Our weekend in the woods...

{Here we go!}

{This here is cow country}

{Tent is up!}

{Our little friend}

{drying rain soaked clothes!}

{Rolling waves}

{All the girls!}

{Succulents}

{Fun with my love!}

Have any fun adventures this weekend?!

A Tribute to Love

I, Gregory Ryan 

take you Savannah Catherine

To be my one wife

to be my closest friend

and to be the first in my heart

In the presence of our God

and our family and friends

in every season

and with the help of the Holy Spirit

I make this sacred vow

I will be your faithful husband

I will love you without condition

I will weep and laugh with you

I will mourn and dance with you

I will toil and lie with you

I will put you before all others

even myself

I will be forever yours

and even death itself shall suffer to divide us

I, Savannah Catherine

take you Gregory Ryan

To be my one husband

to be my closest friend

and to be the first in my heart

In the presence of our God

and our family and friends

in every season

and with the help of the Holy Spirit

I make this sacred vow

I will be your adoring wife

I will love you without condition

I will weep and laugh with you

I will mourn and dance with you

I will toil and lie with you

I will put you before all others

even myself

I will be forever yours

and even death itself shall suffer to divide us

And even death itself shall suffer to divide us.

Truth.

I love this man, with all of my heart. Best friend does not even begin to cover it. I am grateful.

hehe.

Year in Review...a little late

So much happened this year. And that is an understatement!

The pictures are a little hard to see...but SO much happened that I had to try and fit them all in!!

2011 was a great year. A truly GREAT year. The best of my entire life so far!

Let's begin at the beginning shall we...

We love her to bits and pieces...can you tell?

Many friends got engaged, many friends got married, and many friends had babies.

My most favorite day of all! 

Had some fun vacations this year! SoCal, Philadelphia, Portland, Disneyland, Cabo, Puerto Vallarta, San Diego. We were very blessed in 2011! 

And to top it all off I started nursing school too.

Well it sure has been an amazing, incredible, whirlwind of a year...and I wouldn't have traded a single second!! Here is to a new year, that probably will not top this one...but I hope it come to a close second!

{I have no choice, but I would still choose you.}

I love this song. It haunts me and send chills down my spine. 

It is the perfect example of the struggle, love, and eternity of marriage.

It makes me think of who I am as a wife and the poison that can easily come from my mouth instead of joyous and celebratory wine.

Our spouses are usually the ones we are hardest on, the ones that can cut us to the core like no other but on the other hand know just what to do to ground us and calm our hearts.

The poignant lyrics in this song make me examine my heart and words and actions I take against my husband

"Your hands can heal, your hands can bruise"

"You mouth is poison, your mouth is wine"

"I don't love you, but I always will"

This are powerful words that, depending where your heart lies can build up or tear down your marriage.

I want my hands to HEAL

I want WINE to pour from my lips

I don't want to breed bitterness or selfishness in my marriage, but honesty, deep love, commitment above all else to God, and to each other.

My favorite line from this song though is:

"I have no choice, but I would still choose you."

We have made a commitment, a vow, and at this point I have no choice in the matter. We will be together forever, there is no second option. This overjoys me, but I know there will be times in the future when this seems too hard to handle or too much pressure, and I will want to run

I pray I will always choose you.

I pray you will always choose me.

Portland in Pictures.

The Mr. and I decided to kick it a little closer to home for our Honeymoon and spend most of our money on a bangin' hotel. Total worth it. Totally recommend it! And hey...now his parents are taking us to Cabo so we didn't really miss out on the exotic (is Cabo exotic?! haha) beach aspect. 

We instantly fell in love with The City of Roses and I kid you not we looked at rentals and jobs there while on our honeymoon! But fret not we are not packing up and moving anytime soon, we just have many plans to go back there for vacations and get-a-ways!

Our honeymoon in Instagram.

The Nines - Portland.

Every night our hotel served free gourmet dessert. We never skipped free dessert - ever.

This is how pretty much every morning started at Public Domain Coffee

Many afternoons were lazily spend browsing in Powell's bookstore - the largest in North America.

