Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Mustard & Apples???

I love to cook! Like you didn't know that already.... but I love to cook with strange mixtures of ingredients. Things you would never imagine putting in the same recipe. Like bacon and chocolate! I'm crazy, I know. I got a great idea last week for a new sandwich recipe from Real Simple magazine. Gourmet sandwiches are one of my favorite things to make and I enjoy eating them even more! ;) My love and appreciation for delicious sandwiches stems back to the 4 weeks I spent in and around Europe. I would go back in a heartbeat if just for a sandwich. Yuum-ee.

Anyways, this is what I came up with....


Apple & Cheese Panini

wheat bread
thin sliced apple, a couple layers (gala, fuji, pink lady, any sweet apple)
thick sliced sharp cheddar cheese
thin layer of mustard
some crushed red pepper flakes
drizzled honey


Cook in a skillet with butter like you would a grilled cheese! Serve with your favorite soup or stew and garnish with more sliced apples! Enjoy!! :P

While I was preparing the meal Jonathan exclaims, "Mustard and apples??!" I told him to just trust me.... I was right ;)

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Fall Cafe

As the season changes and temperatures drop, we tend to do anything and everything outside. Especially eat :) On the official first day of fall we started it out right with broccoli and cheese soup with a yummy grilled cheese. Life doesn't get much better than this. We welcomed Autumn in our backyard "Fall Cafe" with our dogs and a couple mugs o' beer. It was a splendid afternoon!

*fall cafe

*bully is always good company

*king of the rummage

*dimples so cute

*that's my hubby ;)

*this boy is SO proud of his garden

*and who would've known it would still be producing..
-Amelia

Friday, September 10, 2010

What We've Been Up To

First I will apologize for the lack of blogging, but we have been SUPER busy lately and I swear the summer just vanished in the middle of it all. So I will just give a run-down of what we have been up to since my last post.

I launched my business, Studio Milly Jean Weakleg in mid July! So far, so good!! Already have booked two weddings for the year 2011. That sounds so crazy, 2011... and I have several photography sessions lined up for the fall :))) Makes me so happy! Also, I'm getting ready for my first festival which is next Saturday, September 18th. Anyone and everyone in the Desoto County area should plan to attend this fun-filled event and stop by my booth!

*business card

I started classes with KidzArt! It is SO much fun and I enjoy every minute of it :)) even the hectic ones... for those of you who aren't aware, I am an artist instructor for KidzArt which is an after school program teaching kids the fundamentals of drawing and art. I teach Tuesday-Thursday and have 28 kids total, grades K-3. I LOVE IT!!

*student work from this week

Jonathan & I have booked our belated honeymoon! We will be headed to Grand Cayman Island for a Caribbean holiday! We are so excited and can't wait to be there. We are so fortunate to be able to take the trip of a life-time! A big thanks to my aunt and uncle for letting us stay in their beautiful villa at the Caribbean Club!!

*where we will be staying

Jonathan was awarded the "Above and Beyond" award at work! I was such a proud wife of his accomplishments and had to reward him myself with a little party. Homemade decorations and a yummy dinner of chicken ranchero calzones, his favorite :)

*great job, Jonathan!

We've been eating LOTS of veggies from the garden Jonathan planted right after we moved to Pearl. Considering we were late getting it into the ground and it was on the small side it didn't turn out half bad!

*he is the one with the green thumb, not me

I got the chance to visit Starkville for Katie's 21st birthday and had a blast hanging out with her and her friends! It's always great to be back in Vegas :))) and I just love every minute I get to spend with my new sissy!

*Katie, with her birthday present

And last but definitely not least, we've been gearing up for Mississippi State FOOTBALL!! We had a great season opener last week against Memphis, winning 49-7. So proud of our Bulldogs! We played our second game last night against Auburn but came up short against the #21 team in the nation, 14-17. We're still ringing our cowbells though and praying for success next weekend in the Swamp!

*Dan is still (and always will be) the Man!

Well that just about sums up our first summer as newlyweds! Time sure does fly by when you're having fun and we are looking forward to our first holiday season as a married couple! Fall will be here in 12 days!!! And I LOOOOOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

GO DAWGS!!!!!!!!

-Amelia


Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Rental Roller Coaster

You know you are loved when filthy messes are cleaned for you :D

Jonathan and I definitely experienced our fair share of trials and tribulations in the first few weeks of our marriage. Our first (rental, thank God) home would have been the end of our blissful marriage had we not been madly in love with each other. I knew he loved me, but not this much!

