4th of July Weekend

What an amazing weekend!  4th of July weekend has always been my favorite because the weather is gorgeous, the food is always phenomenal and all of my friends and family are together.

Friday morning, my sister and I woke up bright and early, real early… 5:45 a.m. to be exact.  We had plans to go for an easy jog before the festivities began, but got caught up just talking, hanging out and prepping food for the day ahead.  For the past 20 years, the 4th has always been a big day at the Hanson household.  The town parade goes right past my parents house and all of our friends and family come to watch and hang out at the pool after.

Another tradition that has lived strong through the years is the ice water bucket.  I’ve seen all these people doing the ‘ice water challenge’ on Facebook which is awesome because it goes towards a great cause, but that ‘challenge’ has been happening to me since I was six.  My parents neighbor somehow always sneaks up behind me and throws a giant bucket of ice cold water on me.

The rest of the day was spent enjoying lots of great food and refreshing drinks by the pool.

Friday night, however, was a little different.  One of my best friends invited Brian and I to join her and her boyfriend on his boat to watch the fireworks by Navy Pier.

We had a blast – it was a perfect night to be on the boat.

The next morning, we were a little slow in waking up, but I was excited because it was my BIRTHDAY!  I’m lucky to share the same birthday weekend as one of my best friends, because we always think of a fun way to celebrate together.

This year, a lot of our friends joined us in day-drinking festivities at Homeslice Wheel House in Lincoln Park.  We reserved a portion of their patio and got a sweet drink deal that included all-you can drink for three hours – mimosas, bloody marys, beer and wine galore!

Plus we ordered pizza, obviously.

Chicken and Jalapenos on a pizza = my dream.

The celebration did not stop after the party, my family came down Sunday evening to take me out to dinner and shower me with amazing and thoughtful gifts.

We went to one of my favorite Italian restaurants in Chicago, Riccardo Trattoria.  The restaurant is so intimate and authentic, I feel like I’m in Rome every time I go there.

As I said before, this weekend was amazing and I wish I could replay it all over again.  Luckily, I took today off to recover from the weekend and get back on track with my eating and workout habits 😉

How did you spend 4th of July Weekend?

 

A Marathon of a Weekend

Friends!

Let me tell you about this fabulous weekend I just had.

Friday – One of my best friends, Kaitlin, and I went grocery shopping right after work in preparation for the festivities that were to occur on Saturday.  She was hosting “brunch” for our other best friend’s, Cassie, birthday and about 12 people were going to be coming over hungry and thirsty Saturday morning.  We perused the aisles and decided on this rockin’ spread:

Bloody Mary Bar

–          Bloody Mary Mix

–          Vodka (obv.)

–          Pickles

–          Cheese

–          Salami

–          Stuffed Olives

–          Pepperoncini

–          Celery Salt

–          Hot Sauce

Spiked Cider

–          Cider

–          Rum

–          Cinnamon Sticks

Pumpkin Bread

Blueberry Muffins

Build Your Own Sandwich Bar

–          Whole Wheat Rolls

–          Sliced Chicken Breast

–          Sliced Turkey Breast

–          Cheese

–          Lettuce

–          Tomato

–          Different kinds of mustard

Kettle Chips

The spread was a hit!  I cannot take any credit for the Pumpkin Bread/Blueberry muffins – that was all Kaitlin’s doing.

Saturday morning I snuck in a quick 4 mile running before heading back over to Kait’s where we all drank/ate/talked until it was time to head over to Revolution Production Brewery for a private tour.  Cassie’s boyfriend had set up the tour and when we arrived we each received a full pour of their most popular Anti-Hero brew.  The tour took about 45 minutes and was jam packed with awesome facts about the history of revolution and all that goes in to producing their beer.  Our tour-guide, Jonathan, was awesome.

After the tour was over, we stayed at their tap room for a while longer and sipped on some more beers and enjoyed our surroundings.

Next thing we knew – it was 5:00 p.m. and Brian and I needed to head back home to let Bailey out.  This was also a perfect excuse to go home and squeeze in a nap before round 2 of the festivities began.

Around 8:30 p.m., we all headed to Sapori Trattoria in Lincoln Park for dinner.  The restaurant was packed with all the marathoners, but we had a table waiting for us in their upstairs venue.  I was thoroughly impressed with the service at Sapori.  Even though they were jam packed, our server was very attentive to our needs and they even customized the dinner menu’s to say ‘Happy Birthday, Cassie’ on them!  Adorable.

Plus, it was BYOB!  We were happy.

To start, Brian and I split the grilled calamari with balsamic drizzle which was fabulous!  For my main entrée, I ordered the homemade linguine with clams in a garlic white wine sauce.  I wish I could have snagged a picture, but A. I was so hungry I started eating right away and B. The lighting was too dark for any good pictures.  Let me just say that homemade pasta is the best and a real differentiator when it comes to good Italian restaurants in the city.  I was very pleased.