Adorable home "how-to" book from homemade wine and brewing to how to raise chickens and goats.

Little Big Burger

A trip to the Chinese Tea Garden in China Town.

Voodoo Doughnuts of course.

We would just walk around the city until we found a shop or coffee place or restaurant we wanted to try. We spent the better part of an afternoon browsing Anthropologie and Sur La Table across the street.

Amazing pour-over coffee again at Public Domain

Is it normal to be so in love with paper?

Bliss.

I love this man to the moon and back and can't wait for the rest of our married adventures!

Please do me a big favor and plan a trip to Portland...It is amazing and relaxing and just completely wonderful!

A lot of people ask " how was the honeymoon?!" and I think the best way to respond would be:

It was like the best Saturday morning stretched out over an entire week.

Waking up late, getting coffee, walking around in the city, staying up late, eating dinner our, getting cockatial.

Where did you go on your honeymoon?

I need your opinion!

I am currently in the market (the FREE or CHEAP) market for a new blog design. I found this one over at The Cutest Blog on the Block, and I like it ok... I really want something a little more personalized and me. Greg IS a graphic designer so I am hoping to get him on board for this project...but we shall see what his schedule is like. 

He is working extra hard to put me through school so I don't have to work, so I won't beg to much...

In other news...

I'M GOIN' ON A CRUISE!

Greg's parents just booked us a New Years Eve cruise to Cabo and PuertoVallarta!

2012 can't get here fast enough.

What's on the menu...Saturday Morning Breakfast!

I was going to post this yesterday morning, but eggs and pancakes seems a little to irreverent for the 10th anniversary of September 11th. 

Being a newlywed has made meals so much more fun (I guess that is why they say you gain weight after you get married!) I finally have not only someone to cook for,but someone to enjoy my meals with!

And who could resist this adorable mug in the morning? Heavy metal t-shirt, messy bed head and sleepy eyes.

Yep you guess it that is my knight in shining armor. 

Pancakes:

1cup bisquick

1 Tbs sugar

1 Tbs melted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp baking powder

grated nutmeg

Enough milk to give a "pancake batter" consistency. Not too runny, but shouldn't stick to the spoon when trying to put it into the frying pan.

Don't forget the Mrs. Buttersworth -Greg's favorite.

I prefer Trader Joe's Honey Apple Butter - swoon!

Fried egg 

Toasted leftover bread

Sliced nectarines

A nice hot cup of Jo...thank you Crate & Barrel for your irresistible labeled dishware.

Another Crate & Barrel love.

Greg's choice...Bread Pudding.

Greg has this thing where he will become obsessed with something and will learn about it/eat it/drink it/watch it until he finds something new to cleave to. It is one thing I find so endearing about him.

I often hear him saying things like "This is the best _blank_ that I have ever had! Let's buy a flat of this at Costco"

I swear this guy is one Costco flat away from turning our guest room into a stock house of Peace Tea and Mexican Fruit Popsicles (just 2 of his current favs)

So he has been obsessing over bread pudding lately so I figured this was an easy one to make happen for him. So here is my recipe!

*DISCLAIMER - you have to let the bread soak in the mixture for 1/2 hour and it has to cook in a water bath*

These are things I would like to know before starting a recipe. : ) Just in case I don't have time or don't have the knowledge of how to do something.

Ingredients

1. 3 cups whole milk (I used 1% and it was fine)

2. 3/4 cups milk

3. 4 large eggs

4. 1 tsp vanilla

5. 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

6. 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

7. 5-6 cups of stale (not hard, I left mine uncovered on the counter for about 8 hours) ripped into 11/2 inch cubes

8. Raisins (optional, I did not use)

I used individual ramekins so I set my measured bread aside in a large bowl. If you are doing it one large ramekin, then line bottom of the ramekin with the bread.

Add all other ingredients to a large bowl

Whisk ingredients well until fully combined and the sugar doesn't feel "grainy" on the bottom

Add liquid to the bowl (or large ramekin) on top of the bread. Using a spatula or large spoon push the bread down into the liquid until all bread absorbs liquid. 

