St Louis Surprises

i love surprises! not being surprised myself but i love doing it to other people. and when an opportunity to fly out to missouri for my good friend/ twinsie's birthday it was a no brainer! we had to do it! Our flight got into Missouri bright and early at 4:30am meaning she had a fun wake up call around 5:30. Her reaction was priceless. Completely surprised and it was amazing! We have a fabulous weekend of exploring St. Charles and St. Louis, wine tasting, shopping, dive bars, karaoke, brewery tours, and lots of yummy cocktails. It was an exhausting weekend but completely worth it. I love surprises. Don't you? 

bday serenades 

Of course i had to bring her a little piece of home :) go beavs! 

our hotel was right across from the arch. which obviously made for a great photo op! 

anyone who knows me is aware i am not a huge fan of beer but of course we had to take a trip to the massive Anheuser- Busch campus. We even took a tour that walked you through the whole process. Pretty darn interesting and even found something tasty beers i could drinks :)

Happy 24th to this beauty! I'm pretty sure 24 is going to be the best year yet! 

But now it's back to reality. i think i like surprises much better then working. 

Hope you have a simply wonderful Tuesday. 

the land of Thai

last night we had another dinner party. and this time we had the fun challenge of a Thai themed dinner. Thankfully my business partner is back from spending 2 years in the land of Thai. We had a menu full of traditional Thai food and it was all amazing. Here is what was on the menu for the night.

we decided to go with a non traditional dessert but still keep in mind the flavors of asain foods. 

the coconut cake turned out almost like a coconut pound cake. 

As for the table...i did my best to modernize the asain look. I went with gray linens crisp white napkins and a touch of color with the orange menus and red chop sticks. And to switch things up i got a variety of herbs to stick into my trusty square vases and had another pop of color with red dahlias. it was different but it definitely made a statement. my take on modern asain. 

the first course was a papaya salad with sweet and hot shrimp soup 

pad thai 

so happy Jereme was back to channel her two years in Thailand to pull of this amazing dinner. a ton of work but completely pleased with how everything turned out. and so was the client so win win last night :) 

Hope you have simply amazing thursday! 

stripes and sunflowers

i love stripes. if you opened my closet you could tell im just a little obsessed. so obviously when it came time to choose fabric for this weeks dinner party i was automatically drawn to the dark navy blue and white stripped fabric. Pair that with bright yellow sun flowers and you have a modern, festive, summery look. This dinner was for a small group of six and Jereme's menu worked perfect with everything in season right now. Thankfully everything went off without a hitch! Check out a couple pictures from the set up! 

sunflowers everywhere! 

it was amazing. 

loved turning these candle holders into vases :) 

Hope everyone has a simply lovely Thursday!