After dinner, we all headed over to the Hotel Lincoln to enjoy a few drinks at the J. Parker.  It was the perfect night cap to the day, although, I did manage to make it out to one more bar that night to meet up with friends.  What can I say, that nap really energized me!

Needless to say, with all the eating, drinking and partying that occurred on Saturday… I was feelin’ a little rough Sunday morning.

Since I woke up bright and early to let Bailey out, I decided to hurry over to Sheridan road to catch the elite runners kick off the Chicago Marathon.  It was truly amazing watching them run by… they make it look so easy and effortless.

The location of Brian and I’s apartment is unique for the Chicago Marathon because we are literally boxed in by runners running north on Sheridan and then back south down Broadway.  I personally love it because watching the marathon runners makes me so so happy 🙂

All we needed was some of the leftover spiked cider from the day before and we would have been set!

The rest of our Sunday was spent relaxing and watching football.  I did manage to get off the couch to make Sunday dinner:

Homemade Jalapeno Cornbread and Chili.

For those of you who have asked, I used Iowa Girl Eat’s recipe for Honey Jalapeno Cornbread (yes, oh yes, I BAKED!) and my mother’s recipe for chili.  It was a killer combo 🙂

Sweat Pink

Lately I have been really slacking on waking up early to workout.  My alarm goes off and a cool breeze gently comes through my window practically forcing me to stay under the covers 🙂   Today was no exception…  Lately it has been hard to stick to my workout routine due to so many celebratory activities going on.  Whether it is a friends birthday or a co worker getting a promotion, it is always hard to find that balance.

For instance, yesterday was one of my good friend at works birthday – Lindsay, my running buddy!  To help celebrate, my coworker and I took her out to lunch at Little Goat, Stephanie Izard’s diner on Randolph Street.  We cabbed it over and were sat immediately at a communal table which had a great sky light above it.  The menu is a bit overwhelming, so Lindsay and I decided to split dishes that struck out to us…

The B.L.T.A – Heirloom Tomato, Avocado, Chi-Arugula Salad and Bacon Gouda Bread

Uhhh yum.

Our second dish was the Fish Tostadas.  Crisp Whitefish, Shallot Aioli, Chickpea N’ Onion Salad and a Harissa Vinaigrette.

The fish tostadas were also very good, but I have to say my favorite was the B.L.T.A.  My other coworker ordered the shrimp and grits which looked fabulous and smelled even better.  Watching all of the dishes come out of the kitchen and walk buy was awesome to watch.  There are so many different things I want to go back and try!

When we left the restaurant it was so nice outside it was really difficult to walk back into the office.  I wish there were outdoor offices… is it possible? 🙂

The celebration did not stop after lunch, back in our HR area Lindsay’s manager had brought a chocolate cake!

How good does that look?

I have two other birthday/event related dinners today and Friday, so tomorrow morning I really need to hold myself accountable!  The perks of living with a man is I can literally tell him to kick me out of bed if I am having a hard time getting out – which is what I will have to do tonight.

You may notice another addition to the blog – my ‘Sweat Pink Ambassador’ badge!  I applied to be an ambassador a couple weeks ago and heard back from the team last night.

Their (slash our) Mission:

We believe that kicking ass is best done in pretty shoes. We’ve learned that real women sweat, and sweat hard. We know that assertiveness, strength, and ambition are the ultimate feminine qualities. We concede that sometimes it takes hours to get ready, but we’re also no strangers to just rolling out of bed and going. We’re convinced that we run faster in pink shoelaces. We believe in pushing ourselves, and we believe in giving ourselves a break, too. We’re all about the rush of endorphins and the thrill of the challenge. We’re all for looking great and feeling even better. We’re committed to finding our best fit, and making it stick.

I am very excited to be come more active with the fit approach campaign.  The ambassador community is a great resource to help motivate others to live a healthy, active lifestyle and even I need motivation every once and a while 😉

I’m looking forward to next week because I start my “training” routine again for an upcoming 10k I am running.  I love training schedules 🙂

Have a great Thursday, friends!

I Am Not a Baker…

Hello!  Hello!

I write this post to you Tuesday night after dinner as I am trying very hard to bake some brownies… boxed brownies.  See, some people might find that this is not a difficult task, however, I have not been graced with the “baking touch”.  I find that I tend to get distracted while baking because it requires you to step away for a period of time and trust the magical item we call our ovens.  It also forces me to measure out my ingredients exactly and trust that I time everything perfectly.  This is just stressful to me.

Cooking is the opposite.  I feel engaged the whole time, constantly stirring, flipping, grating, prepping – it clears my mind.

