The Best Margaritas.

A part of the key to our successful trip to the beach was a never ending pitcher of margaritas. It's not to say that we would not have had a fabulous time without them...but it wouldn't have been the same.

There is something about the beach that demands a margarita. Right?

This is not your standard margarita recipe. There is no lime involved. Nor is there any sweet and sour mix. It's the simplest recipe of all time. My mom has been serving them like this for years - be it at a Mexican themed bridal shower, Cinco de Mayo, or for the girls at the beach.

The beauty of it is the easy proportions. Any bartender will tell you that the key to a good drink is in consistency. The first drink should taste just like the second and should still taste the same on another night with a different bartender. That's why margaritas are so difficult. There are a million ways to make them and everyone likes them a little differently.

But these are easy - and delicious. Not too sweet, not too sour, not too strong. And they always taste the same! I love a reliable drink.





No Sally, that's not how you do it. Show some self control. Jeez.

Can't take her anywhere.





There are four ingredients and all in equal amounts. Frozen limeade, Corona, Sprite and Tequila. Feel free to sub in Corona Lite and Sprite Zero if you're feeling spunky.





The Corona is simple - 1 bottle.





Then the limeade, which is the slushy stuff found in the frozen section.

Next, pour in your Sprite. You can either use one can or simply refill the limeade container if you're using a 2 liter bottle.





Same goes for the tequila. Fill that limeade can right back up and dump it in.

Mix it around and then pour over ice. If rocks drinks aren't your thing than pop the pitcher in the freezer and let it sit for a few hours until it gets deliciously slushy. Perfect for taking down to the beach!

But I should add, go ahead and make a double batch. They're that good.

Now, who wants to make a practice batch and invite me over for a taste test?

Let's recap:

• 12 oz frozen limeade
• 12 oz Corona or Corona Lite
• 12 oz Sprite or Sprite Zero
• 12 oz Tequila (measure it in the limeade can!)
• Stir and Enjoy!
  
  

Hibernation.

After our little adventure in the woods last weekend we made plans for an impromptu mini-dinner party at Carla and Tyler's house that evening.





Carla got a raclette for Christmas and it seemed like the perfect night to take it for a test run. The beauty of raclette is how little preparation that goes into it. While we stood at our cars, in our snowsuits, we went back in forth with what food we had in our refrigerators. Carla had salmon. I had nothing. Carla had mushrooms, peppers and cheese. I had, well, nothing. In my defense I do grocery shopping on Sundays and since it was Saturday afternoon, my fridge was at its most pathetic point.





Anyway, a baguette, scallops and pre-sliced stir fry steak later, we were in business. For some reason I consider raclette as something we reserve for special occasions but I have decided that is silly. When something is so fun and so easy, why would we not take full advantage and have it all the time?





While we were playing cards afterward Carla mentioned that we need to make sure to stay social on the weekends and not let winter send us into hibernation. It's so easy to do. It's still getting dark at 5:00 and it's snowed for the past few days. The forecast is a cool -30 tomorrow, plus a storm rolling in early next week. Do you see why hibernation is so appealing? Come home from work, put on your favorite sweats, pour a glass of wine and cuddle on the couch all weekend - it's easy to do.





There is no point to this. I'm clearly delirious and rambling at this point. Maybe I do have a point. Let's do something fun this weekend. We work too hard during the week to not enjoy the weekend.

Happy Friday!

Randomness.

1. This is how I'm wrapping all my presents this year. Craft paper, yarn and a crayon. I can't even begin to tell you how happy it makes me to not spend money on wrapping paper and fancy ribbons - I'd much rather put it toward the actual gift. Plus, it's pretty cute, right?

2. Way more exciting that silly wrapping paper - my beloved TC just got a shiny new job! He walked in the door to find a bottle of bubbly in celebration. I couldn't be more excited for him. 

3. This past weekend was full of parties. The first stop - a fabulous dinner to celebrate our good friend Mike's birthday. Christina cooked a fabulous dinner, everyone had a blast, and I enjoyed a glass of wine...or three.

4. I'm not quite sure how a whole year has passed, but sweet little Gwen is about to turn one. TC and I brought her a whole bag of foam blocks, and to show her appreciation she tried to eat them. I'm going to go ahead and take that as a compliment. 

5. I think the photo is pretty self explanatory.

It finally happened today. I could have cried. On the up side, school was canceled so I suppose it wasn't all bad.

Southern American Thanksgiving...In Canada.

It all started on Thursday afternoon when I got home from work. Here in Canada, Thursday was...well, Thursday. Not Thanksgiving. But it was Thanksgiving to me, so I started cooking in preparation for our 3rd Annual Southern American Thanksgiving feast on Friday evening. A little non-traditional, but that's okay.

TC was hard at work assembling extra tables to make room for the seventeen bodies that were going to be seated. He also went around to our friends houses and borrowed chairs and delivered casseroles that were to be popped in the oven right before everyone came over on Friday night. Bless his little heart, I don't know what I'd do without him. Surely there would not be a Thanksgiving dinner of this caliber.