First of all the house had not been thoroughly cleaned and sanitized before we moved in. Just great. I hate cleaning as it is, much more if it's not my mess. But I have to give credit where credit is due and fortunately I arrived to Jackson several hours after Jonathan did so....reason #1 of why he's the best. Secondly, only half the house had been painted and you can imagine how determined I was that the rest match what had already been done. After several attempts to get the landlords to finish the job we decided to take matters into our own hands. Well mostly Jonathan's, again reason #2. Plus side: the rent check was significantly lower that month. Third, we got a FREE washer and dryer from a friend of Jonathan's. How awesome is that? That would be reason #3 if it weren't for what came next. Well it was just too good to be true. We hooked them up and then decided to run the washer to rinse it out. Can't be too cautious. In the meantime the hall toilet, which previously had a leak but since being fixed actually farted (pressure and air), was making that strange sound that I had told Jonathan about. Curiosity kicked in and Jonathan had to check it out. When he lifted that lid our lives changed for the worst. You see, the people who lived here before us had been pouring their grease down the drain even though there is no disposal. Well running the washing machine somehow caused lots and lots of pressure and resulted in both of our toilets and showers to back up, spilling greasy, *mexican poo all over the bathrooms. And this just HAD to happen at 7 o'clock on a Saturday night. We called the plumber that had worked on our leaky toilet before but he couldn't be there till 9am the next day. So we proceeded to make a pallet on our living room floor because the smell was too strong to sleep in our bed. Slumber party! Yea right, I wish it had been a party. Anyways the next morning the plumber showed up on his gleaming white horse and fixed our problem, which was about 5 or 6 inches of compacted grease at the end of our line. What came next is reason #3 of why my husband is the best. I'm a gagger. Always have been and always will be. So he sweetly volunteered to get down and dirty cleaning those nasty bathrooms. And I will love him forever for it! And to make it worse, all this went down with no a/c. Yea, we got a new one of those too, but like I said, a rental. Thank, God.

Hopefully this ride has come to an end, but I doubt it.

*our house has been dubbed "the mexican house" by our neighbors because of the previous tenants. I'm not racist people, it's just a fact.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Not Your Typical Honeymoon

Two days after we were married Jonathan and I packed up everything we could fit in the back of his truck, my dad's trailer, and my mom's jeep and hit the road to move to Jackson, MS. For three days we frantically cleaned, unpacked boxes, and organized as much as possible. Luckily we got most of it done before we woke up at 2am Thursday morning to head for Asheville, NC for our "mini honeymoon" as we like to call it. Jonathan slept most of the way so that left the driving to me....whoo hoo. You can imagine my excitement when we arrived at our destination 10 hours later. We booked a camp site at the nearby Lake Powhatan and it was absolutely beautiful. When we got there we set up "our first tent" that my sister Sarah gave us as a wedding gift, and we love it! Shortly after we decided to take a stroll around the camp site and see what we see. It was so peaceful and all the little critters were out to play. When we got back to camp Jonathan decided it was time to build a fire. Success. Weenie roasting was next on the agenda along with tic tac toe. It turned out to be a relaxing first night and that's exactly how we wanted it.

Early the next morning (if you knew my husband you would know that when I say early, I mean eeaarrllly, ugh) we headed into downtown Asheville for a fun-filled day. Little did we know the first family would be doing the same thing, well maybe not exactly the same thing, but they were there! First we went window shopping and stumbled across some really cool shops. Everything in Asheville is so.....how should I say it, hippie? Yes, that is one way to describe it. Lots of friendly, down-to-earth people who are extremely talented in whatever their trade is, whether it be musician, wood carver, tasty beer proprietor or tattoo artist. Next we decided to stop by Mellow Mushroom for some afternoon grub. I had never eaten at one before and was super excited. I love pizza! And the funny thing is I can't remember what I had but I know it was good! After lunch we ventured to find the best tattoo artist in town. Yep, that's right, I got my very first tattoo while we were there, and no I didn't faint! I got the word "peace" on the inside of my middle finger. I love it! Afterward we decided to hit up this store we passed called "Bruisin' Ales". It's one of those places where you can build your own six pack but all the beer is special. Special because you can't get it in Mississippi. Sweet. Of course Jonathan walked out of there with one pretty good sized jug. And a six pack. Of nothing but dark, heavy beer. I like my wheat beer. Ew, there was one I picked up called a "Sweaty Betty", yea take my advice and don't ever buy that beer. It literally tasted like a sweaty betty. Gross. Leaving the beer store is when we found out the first family was in town. There was a guy in front of us on the side walk carrying a box of pizza and wearing a dark suit and had an ear piece in. Jokingly I whispered to Jonathan, "He's a CIA agent" in which he responded, "Oh yea, while you were in the bathroom, the lady who owns Bruisin' Ales was telling me how Air Force One had just landed." I about peed my pants. I hope Barack and Michelle enjoyed themselves as much as we did ;)