In college, my roommate would have 4-5 boxes of different cake or brownies mixtures in her pantry at all time.  I, on the other had, did not even own a bag of granulated sugar until 1 year after Brian and I moved into our apartment.  Nor do I own any baking pan larger than an 8×8 … and don’t even ask if I have muffin or cupcake pans.

Needless to say, I am not a baker.  Today is one of my co workers birthdays who is an extremely talented baker.  The other week she brought in a delicious light yet creamy cheesecake that was so hard not to devour and I don’t even really like cheesecake!  So, what did I think would be a great “gift” to bring her on her special day?  Baked brownies, by a girl who does not bake! 🙂  Hopefully they turned out edible enough, I did slather a generous amount of funfetti icing on top because I figured funfetti anything makes everything better.  I’ll keep you updated.

All of this baking was performed after quite the productive Tuesday.

After work, I headed to the gym and ran 4 miles on the treadmill.  Castle was on the t.v. in front of me and Niki Minaj Pandora was blasting in my ear, I was in a good place.

Once I cooled down a bit, I laid out a yoga mat and did about 20 minutes of foam rolling/stretching before performing this circuit:

I was definitely feeling the burn from all of those burpees.  Brian has really got me hooked on them lately because they are part of his training plan for a Spartan Race he is running.  I forgot how much I love/hate them!

I decided to walk home from the gym instead of taking the bus because it was such a nice night out and because I’m fairly certain a smelled a little bit from all of that cardio.  Didn’t want to force an entire bus to put up with that!  Plus, I had the smooth sounds of Buddy Guy blasting in my headphones to keep me company.

On my way home, I thought a lot about how the summer months are winding down.  There is an elementary school just down the street from me and I have been seeing more and more faculty return to the grounds to prep for the school year ahead.  Where did this summer go?  The end of July was so tame weather wise, I feel we might be surprised with hot temperatures in September – which would be awesome!  Back to school also means that my sister, Kristan, will return back to North Carolina to finish her senior year of college – gulp.  Senior year was the best year, I am insanely jealous that she gets to live it up down south.

Right as I stepped through my apartment door, my stomach told me it was time to eat.  For dinner, Brian grilled up some chicken breasts while I sauteed some fresh zucchini.  We topped the chicken with a little homemade brushetta mixture, avocado and fresh mozzarella cheese.

This hit the spot.

And now here we are.  I am in the dining room, facing the oven and hoping that I don’t over cook these brownies while reading my latest book – Wild – which I am loving!

Ta Ta for now!

Happy Adoption Day, Bailey!

Happy Adoption Day to my Bailey girl!!

That’s right, exactly one year ago we picked up this little stinker from the shelter.  She has brought so much happiness into our lives and is this best little pitbull a girl could ask for.  I’m going to stop by Sprinkles Cupcakes after work so I can grab her a doggie cupcakes as a special treat.

Unfortunately, it looks like we won’t be able to play outside much as it is currently monsooning outside!

Check out what the sky looked like right before all hell broke loose.

So cool.

Quite the opposite sight from yesterday’s walk I took during my lunch break.

I had to run a couple errands over by Grand and State, and when I was done I still had 30 minutes left of my break so I decided to take my time and walk back.

On my way, I perused by the Daley Plaza farmers market to check out all of the goodies.  The plaza was packed with people on their lunch breaks or tourists.  I was really tempted to buy so many different items, but I knew I had packed a lunch that was waiting for me back at the office.

Still, it was a lot of fun to see what all of the various booths had to offer.

After work, my coed soccer team had a 6:00 pm game up north.  Brian decided to come watch since it was our last game before the playoff, so we rode our bikes up together to get in an extra workout 🙂

The game was good.  We didn’t have any girl subs so my fellow female coworkers and I had to play the entire game which was exhausting!

But fun 😉

Brian and I were both starving when we got home, so we whipped up a quick dinner.  Jalapeño chicken sausage with grilled mushrooms and green peppers, wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla (I know this is odd, but we were out of buns!) and a side salad.

The wrap worked out really well, everything was delicious.

Before heading off to bed, I gave myself a quick pedicure and noticed that my big toes were a couple different shades of blue.  I’m really glad I got new running shoes, but it will be really weird when these babies fall off.  Missing toe nails in the summer? Not a cool look! 🙂

It’s Friday, friends!  Let the Lollapalooza weekend begin!

Picnics and Parties

Happy Sunday!

My favorite day of the weekend 🙂

Lot’s has been happening around the Hanson-Steigerwalt household.

Friday after work, I headed over to PureWellness, the yoga studio I belong to, to enjoy some post-work week de stressing   The class I signed up for was a fusion class meaning we incorporated yoga, pilates and toning into our workout.  The first fifteen minutes was all yoga which felt great on my tight quads and hamstrings.  It also gave me a chance to clear my mind of all the craziness of the week and look forward to the weekend.  After yoga, we focused on toning our arms, then legs and finally our core.

