Weekend Recap 7/6/15

Happy {Belated} Fourth of July, friends! I hope you all had safe weekends that were full of family, friends, and fireworks! My weekend was wonderful. I was off work on Friday, so I drove home and spent the weekend catching up with my family and getting laundry done. On Friday, I met up with my roommate from college, Hannah and we talked about her engagements and our lives. It's crazy that we used to live in the same world and we did the same things and now we are both on opposite schedules with completely different lives. The only downside to sitting for 5 hours catching up in the sun was the sunburn we both experienced. After my afternoon out, I came home and did two loads of laundry, worked on homework for grad school, and watched a movie with my dad. I also made these babies. Years ago, long before Pinterest, my good friend Amanda taught me how to make these cuties. White chocolate, blue sprinkle, strawberries is the perfect Fourth of July treat. 

Saturday & The Fourth of July: 
On Saturday morning, my sister Brooke and I went to breakfast and went to the grocery store! I really miss her since I moved to PA. I'm thankful we had the short amount of time together before she left to go camping. When we got home, I folded laundry and got ready for my college friends to come over.

We decided to create a new tradition starting this year... Our hope is that every year, all of us will get together with our significant others and families and enjoy time together. We had a great four years together during college and hopefully even more wonderful years to come.

Kevin & Matt
Hannah, Liz (Kevin's Fiance), Ben, Afton, Angela, & (Me)
Bob & Joel

*Not pictured James, Cat, & Noelle*

I'm really not sure where we will all be next year or the year after that. But, hopefully we will all be able to come together around the 4th of July and take pictures, reminisce on good memories, and laugh a heck of a lot. 

And hopefully, Liz and I will be able to take a picture without having these silly boys trying to constantly photo bomb us! I mean come on, all we want is one picture and they refuse to let us have it. Oh well, I guess the next time we will try to get a pic is when she ties the knot in October, woot woot!!

That's all for now folks! It's going to be a busy busy week with lots of 

things that are changing in my RD world. And I'm so pumped for this upcoming weekend!

Past, Present, & Future

 It's kind of weird looking back at what my blog used to look like. Actually, one of my biggest regrets and something I hope all bloggers start/continue to do is document what your blog looks like before you do design changes. When I first started blogging, Radiating Sunshine was called Curls, Crafts, Cooking & More (I know what a mouthful) and after 6 months or so Radiating Sunshine was born and with that came my need to HTML Code and format the entire blog. I have learned a lot over the past three years with blogging. I have thoroughly enjoyed  my blog journey and all of the bloggers I have met on my way. This blog has seen me through my undergrad college experience, life's ups and downs, different friendships, different places, getting into Graduate School, getting my first job, moving into my first apartment. This blog has given me the opportunity to document it all.  

I have learned a lot on this blogging journey! I have had very successful posts... and some not so successful posts. Like when I tried to do a Product Love Link Up! I think I linked up by myself for a few weeks before I got the picture... this was not a successful link up. However, there are some successes too! I participated in some blog swaps, guest posts, several giveaways, my blog grew tremendously, I learned a lot about HTML coding, and followed new blogs. When I first started blogging, it was very much a blog only world. But, now we have an Insta-blog world too. I'm still learning how to use the appropriate social media outlets and pair them with the blog. It's exciting how all of this technology changes the way the blog world works.

What is even funnier to look back and compare it to now is how much my appearance has changed, but yet also stayed the same. Besides some minor weight gain during the summer of my sophomore year (no doubt due to the delicious Texas food), some long curls and some short curls, some tanned skin and some fair skin... this blog has seen it all! We've been through thick and thin times and I'm so glad I got to document it all!

Another thing that this blog has seen is my entire relationship with this guy! I'm so glad I met this man back when he was a wee-sophmore and I was a Junior! We're slowly approaching the year and a half mark and we couldn't be more excited. We have so many plans for this summer, like going to family reunions, to the beach, and moving me into my new apartment.

So, life has been pretty great over these four years of blogging! I can't wait to see what the next four years holds for Radiating Sunshine and to see where we go.

Poached Eggs & Orange Juice

** all opinions are my own **

Last weekend Josh and I did some breakfast exploration! We decided to try new things and to experiment in the kitchen. So, we brought out the pans and pots and made our first batch of poached eggs together. Josh was responsible for the sausage and english muffins and I made the hollandaise sauce and poached the eggs. 

 I have never poached an egg before and I don't think Josh has ever focused on toasting english muffins and grilling sausages all at once. But, boy were we successful. Our sausages were perfectly cooked, we only lost one egg in the poaching process, the hollandaise sauce was succulent, and the english muffins were toasted to perfection.

Here are some tips and tricks to poaching eggs: (for amatures) 

Do...
 - use a small measuring cup and crack the egg into it (1/3 cup)
 - use a wooden spoon and stir the *almost boiling* water
 - gently add the egg to the boiling water


Don't...
 - crack the egg directly into the boiling water
 - continually try to stir the egg together
 - fish the egg out with a pointed utensil

 And do serve your poached eggs with Florida's Natural Fit & Delicious Orange Juice®! Josh absolutely loves orange juice, so I know when he is coming to spend a weekend at my place, I need to make sure I have orange juice on hand. And let me tell you, the Fit & Delicious Orange Juice® is light and heavenly. It was so refreshing and made for a lovely addition to our breakfast spread!! It's new to Florida's Natural® line of OJ products, so I would recommend looking for it on your next grocery trip.

** I was not compensated by Florida's Natural to write this post. All opinions are my own **