Summer Vacation- part 2

We left Amelia Island and headed to Bluffton, South Carolina to spend a few days at the Inn at Palmetto Bluff. It was unbelievable and a trip we will never forget. Ben gets all the credit for this trip because this was definitely his idea. I'm so glad I let him convince me that we should go!

The Inn is located on the May River and the low country is a beautiful backdrop 

We stayed in one of the guest cottages, which was tastefully decorated. It felt so homey...which I loved.

The first day we were there, I spent the afternoon at the Spa while Ben played golf. I was in heaven. This was without question the best Spa experience I have ever had. 

I had the women's facilities to myself that afternoon, so I snapped a picture of the whirlpool tub with my phone. Total relaxation....

One morning we ventured out for a 7 mile bike to the far end of the property to see a treehouse

I am not a big fan of biking but it was hard to complain with views like this.

Clearly this was not just any treehouse...the views from the top were incredible

After all that hard work, it was time to cool off by taking a canoe ride

Or so we thought. We didn't last 15 minutes on the canoe before we started heading back. It was unbelievably hot and required way more energy/effort than we had to give at that time.

So, we headed to one of my favorite places to cool off.

I loved that they would bring you a bucket of ice water!

My favorite summer cocktail = Miami Vice

One evening we went on a sunset wine cruise on the river. It was so fun and we ended up meeting a sweet family from Birmingham who vacations here every year.

We saw several dolphins but, unfortunately, weren't able to capture any on camera. You can see Harbour Town on Hilton Head. 

Inside the little place we ate breakfast at every morning 

 The precious chapel 

 Fire pits where we roasted s'mores at night...a palmetto bluff tradition 

 The gorgeous main lodge. The wrap around porches and gas lanterns....perfect! 

 We enjoyed dinner at the main lodge one night 

 Eating dinner outside at the Canoe Club

Complimentary snacks and wine which we devoured

I cannot think of a more perfect way to celebrate our 3rd anniversary! We were both so sad to leave and cannot wait to go back.

Recipe Organization

It is no secret that I love Pinterest. Ben is quick to call me out on it when I become glued to my phone-- "Are  you over there pinning again?" Which of course my response is, "No, I'm reading a very important e-mail." He knows me too well. 

There is no shortage of recipes to be pinned and I have done my fair share of contributing to this growing number. When my "recipe" board was getting seriously out of control, I decided to create more boards (appetizers, sides, etc) in an attempt to make it more manageable. It helped, but was still not as functional as I was hoping. Have you ever been in a grocery store, scrolling through hundreds of pictures on your iphone trying to find "the pin" which will lead you to a webpage that you then have to navigate to find "the recipe"? I quickly decided this was not working. See, I am usually not organized enough to go through my pinterest page prior to going to the grocery store.  

Enter Dropbox- a cloud service that allows you to save your personal files. I have it on my computer and now on my iphone. It is amazing. This article describes how you can use it to organize your recipes. By using google chrome you can save a website as a PDF. It is so simple and you can specify which page numbers you want to save, which means you don't have to scroll through 10 pages before you get to the recipe! This is huge. Now it's just the time consuming process of going through the pinterest page to decide which recipes are "keepers" and which ones were probably pinned in haste when I was very hungry...which happens often. 

Not only is this a solution for my Pinterest recipes, this is also huge in helping with the paper clutter. I have so many recipes printed out from websites, like cooking light. I have written little notes to myself on different modifications I made. Does anyone else have a recipe book that looks like this? 

You can imagine being at the grocery store, deciding you want to make a certain recipe and then having to place a phone call to the hubby asking him to rummage through the above mess. Do not recommend it.

Enter GeniusScan . A way to scan my recipes by simply taking a picture with my phone. 

And are you ready for this---genius scan will "send" to your dropbox account. Wow. All of my recipes, included handwritten ones, on my phone in a neat little folder that is alphabetized. Complete life changer. 

Happy Organizing! 

Summer Vacation- part 1

I realized that there is a blogger app. I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. So, I decided there were no more excuses. If this app is as easy as it claims to be, then I can commit to a few minutes a week to start blogging again. Most pictures I take are with my phone anyways!

Truth is life in Atlanta is really good, but life is crazy. Both of our jobs are more time consuming and our "free" time is much more precious! Blogging has truly fallen very far down the ever growing "to do" list. So here's to a new start!

More on everyday life at a later time. We were blessed to be able to take a week off in May for some needed rest and relaxation.

Our week started off in Amelia island at the Ritz carlton. Neither of us had ever been to Amelia, so it was fun to go somewhere new and different. Growing up going to the gulf, I am not use to the hard sea shells! Per Ben, it's great for running but I wouldn't know anything about that :)

We enjoyed tasty chocolate covered strawberries as an early anniversary treat.

Tropical storm beryl decided to join us. So, unfortunately the last 2 days were rainy but we made the best of it. The ritz provided us with some glow sticks, just in case we lost power. Which we did. But it was in the middle of the night so didn't cause too much inconvenience.

Overall, the first half of the trip was great! Check out the double rainbow-- one of the coolest things I have ever seen and such a good reminder of God's providence.