We still had a couple of hours before the doors opened at the Orange Peel for the Railroad Earth show so we did some more window shopping and just chilled until we could get in. Once we did get in, because we already had tickets (thank you, CHAD! Best wedding gift we received), we payed a couple extra dollars to sit in the VIP section. Well worth it. Now not only were we pumped because we were there to see our favorite band on our honeymoon, but my sorority little sis and her boyfriend who had moved to Asheville the year before were meeting us there! I was so excited to see her!! About halfway into the show the band dedicated our song to us, "Right in Tune." It was the coolest! I did not want that night to end. You can listen to the whole show here.

Early the next morning, and again I mean early, we packed up our stuff and hit the road again to head home, but not before making a pit stop in Horn Lake to get even more of our stuff from my parent's house. Needless to say, we still have a lot there.... After we got back home in Jackson Saturday night we went straight to bed. But the next day we went to Lowe's and picked up vegetable plants for our first garden. Jonathan was so excited and is super proud of this 4'x10' piece of land. I'm pretty impressed myself.

We had a wonderful time on our "mini honeymoon" and plan to visit Asheville again and again, and I recommend that everyone visit at least once. Until next time, peace.


-Amelia

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Our Wedding Day - Part II

Continuing on... our wedding ceremony turned out so beautiful! Everything was picture perfect!! After the ceremony we took some pictures including some fun ones like the girls pulling Jonathan in every direction. I just love his sister Katie's facial expression!

The reception was held at The Club at North Creek golf course, which was just right around the corner from the church. Jonathan and I were introduced when we arrived and I had the DJ play "Son of A Preacher Man". It was priceless! After greeting several guests and thinking about eating, we danced our first dance as Mr. & Mrs. Patterson. We love Bob Marley! So we just had to... we may be the only couple in history to dance to "Is This Love" and I wouldn't have it any other way! Me and my Daddy danced next. Ever since I was a little girl I knew which song we would dance to and there have been several occasions when we would practice in the kitchen :) We danced to "Unforgettable" and he is definitely unforgettable. Jonathan and his mother danced to "Sweet Happy Life". It was precious!

Jonathan and I cut the wedding cake shortly after and let me tell you it looked like a battle scene. Cake everywhere, including up my nose! But it was all in good fun! The cake was definitely one of my favorite things about the wedding. I got the idea from Martha Stewart Weddings. It was alternating tiers of strawberry and butter cake, with brown frosting to resemble wood grain, better known as faux bois. We also served one of our favorites, hot chocolate chip cookies with cold milk! YUM YUUMM!!

After catching up with old friends and dancing with new ones it was time to say goodnight. We exited through a sea of sparklers with a hint of cowbell. GO DAWGS!






Photography by David Eubanks. Visit his blog here. To see all of our wedding photos from Part II click here. From Part I click here.

Flowers by Lynn-Doyle. They did an excellent job!

Cake by Donna. Thank you! It was more than I could have hoped for :)

Catering by First Choice. Wish I could tell you the food was good from experience...I didn't get any :( but I heard it was de-lish. Owner, John Woods, is sweet as pie!

DJ - Lance Richardson - great guy!

Groomsmen's tuxedos came from Men's Wearhouse and Bridesmaid's dresses came from David's Bridal.

I designed my wedding gown and had it custom made! Every girl's dream.

-Amelia

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Our Wedding Day - Part I

Hello again! We are 3 days short of our 3 month mark and still blissfully, head-over-heels in love with each other. Even though I get annoyed when he kicks up a rug or he has to bite his tongue in the mornings because of my grouchiness (yes, I can be a brat sometimes), we are totally meant for one another. And the days just keep getting better...

