Summer Favorites

Happy Tuesday! I hope you all enjoyed the weekend!  I literally can't believe it is already mid June,  the summer is already flying by. As you already know, my heart lies in fall and winter but I do enjoy a few things about the  summer season. Here are a few of my summer favorites:

-Farmers Market time: There is something about good produce from the Farmers Market on a Saturday in the summer. I load up on fresh veggies, watermelon & cantaloupe, and find the best set of  fresh flowers to take home. I love a good summer Farmers Market!

-Ice cream dates: I mean this one is pretty much a given for everyone I'm sure!? Who doesn't love going out to dinner for date night & ending on a good note with ice cream. Whether it's Dairy Queen or a local ice cream shop such as Hattie James or Bobbys Dairy Dip- either way it's a good time!

-Flats & Sandals: As much as I hate making sure my toes are always painted and looking halfway decent (ha) I do love wearing cute sandals. My ultimate favorite shoe is a good flat! I love pointed toe flats, patterned flats, cut out flats... the list goes on! Summer is good for good shoes.

-Summer Travels: Traveling anytime of the year is fabulous but a summer trip always seems to be a great time! I am not much of a beach person but when visiting new places during the summer months there is always something new to do and more activities going on. Even heading to the mountains is great during the summer because of the views and scenery and the weather isn't as hot and humid near the mountains.

-Family cookouts: Again, family cookouts are great year round but there is something about a fun summer cookout filled with BBQ, burgers on the grill, fresh veggies and bowls of watermelon and fresh fruit that just make summer cookouts awesome during the warmer months. More importantly getting to spend time with loved ones is the best part of all.

I thought it would be fun to share my summer favorites and I would love to learn about yours! Have a great week!

recipe: summer avocado salsa

Happy Wednesday ya'll! I hope you are all having a great week so far. Last weekend I hosted Reed's family over for dinner and made this summer avocado salsa as an appetizer. Everyone enjoyed it and it was my first time making this and thought it would be great for a summer bbq, cookout, or any type of get-together this summer and wanted to share. As you can see this is super easy, and that's what makes it so great. Here is the recipe for you:

Ingredients:

-1 can of black beans, low sodium and i used organic

-6tbsp of fresh cilantro (I didn't add this but it would be great to add)

-1/2 cup of green bell pepper

-1 or 2 limes

-1/2 cup of red bell pepper

-1 can of sweet corn i used organic on this as well

-1/2 cup of red onion

-3 roma tomatoes

-2 avocados

-pinch of salt & pepper to taste

-1/2 cup of olive or avocado oil (I used olive)

Details:

-cut and mince all of your vegetables above (peppers, avocados, onions, tomatoes, cilantro)

-add all of these minced veggies to a large bowl

-drain and add your can of black beans to the mixture

-drain and add your can of corn to the mixture 

-add your salt & pepper and your olive oil

-squeeze your lime to add juice to the mixture 

-thats it! simple, easy, and delicious :)

Serve this with tortilla chips and this will be an easy and quick crowd pleaser all summer long!

home decor: how to add your travel photos to your everyday decor

          Hi everyone! Happy Sunday! This weekend has been wonderful. I returned from a work trip to Boston on late Friday evening and was greeted by my husband and parents in town for dinner! We had a great family weekend of shopping at a local craft festival, dinning in & out, and of course cheering on the Preds to an amazing win on Saturday. My brother came over and we all got to relax and hang out together all weekend, it was great!

            As I am printing and gathering our photos from our last vacation several weeks ago in Alaska, I can't help but think that our travel photos are becoming one of my favorite pieces of our house. As you know, we love to get away and see new places and being able to capture those special travel moments are so wonderful. Not only is it great actually being there and living in the moment to take these photos but it is also nice to experience them and think about those memories all over again around your home.

I thought I would share a few tips on how I have made our travel photos a apart of our everyday decor in our home. These are rather simple tips but I wanted to share how to mix in everyday pieces and how you can make your photos do the talking.  Here are a few of the travel photos we have started with and how I made them cohesive with our house and style. I hope you enjoy! :)

TIP #1

-Convert  your photos to black & white or sepia tone

Changing your color photos to black & white or sepia tone really give the images a sleeker look and a vintage feel. Also, depending on the color of your walls using black frames with a white thick border inside will really make your photos pop. I almost went all white here with white frames, borders, and black & white pictures but chose the black thick frame to stand out on a bright white wall. If you have a colorful wall or more of a neutral wall, using a white frame with a white border will really stand out as well. It all depends on the color of your wall.