Friday I woke up ready to take on the big day. I spent the morning finishing up the table, baking biscuits and cleaning up the house.

Then two Godsends walked in the door to prep the turkey and deliver dressing - my in-laws. There are no two better people on the planet. They came in like ninjas. They turned on the oven, cleaned the turkey, stuffed it and then vanished into thin air. If I didn't have photographic evidence I might have thought it was a dream. 

Thankfully, Carla stopped by in the afternoon to check on me and see how things were going. I was in that awkward stage of the day where I've done all that I can do before the final stages of getting the meal together. 

With a little time on our hands, we decided to get a little crafty and make place cards for everyone (thanks for the inspiration, Dagni!). Instead of writing names, we thought it would be more entertaining to put 'labels' about each person so they would have to really figure out where they were seated. For example, Wine On My Wedding Dress. Ahem, Christina. Or The Firefighter's Fire for our friend Aly, who is dating a fireman. Funny, no? 

As expected, Cookie Monster went to TC. How fitting.

The best part of the place cards was that everyone managed to somehow wear their name for the night. 

I sense the beginning of a new tradition...

Eventually, Christina showed up. It's our tradition to don our aprons and make the sweet tea cocktail. This is where the fun really begins. You see, sweet tea cocktail is made in small batches and each one must be taste-tested to ensure the correct proportion of sweet tea, lemonade and vodka. We don't bother writing down the recipe because that would ruin all of our fun. It's much more exciting to take shots of the concoction as we tweak it. Plus, it helps calm us down and make me stop sweating over whether the turkey is going to come out as a big pile of saw dust.

Can we take a second and discuss how truly grateful I am for Carla and Christina? These two ladies welcomed we with open arms the minute I set foot on Canadian soil. They were my first friends here and are amazing. Not only that, but Thanksgiving would definitely not happen without them. 

Anyway, around six o'clock the crowd started rolling in and the pace picked up.

TC got the turkey out of the oven and carved it like a champ.

Christina and I did work on the gravy and enjoyed every second of it, thanks to our happy hour of taste-testing the sweet tea cocktail.

Of course, everyone was handed a glass of sweet tea deliciousness when they walked through the door. And of course, it was served in chalkboard glasses and mason jars for a little extra Southern hospitality.

As the final prep came to a close, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was all good.

And it was time to eat.

Dinner was delicious. I actually took the time this year to sit and eat and enjoy it. 

I took it all in and looked around the table, I silently said thank you for all of these wonderful friends and slowly enjoyed my meal while chatting with Cookie Monster, The Captain and Soon To Be Employed.

After dinner was over I took a break from conversation and turned around to see no less that six of my wonderful friends in the kitchen forming an impressive assembly line to get all the dishes done. Then they served all five pies I made for dessert like they were a bunch of seasoned waiters. When that was over, the boys dismantled all the extra tables and moved the couches back in the living room in no time flat. Yes, we have a small apartment and our 17 foot Thanksgiving table extends all the way through the dining room and living room. Yes, I know that's ridiculous.

It was amazing.

In true Maritime style, the party carried on in the very clean kitchen. Then, someone, some glorious person did what I've always wanted to do at Thanksgiving - they said we should all go around and say what we're thankful for. 

I was so happy at that moment I could have burst. 

Here I am in Canada, far away from my usual Thanksgiving traditions and yet lucky enough to be able to get seventeen wonderful Canadian friends together to give thanks and embrace an American holiday that's important to me. Pretty awesome...

Oh, and I have to tell you how the night ended...many hours later...

TC has a huge bike collection in the basement. He always says that if we have enough bikes then we can go for late night bike rides with all of our friends or people could just bike home instead of calling a cab. Up until this Thanksgiving it had never happened - but it did that night. It was the perfect end to our evening. 

Thanksgiving Chairs.

First of all, does anyone want to volunteer to rake my yard? 

No? I didn't think so. Neither do I.

Thanksgiving is one short week away. When I first moved to Canada is was just a month before American Thanksgiving. I was a little heart broken that for the first time ever I wasn't going to be at home with my family. See, I believe in big Thanksgivings. Somewhere along the line something happened and a few years passed with just my family, the four of us, having Thanksgiving. I remember telling my mom that while her cooking was delicious, our Thanksgiving table needed some help in the social department. We had always had my grandparents or cousins and if we couldn't have them, could we at least invite another family over? And so our table expanded and we started giving thanks with wonderful family friends every year. 

In an effort to make Canada feel a bit more like home, I decided to have all of our friends over for a good ole American Thanksgiving that first year. My plan was to replicate my mom's traditional Thanksgiving feast and show these Canadians exactly how we do it in the South. I was hell bent on them discovering the glory of sweet potato casserole and pecan pie. 

So I began planning and sent out invites. We have some pretty great friends and they all graciously said yes. Yes, we'll be there. Yes, we'll risk our lives and try sweet potato casserole. Yes, we'll support you crazy Southerners and drink a sweet tea cocktail. Yes, we're coming - all 19 of us. 

