dining chairs on down and out chic
eat: olympic cupcakes on poppytalk
wear: petit plat earrings on blush!nk
wed: enjoy cupcakes mobile cupcakery shot by jose villa and seen on style me pretty
inspire: ice cream found on design crush
see: frozen yogurt on i art u
sew: paperchase oven mitt on print & pattern

And speaking of giveaways, don’t forget to check back Monday as I will be hosting

MY FIRST GIVEAWAY

of some handmade items made by my talented friend!  I’ll give you a hint…

jewels, gems, and whimsical delights

Have a delectable weekend!  xo

Not going to lie, I am a little bit sad that I missed a post dedicated to World Nutella Day yesterday… so I am going to make up for it by posting something for National Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day!  Yup you guessed it, that’s today!  Apparently it’s always the first Saturday of February, who knew?!?  Here’s the general gist of how this holiday came about, it’s kind of fitting for today since much of the country is getting hit with horrible winter weather this weekend:

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Ruth and a little boy named Joe.  Ruth  and Joe grew up in the back of beyond in New York state where it was very very cold.  Every winter between New Year’s Eve and Passover, life in up-state New York got extremely boring, so their parents invented a holiday to brighten up the dreary days of winter.  It was called Ice Cream For Breakfast Day.  This was a wonderful holiday for children and parents alike because to celebrate you had to eat ice cream for breakfast on the first Saturday in February.

As you can see, I’ve been posting about a lot of sweets lately… and since baking generally leads to eating… it isn’t so good for my husband and my figure.  So instead of actually eating ice cream for breakfast, I will just post what I wish I could eat for this holiday.

1. Waffles a la Mode (picture taken from Hip Girlie).  Freshly made hot waffles smothered with soft cold scrumptious vanilla ice cream with a side of tart and sweet strawberries and kiwi, I may be drooling on the keyboard right now…  BTW, see where I got the “a la mode” in my website name from?

2. Candied Bacon Ice Cream (picture taken from the ever amazing pastry chef, David Lebovitz).  I’ve decided to include bacon in my meal since it is a traditional breakfast food.  In my White Chocolate Treats post, I got several comments mentioning that I should try making sweets with meat flavor, and I think this may be my calling.  Crunchy brown sugar candied bacon bits peppered throughout vanilla cinnamon rum flavored ice cream?  Umm, yes please!

3. Frozen Hot Chocolate (picture taken from Pulse of Vegas Blog).  Made famous from the romantic comedy Serendipity, this dessert/drink is superbly delicious!  While it actually isn’t made from ice cream (it’s just chocolate, cocoa mix, sugar, milk, and ice blended together with whipped cream on top) I still think it would be the perfect drink to top off my breakfast!  I always thought the only Serendipity restaurant was in New York, who knew there was a Serendipity in Caesar’s Palace – lucky for me I’ll be in Vegas for a wedding in March!

How would you eat ice cream with your breakfast? Ice cream in your cereal?  Muffin a la mode? Eggs and ice cream? Oh the possibilities are endless! Or does this idea of ice cream for breakfast just gross you out??