I recently received our wedding photos in the mail and decided to share a few with you today along with our wedding story. We unfortunately did not have the ceremony filmed so I will have to give you the run-down myself. Here goes..

Once upon a time...hehe I just had to :) I know I've said this before but Jonathan and I were married April 17, 2010. The best day of our lives! & we are so fortunate to have had so many of our family and friends to share our special day with us.

Before the ceremony we had some fun and enjoyable music playing while the guests were seated, such as "Lucky" and "All I Want is You". Family members were seated to the catchy tune "The Way I Am" and I thought it was so fitting :) The wedding party entered to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and everyone looked amazing! I was led by our two precious flower girls and handsome ring bearer, who carried rings strung to a cane fishing pole. So adorable! Instead of the traditional "Bridal March" I decided to honor my heritage and have a bigpiper lead me in while playing "Ode to Joy". It was breathtaking! And I was so happy to have my Daddy take me down the aisle to my future husband.

After the welcoming and opening prayers, my sister Christina did us the honor of reciting verses from the Bible including John 15:5, "I am the vine, you are the branches: He that stays in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing." Jonathan's sister and father performed two songs during the ceremony. Between readings Katie sang the hymnal "When Love is Found" while Don played the guitar. I definitely wish we had recorded that!

Instead of lighting a unity candle, Jonathan and I decided to pot a plant. We had both sets of parents bring soil from their yards that represented the foundation on which we brought upon. We each planted a peace lily into one pot mixing the two soils. Water that hydrates the plant represents the Holy Spirit and the life-giving power that He brings into our marriage. The sunlight that it takes to sustain a plant is the same as the light that the Son will use to guide our marriage. Our peace lily has bloomed and will bloom for many years to come!

After the potting of the plant Katie sang while Don played "Annie's Song" by John Denver. It was absolutely beautiful!! I wish I had that one recorded too :( Now all we had to do was kiss...and leave it to Jonathan and his groomsmen to make a bet that he wouldn't pull this prank. Of course. But I thought it was funny! & the recessional..."Linus and Lucy". Priceless.

Everything was absolutely perfect! Stay tuned for Part II coming soon!





Photos by David Eubanks. Visit his blog here. To see all the photos from Part I of our wedding day click here.

-Amelia

Monday, July 5, 2010

Hello!


We are newlyweds, Amelia & Jonathan Patterson! I'm from Horn Lake, MS and he is from Florence, MS. How did we meet you ask? We worked at the restaurant Doe's Eat Place in Starkville, MS where we both attended Mississippi State University. I was in my third year at MSU when I met Jonathan. I began working at Doe's when it opened it's doors in the fall of 2007. My roommate at the time, Nicole, she was the one who talked me into applying for the job. I remember thinking, this is my junior year of interior design school, the busiest and craziest of all my college life, do I really want a job to compete with? But I gave in, reluctantly. And I'm glad I did....some of the best tips any college student could get on a Tuesday night (too bad they didn't last long; that's another story though.) and some of the best friends I have I found while working at Doe's, including Jonathan :)

Jonathan began working at Doe's a couple of months after we opened. He and his roommate, Lloyd, started the same day. Our manager was very eager to hire these two with previous serving experience, as we were in the middle of football season. At the time, I thought Lloyd was the cute one. The way he stirred that chili...haha! But after time passed and new friendships were made I realized Jonathan and I had a lot in common, and he was just too cute to pass up with those deep dimples of his :)

We began seeing each other on a regular basis once school started back up for spring semester. He made me laugh, played the guitar, and introduced me to a whole new world. And to top things off, he proved I really was a fishin' magician! I had assumptions all these years but our first fishing trip made it fact. But this story is not about me and my amazing talents as a fisherwoman....it's about us. I can't tell the whole story now though. You see, it's only just begun. A year and some odd days after that first fish in the face (he was dumb-founded), he proposed.

Jonathan popped the question on Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009. It was the sweetest. My grandmother's engagement ring was nestled inside an Easter egg in the basket he had given me. It was an Easter to always remember!

Now, many fish and 2.5 years later, we're married and couldn't be happier to be spending the rest of our lives together.

*our first photo

*the first fishing trip

*Lloyd, the cute one ;)

*Nicole, or I guess the one responsible for bringing Jonathan and I together

*great friends from Doe's

*great friends from Doe's

*great friends from Doe's

*after Jonathan proposed

I'll post pictures of many fish later ;)

-Amelia