Leave bread and liquid alone for 1/2 hour pushing bread down into liquid occasionally to make sure it absorbs correctly -This would be a good time to PRE-HEAT oven to 350

If using individual ramekins spoon the pudding into each ramekin equally making sure not to overfill, as they will puff up in the oven

Place large cookie sheet in the oven and pour hot tap water into sheet, filling it just enough to add ramekin(s) without it spilling over.

Set timer to 50-55 minutes

When finished the bread pudding should be puffy and slightly brown on top.

And smell so good you have to have one before Greg even comes home from work...wha?

Serve along side vanilla ice cream, a fruit compote or alone. 

A Mini house tour

So finally after a month of being married and Greg moving in we have finally started to make everything feel like OUR home and not just my home. I know that was something that was hard for Greg when he moved in after the wedding, the feeling like he was just spending the night at my house, cause I have lived in this house for a year with one of my sister's and my best friend.

So we decided to spend our labor day doing just that...laboring over cleaning the house and making the house feel like home. I wanted to share some pictures with you of some of my particular favorite spots in the house.

Living room. Don't mind the glare coming off the wall...my camera is out of commission and the only lens I have is a zoom lens which gives me pictures of about 1/3 of my living room even with my back against the back wall. iphonography will have to do until I get a new lens!

The perfect marriage of industry and crafting. Old WWII canisters from Greg's dad and my vintage egg basket filled with yarn.

My Anthropologie inspired TV stand display. The white vintage owls were a gift from my great-grandmother before she passed away. She was an owl FREAK. She had an entire hutch full of them, I snagged a couple amazing vintage pieces before it because trash. 

Again sorry for the crappy iphone shot...but I love this shelf in our house! We both don't like clutter, but we also have a tiny house and a lot of stuff...so this gives us an opportunity to display it nicely without it looking kitchy and cluttered. Thank you IKEA.

Here is another one of my favorite pieces in the house. Again we have a tiny house with no storage, so we decided to invest in some glass containers to keep rice, beans, flour, etc in and have it look nice enough to sit out on a shelf and not have to be hidden in a cupboard...which would not be a possibility with our limited space. We also had huge bags of spices from when I went to Morocco that we needed to do something with so we went to our local spice shop and loaded up on some cheap glass containers. 

You are probably noticing a theme here...tons of open storage. That is just the way it is around these parts! It is a bit intimidating because it forces up to be cleaner. We can't just shove stuff in drawers or cupboards! 

Here is a terrible picture of our dinning room. The table and chairs were $130 from IKEA. Booyah.

Greg & Savannah. We are currently working on a His & Hers hobby room. The biggest room in our house is a converted garage turned into our dinning room/hobby room. One half is a table and chairs seen above and one half is a crafting/design workshop. Will post pictures soon. 

Last but not least our guestroom/office. The quilt was made by my great-grandmother in the 60's. It is a hand embroidery quilt featuring a square for each of the states along with state flower, bird, capital and year it became a state. I cannot imagine how long it must of taken, but it is one of my "grab if there was a fire" treasures. We have a lot of "slash" rooms in our house because have I mentioned our house is tiny? : ) But on a serious note we are beyond blessed to be living in this amazing house  as poor newlyweds and we love every little square inch of it!

And the office portion of the quest room. Still a work in progress, but I am working on making a big calendar to be hung on the clipboard so I can keep all of our appointments/weddings/babyshowers/birthday parties/etc straight! I am loving Emily's idea of color coding the members of her family and her free calendar template download is fab! Since there are only currently 2 people living in the house and Greg is pretty easy to keep track of so I am not sure I am in a place in my life where color coding is necessary...but it is just so fun!

No pictures of our bedroom yet I'm sorry. It is super boring right now. Grey walls, white bed spread with grey pillows. I pretty much took all the wall art out of every room to be hung in the living room for the wall collage so our room is extra boring right now. It is a work in progress and pictures will be up soon when it is completed! I love a good productive weekend!

What did y'all do for Labor Day? I hope you didn't clean like we did!

Love, Sav