This suddenly was a cause for concern because at that point I had never actually cooked a real meal in my life. Let alone a turkey. Let alone for 19 of our closest friends.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

But then the Facebook updates started popping up. There were all my American friends, announcing their plans for travel, turkey trot runs, football and shopping. I didn't have any of that on my agenda - but I did have a big feast planned, come hell or high water. I had to do it. I needed to be a part of it. It was going to be good and delicious and fun. It was going to be as good as Thanksgiving can be without your family.

I spent weeks frantically figuring out how on Earth I was going to seat 19 people around one table. I borrowed chairs and pulled a bunch from the basement.  I had to get creative making a table cloth long enough to cover three dinner tables pushed together. I put out mismatched wine glasses, I alternated normal dinner plates and China on the table. I made center pieces and even infused vodka with tea when I couldn't find sweet tea vodka on the shelves of the liquor store. TC's parents came over and cleaned the turkey for me. I vacuumed no less than ten times that week. I carefully printed out my mom's recipes. I made multiple casseroles the day before and delivered them all over town for my friends to pop in the oven right before they came over for the big night. I even sent along beach towels for them to lay the hot casserole dish in so it wouldn't burn their laps on their way over. 

And it was perfect. We ate and we drank and then we ate some more. We laughed and talked until all hours of the night. I didn't burn the turkey and Maple didn't die after she snuck off and ate the entire turkey carcass. 

The second time around, last year, we did it again and it was just as wonderful. All of our friends were here and they all completely embraced celebrating an American holiday with their crazy American friend. I even managed to prepare and cook the turkey all on my own - well, with only a few panicked phone calls to my mom.  Who knew that it was so difficult to differentiate between the top and bottom of a turkey?

My Thanksgiving table is not like all the beautifully decorated tables you see on Pinterest and Pottery Barn. There are no cute banners, gorgeous centerpieces or adorable place cards. I don't have a dining room table, just several hand-me-down dinner tables. I certainly don't have 19 matching chairs. There is always an array of oak chairs, borrowed white chairs, a few painted black chairs, a red chair, a blue and a really random green chair that I picked up at an auction for seven dollars. 

I painted the red, blue and green chair today for no other reason than I wanted to. I wanted to get a little deeper into the Thanksgiving spirit. Not because I thought it needed to be done in order for Thanksgiving to happen. I love that my first two Thanksgiving tables were made up of an array of colors because that is what we had and it wasn't what really mattered. Last year I made some progress and cooked the turkey alone. This year, I'm making a little more progress and will have black chairs. They're not elegant and they're not all that pretty, but it's still a small bit of change and evolution. 

Here's my point. I don't think I'll always have these same chairs around my Thanksgiving table. Maybe one day the black chairs will be left in the basement because fancy new dining room chairs have replaced them. But if that day never happens, than so be it. Because it doesn't really matter what the table looks like or whether or not I burn the turkey to a crisp. What I really care about is having our friends over for a good time and bringing a little bit of home here to Canada. 

Really, no one even notices the chair they sit in anyway.

Birthday Party.

This is how the birthday party ended. Very happy and way to full of wine, cake and delicious food.

Let's back up. 

To celebrate Christina's, Julie's and my birthday we had a small party this past Friday night. Our little soiree began sitting on Carla's porch. The weather finally was working in our favor and eight of us enjoyed a pre-dinner drink and some lively conversation.

Actually, there were nine of us. Little Miss likes a good party as much as she likes smiling with all of her teeth showing. 

I just so happened to have bubbles in the car that I thought Little Miss would enjoy playing with. She did enjoy them too.  Then The Canadian totally hijacked the bubbles and spent the next hour spilling the bubbles and occasionally blowing bubbles for Little Miss to try and catch.

Being the great host that he is, Tyler manned the grill so the three birthday girls could enjoy our birthday wine uninterrupted.

He grilled up some asparagus, potatoes and an array of meats. It was BYOM so we bombarded the poor guy with everything from chicken to pork chops to steak to salmon. 

Basically, the plan was keep the boys busy on the grill (or with bubbles, as it turns out) so us ladies could sneak in a few extra sips of wine without their judgement.

Of course dinner was delicious but the cake that followed was really the highlight. Carla out did herself.   We all made sure to clean our plates so there would be enough food in our bellies to counter copious amounts of wine if need be.

For a while we sat around on the porch, just hanging out, talking about nothing in particular.

But then Carla got the genius idea to whip up some fruity shots for the girls. I have logged my fair share of hours behind the bar and have a pretty solid grasp on shot-making 101. But this was something I've never ever heard of - banana liquor, white chocolate vodka and a splash of milk. I don't even remember what it was called. Crunch something?  Dear Lord, it was delicious.

So delicious, in fact, that we had several rounds of them. We only stopped when the white chocolate ran out. I couldn't decide if I should cry out of disappointment in our liquor shortage or in happiness that my liver was going to see another day.

As you can imagine, it went downhill from there and our good times turned into great times. Hence the photo at the top. 

I've loved every birthday that I have spent on America soil, but I gotta tell you, Canadians sure know how to celebrate a birthday too.

Cheers! To another great year!