TIP #2

-Choose photos of your best scenery shots

Of course it would be fun to throw a couple selfies in the mix of us at the mountains or a neat background but keeping it simple with beautiful scenery will really make for a great conversation starter in your home. This also leads to the idea that "less is more." What I mean by that is, not captioning your photos on the white border or not using photos with words will be a great way to engage your guests in your home when they come to visit. A good conversation starter or will give you something to talk about when they ask questions about where you visited or where this picture is taken. 

TIP #3

Keep it simple 

-Even if you have multiple travel photos you want to add to your wall to start a gallery, keeping it simple will really bring the look together. Using the same color of frame in different sizes would be neat or keeping them all uniform in straight lines. Whatever you decide to do, keep it simple with your layout and your choice of frame. The idea here is not to lose the photos in the wall but to have the photos stand out on the wall.

TIP #4

-Keep it in the color scheme

What I mean by this is, keep your frame and border choice in the same color family as your everyday decor. What I did below was bring out the white details in my decor by adding a white frame to a neutral wall. By doing this, my frame is cohesive with my decor. If I had off white details only and didn't have any pieces of white in this display, I would have chose an off white frame or an antique finish to tie it altogether. 

In the above, I used black frames to stand out on my white wall because in the sunroom area of our house I have hints of black. Again, tying it all together is key.

TIP#5

-Keep exploring!

In order for you to add more travel photos to your walls, keep traveling and keeping exploring! There is an entire world out there. These are the best "things" we can have are pictures. Not materialistic things that we don't always "need" but photos and memories that are shared with loved ones. 

travel: Alaskan cruise

                Happy Tuesday! I hope you all are having a wonderful week so far. I can't believe it's almost Memorial day weekend and almost June already!! Time is flying by. Reed and I just got back from an Alaskan cruise on Sunday and I wanted to share all the details and more as I have had several people ask about what areas of Alaska and Canada we were in.

                We were gone for 10 days on The Ruby Princess Cruise and spent 2 days in Seattle before and after the actual cruise. It was our first time being in Seattle, Alaska, and Canada and Reed's first cruise. We had the absolute best time and vacation and from the pictures you can definitely tell. We only took several thousands of pictures (not kidding) but I won't post them all obviously haha!

Here is a quick overview our our trip:

Day 1: Seattle, Washington 

Day 2: Boarded the cruise to Alaska 

Day 3: At sea (cruise activities) 

Day 4: Juneau, Alaska -Whale watching tour 

Day 5: Skagway, Alaska -Yukon Railroad tour

Day 6: Glacier Bay National Park-scenic cruising

Day 7: Ketchikan, Alaska - Deadliest catch crab fisherman's tour

Day 8: Victoria, Canada -Shopping & Dinner 

Day 9: Seattle, Washington  -Shopping, Space Needle, Pike Place Market 

Day 10: Seattle & traveling home 

               We learned so much on our trip from all of the excursions and activities that we chose and we were so glad that we chose each of them. The Deadliest catch crab fisherman's tour was definitely our favorite. If you have the opportunity to go to Ketchikan I would highly recommend this. We were able to learn all about crab, octopus, prawns, fish, and bald eagles. It was really interesting and we enjoyed it so much. We loved being able to hold the crabs and prawns as well.

             The Yukon pass railroad was also a highlight of our trip as we were able to go on a 3 hour train ride. The views were amazing as you can see from the pictures below. I think what this trip reminded us to do was to slow down, disconnect, and enjoy the great outdoors and be able to enjoy the beautiful scenery. It's so easy to get caught up in work, computers, television, media, the news and social media platforms but disconnecting for a few days without wifi was really wonderful. We both agreed we needed to do it more often and that is a personal goal for us on our next trips as well. Being able to relax and unwind!

             I love sharing photos and being able to keep an online journal of our trips to be able to look back at one day. Dotsandetails has been a wonderful creative outlet for me but more importantly it keeps all of my memories and pictures together as well.

            Here are several pictures of our trip, I hope you enjoy them as much as we do :) If you ever have questions about any of the places that we visited in Alaska, Seattle, or Victoria I can definitely do my best to give you all the information that you need when planning any trips.

Enjoy and thank you for stopping by xo :)