Happy Saturday + Weekend Links (And a Surprise!!)

Hello everyone! Hope that you are having a fabulous start to your long weekend! We have had the most wonderful morning...as evidenced by the picture above. He's here! Flynn is here!

Flynn (4 month old, wirehaired pointing griffon) has come to live with us in Pensacola. His dad, our best friend Danny, is being rushed through EOD school (explosives ordinance) and so we decided it might be nice for Flynn to come stay with us for a while. Needless to say, we have been so excited...

Flynn took the red-eye last night from California, so we picked him up bright and early this morning. He was a little confused as to who these two strangers were who knew his name and commands, but sooo happy to be out of his crate and given lots of cuddles. He is so handsome and the. sweetest. We are excited to get to know him, adventure with him, and hopefully get him pointing at some birds ;-)

Almost immediately after we picked Flynn up we headed over to the Blue Crab in Perdido Key (Johns house from his old life as a Bachelor) to celebrate our great friend Archie's engagement to his beautiful now-fiancée Jordan!! Archie proposed early this morning on the beach, and then they came back to the Blue Crab for a delicious surprise brunch with a bunch of our friends. It was so fun to celebrate with these two, and we wish them so many blessings. They couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day either--it is positively lovely outside.

Anyhoo--what is everyone up to for the rest of the weekend?! I am excited to sit out on our sunny porch and read the latest installment of Country Living from the UK. No joke, I've stopped into Barnes and Noble like every other day for the past two weeks to see if it was here! I blame my sweet friend Anna Taylor for this obsession--she has great taste in mags, and style to match! Tonight we are having some friends over for dinner, (I'm making yummy roast chicken and mashed cauliflower) and tomorrow we are excited to go to church, spend the day with Flynn, and go on a hike...

Feels like the world is our oyster.

Here are some fun weekend links!

  • Looking for something yummy to bake this weekend? I made this lemon-lime pound cake for Brunch this morning and it was insane.
  • I was so moved by this video of autistic children surfing. Definitely worth a watch, and there is a sweet cameo from Homeland's David Marciano, aka Virgil.
  • John has read about half of this book in the last day, and will probably finish it through the weekend. We used Water Dog when training my lab, Abby, and our friend Will's dogs were trained beautifully using this method.
  • I've been dying to plant some pots with herbs on our porch, and was inspired by this pin, so for Valentines Day John sent me to Lowes to get the supplies. Now I have 2 baby rosemary, 2 baby lavender, and a parsley going out there! I'm pumped to maximize this space and continue to cultivate my little garden.
  • The preview for this movie looks so romantic (Lady Sybil, duh) but I really wanted to read the book first. I finally picked it up and am excited to start it this weekend. Who has read it? What did you think? I am pretty sure I am about 30 years late to this party...

Enjoy!

xoxo,

Emily