Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Craft night for the girls

I get the joy of working with the Beehives (12-13 year old girls) in our ward (church congregation) which includes not only teaching them on Sundays, but it also means I get to do fun activities with them during the week.  For our activity last night I decided we were due for a craft night.  (Yeah!)  There are so many cute crafts out there especially with Pinterest that it was almost hard to figure out what to do in only the allotted time for our activity nights as well as being very easy to teach and learn. With the thought of making something simple that the girls could wear, I found the awesome jersey knit bracelet idea!  Instead of giving you the whole run down of how to make it, I will point you to the source where I followed the how-to of jersey knit bracelet creating.   She also has a YouTube video in case you're like me and want to see exactly how to make it. 
Here's how the bracelets we made turned out. 
 
 
 
I think the girls had fun having a craft night, I know I did!

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Day trip to Napa Valley

Last Saturday we woke up early took a road trip to Napa Valley!   You may remember that last year we did an amazing weekend trip there and couldn't stop thinking about it pretty much all year long, so we knew we needed to at least do a day trip this year. 
Our first stop, Bouchon Bakery.  This place is my absolute favorite in all of Napa Valley.  Their selection of breads, pastries, cookies and goodies they make are incredible and beautiful to look at; but most importantly they taste absolutely delicious!  We got our fair share of goodies to have for breakfast, lunch and to enjoy later at home.  Thankfully Bouchon isn't any closer to our house or we'd be in big trouble!
 
 
 
Our next notable stop was at the Bale Grist Mill.  This was a fun historic stop that featured a fully working water and grain mill!  It was a fun tour to learn about the mill's history and see a whole other side of the Napa Valley. 
 
 
The mill park was also a great place to have a picnic lunch with sandwiches made out of bread we bought at Bouchon that morning.
 
As ventured more through the valley, after the mill tour, I decided that we needed to get Clint a cannoli since he wanted to try one.  So we embarked upon a cannoli search!  We finally were able to get one at Tra Vigne in St Helena where I was dubbed the "cannoli girl" by the host that took my order for simply "one cannoli to go"!    It was worth the adventure to find the yummy Italian dessert. 
 
After our day of adventures, we had our last stop at a Michelin star restaurant, Terra, for our anniversary dinner.   The restaurant was intimate and the service was stellar.  The quality of the food was superb, but we had to admit afterwards that the dinner wasn't exactly what we expected and we probably would make Terra just a one time dining experience.  It was a fun experience though and the fusion that the Japanese born and classically French trained chef brought to the multiple-course style menu was exciting.  
 
 
 
At the end of our fun foodie day in the Napa Valley we were tired, but once again determined that the trip was so worth it and we just might have to do it again next year! 
 
PS--if you're following me on Instagram you probably already y saw some of these pics.  If you're not following me on Instagram and want to see more pictures of my adventures find me under NostalgicYellow. 

Monday, July 8, 2013

Patriotic goodies and Vintage Yellow House on Etsy!

Hello all!  I hope you had a great 4th of July with lots of BBQing and summer-style festivities.  I decided I need to make patriotic treats for the occasion.  Fresh blueberries and strawberries were the perfect toppers for my "American flag" fruit pizzas (sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting).  They were almost too cute to eat, but of course we couldn't resist for too long! 

 
Something I think of being very American is owning your own business, which is what I finally took the plunge on.  I opened my Etsy shop!  As a nod to this blog, I name it Vintage Yellow House!  I plan on adding more vintage goodies to the shop that I hope you will enjoy and might even find that you can't live without ;)  I don't know how well it will do, but it's fun to start something that I've thought about doing for a long time and decided to just jump into. 
 
 
Check out the shop!  VintageYellowHouse