Saturday, April 21, 2012

5K Playlist

Hey hey, it's Saturday! :)

It has been one HECK of a week in my neck of the woods.  

I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into my work this week, and I am more than ready to relax and decompress with some friends and Justin. 

What better way to kick that off than with a little 5K?! 

This morning, I'm headed downtown to join a few of my wine club girls to run the Wrigley Early Start 5K.


There are a bunch of different charities that are running for support today.

Our group is running to support our friend and fellow wine club member's organization - Teen Parent Connection.

From their website:

"Through the power of support teen parent connection helps young moms and dads confront challenges and create opportunities. Since 1985 our mission has been to provide teen parents with support, information, and resources to help them navigate their lives as parents and as teenagers."


If you are interested in donating or volunteering with/to Teen Parent Connection, they have many options listed on their website at teenparentconnection.org.


I know all of us girls are so proud of Mary Beth and her work with TPC, so we are very excited to get out there and support her whenever we can!


I'm really excited to do this run today because it is for a good cause, we will be running right along the lake (I miss it!!), and I've got a brand-spankin'-new playlist! :)


Of course, I will share it with you! 


1) Sunrise, Rascal Flatts
2) About Life, Julianne Hough
3) Too Close, Alex Clare
4) Call Me Maybe, Carley Ray Jepsen
5) Wild Ones (feat. Sia), Flo Rida
6) Feels Just Like a Love Song, Sara Evans 
8) Payphone (feat. Wiz Khalifa), Maroon 5
9) P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing), Michael Jackson
10) Gold Forever, The Wanted


Some oldies, but goodies, and some newbies to keep you on your toes! You can get the songs individually, or the whole list HERE through iTunes.


Well, I'm off to have a pre-race snack (probably a banana and a Clif Kids Z-Bar, oatmeal cookie!!).


I am recruiting Justin to come down to support and take some pictures, so stay tuned for a race recap!


Have a wonderful Saturday, everyone! Take some time to do YOU today.


xoxo


Jess


Sunday, April 15, 2012

Cake Tasting

OMG!!!!

How has it been over a month since my last post!!!

I promise I did not intend to take a blog-cation.  I guess things have been a little bit busy around here.

Obviously, there is tons to update you guys on!

Let's start with a fun wedding update - since we all love those ;)

{today marks 5 months until the BIG day!}

When Easter weekend rolled around, I knew we needed to schedule a bunch of appointments with our vendors back in Indiana since we would be going back to celebrate the holiday.

One of the items on the list that I was VERY excited about...

The CAKE TASTING! :)

There was no crazy internal debate about where we would be getting our wedding cake.

From day one, it was going to be Adams Cake Shop.

I can't remember when I first tasted Adams cake, but it was love at first sight.

Adams cake is hands down the BEST cake I have ever tasted in my life.

And yes, I know that is a very bold statement - but, I'm making it.

This cake tastes like a little piece of heaven - it is light, just the right amount of sweetness, and the icing...

Ohmygoodnesstheicing.

I am an icing girl through and through.

When I see someone scrape the icing off their piece of cake, my jaw drops...

And then I immediately start wondering if this is a situation where it would be socially acceptable for me to call their reject icing.

However, I will say that I am very particular about my icing.

I can't STAND that whipped cream tasting stuff or fondant.

Just ruins the whole dang thing for me.

Simply put, Adams has the good stuff.

I called Adams Cake Shop about a month ago (so 6 months out from our wedding day) just to make sure we could reserve our cake spot.

I thought whoever answered the phone might think I was crazy - I figured I was taking care of this to-do very early.

Not the case - they already had one other wedding cake order for our day, and suggested that I come right in to do the tasting.

Well, twist my arm!

I was pumped for our cake tasting, and would you believe it - Justin was too!

He wanted to have nothing to do with the 2.5 hour meeting I had in the morning with our florist, but when it came to cake tasting time, his game face was on.

When we got to Adams, we first chatted about the design of the cake.

I printed out a couple of pictures of cakes I loved, but Adam had 3 huge picture albums full of the bakery's work ready to show us when we sat down.

Love it.

Justin & I flipped through the books, and surprisingly, we had a VERY difficult time agreeing on the design.

I couldn't quite wrap my head around the fact that Justin actually had a strong opinion on this one, but hey, it is his wedding too ;)

Here were the final options we came down to as far as the shape/layering goes:



4 Layer Square/Round Alternating 


3 Layer Square



3 Layer Square-Square-Round

Which is your favorite?? 

I don't think I'll say on here which one we chose, but I will say that I didn't get my top choice due to Justin's veto.

Hey, relationships are all about compromise, right? ;)

After picking the shape/number of layers, we went on to talk about the design that would be on each layer of the cake.

Obviously, there are a ton of options.

You can get super decorative and contemporary:



Or you can keep things simple and traditional:



We decided to do a slight design on the cake, but we will be having the same design on each layer, and it will all be done with white icing.  

The color will be brought in through the flowers (we will at least have them on top) and maybe with a ribbon around the bottom of each layer (still haven't decided on that). 

So, there will be no traditional bride/groom cake topper, and we decided against the very popular monogram/initial topper, at least for now. 

Onto the tasting...

While I'm pretty sure we knew what we wanted from our previous experience with Adams cake, we tasted the rainbow. 

Go big, or go home! 


There were white (my fav!), yellow, and chocolate cupcakes to taste with a variety of fillings...

We opted to try lemon, chocolate, raspberry, rum custard (!), strawberry, and almond custard filings, but there were even more to choose from. 

I must say I was VERY impressed by Justin's cake-eating performance.  

He is NOT a sweets person, but he tried more cake than me! 

{Which is crazy because I could normally kick his booty in any type of eating contest.} 

However, I think the cake beat him on this one, because he left with one heck of a sugar headache. 



Thankfully, Adam had lots of water and some Advil on hand. 

In the end, we decided to go with vanilla cake with raspberry filling throughout the main cake, and we are getting a separate sheet cake with a chocolate/raspberry combo to mix things up a bit. 

Did you know it is less expensive to get one (or more) of your layers made in a separate sheet cake?  

You pay a premium to have a "higher" (aka more layers) cake because it is more difficult to assemble. 

See, don't say you don't learn anything from reading this blog :) 

After a quick picture with Adam: 


{Tip: having a blog gets you privilege to take a picture of EVERY occasion} 

We took home our leftover tastings in a to-go box, and I even got a party favor...


Because, no, I did NOT have enough sugar in me yet. 

Mmmmm, now go get yourself something sweet, you deserve it! ;) 

Something to talk about: What is your favorite cake in this post? What flavor combo sounds the best to you? Any funny cake tasting stories? 

Hope to see you all again soon! 

xoxo

Jess