The best part of the class was that there was only 3 of us, so it almost felt like I was getting a personal training session.  I left feelings so good and so sweaty 🙂

On my walk home, I didn’t really know what I wanted to cook-up for dinner because I was not starving, so I stopped at the grocery store and decided just to grab some “happy hour” snacks that would fill me up.

Brian and I decided to stay in and veg out on the couch since the rest of the weekend was going to be really busy.  We ended up watching ‘Intolerable Cruelty’ which I had never seen before and really liked!

Saturday started bright and early with a 5 mile run around the neighborhood with my new shoes!

I’m hooked on Mizuno’s and the first run in these babies did not disappoint!

It was really cool here on Saturday – mid 60’s – so a lot of people were out running taking full advantage of the break from the heat.  When I got home, Bailey was super rambunctious.  When a uttered the words ‘walk’ she b-lined to the foyer and practically body slammed the front door.  I took this as a sign that she wanted to go out 😉

I took her around the neighborhood  stopping at the local farmer’s market to see what was new and socializing her with other dogs.

She was loving life.

I was happy to take her out for a long walk because my company picnic was Saturday afternoon and I knew she would be home by herself for a long time.  The picnic was by the UIC baseball fields and is always a blast every year.  There was all sorts of goodies for us to enjoy such as grilled chicken, hot dogs, burgers, BBQ brisket, corn on the cob, fresh watermelon and BEER 🙂  This year, my company had Half Acre Over Ale on Top which was a delicious change from the usual light domestics!

Besides food, there were lots of games that employees kids could enjoy such as inflatable obstacle courses, water relays and Brian and I’s favorite – Jousting!

I need to work on my jousting skills – he beats me every time.

Saturday evening, we headed over to one of my best friends apartment to celebrate her 25th birthday!  We had a few cocktails at her place before heading out in the city.

She is the final one of my “hometown crew” to turn 25 … which means 26 is next. Yikes.  Mid twenties… ahhhh!

Hope you all are enjoying your weekend!

French Feasts

It’s Friiiiidayyyyyy!

Last night was a great night.  Right after work was the second kOlympics event – my company’s two week long Olympics.  What did we participate in? kChopped of course!  Last year my coworker and I participated in the Chopped competition and it was so much fun/stressful, exactly like the t.v. show.

When we walked into the cafe at 5:30 p.m. all of the ingredients were already laid out on the chopping block table.  There were so many different ingredients, but the real challenge was that we had no stove or oven!  There were a couple George Foreman Grills available, two flat top grills, a couple blenders and a random crockpot.

The competition this year was a little different in that there were no “secret ingredients”, rather the judges decided each course had to be based off a specific theme.  The appetizer had to pair with the ‘Sears Tower’ theme (aka the Willis Tower, but if you’re a true Chicagoan you don’t call it that), the main course had to have a ‘Bears’ theme and the dessert round had to incorporate a “kCura”, or company, theme.

I was only able to stay and participate for the appetizer round as I was meeting up with the family to celebrate my sister’s 21st birthday!

For those of you who are curious, however, we made a stacked caprese/avocado salad as our appetizer – the tower representing the Sear’s tower, of course.

Right after that was over I headed over to Hubbard Inn to meet my mom and sister for a pre-dinner cocktail.  I’m fairly certain I’ve already told you this, but the Moscow Mule is my new favorite summer drink. hands Down – so refreshing!

Shortly after we finished out drinks, we headed over to Paris Club for our main event.  A bottle of crisp, dry Rose was ordered for the table as well as the pretzel croissants and puff pastry escargot.

Kristan and I LOVE escargot.  So buttery, garlicky and delicious.  The best part about these little suckers was that they were wrapped in a light and flaky puff pastry topping.

They are a MUST order.

For my entree I ordered the Skate Wing , which came in a light lemon wine sauce with roasted potatoes.  It was deliciously light and flaky, if you have not tried Skate Wing I highly recommend it.

The rest of the group ordered more French items such as Steak Frites, Duck Confit with a L’Orange sauce and creeps, and their delicious Hamburger with Gruyere cheese and port wine onions.

We were all full and happy at the end of the meal!

I can’t believe the HALF MARATHON weekend is finally here – eek.  I’m going to take it easy these next two days and just stretch and relax.  I might go on a really light 2 mile jog Saturday morning to work out some of my nerves, but ill play it by ear.  Any words of advice for my final few days!?

Also, to get my pumped up for more races to come, my friends and I just signed up for the encore of the COLOR RUN!  I was out of town the first time it came to Chicago this year, so I am so excited to participate this fall!

Have you ever done a color run?

The Celebration Continues

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my little sister, Kristan! This diva FINALLY turned 21 today and I cannot wait to celebrate with her tonight 🙂

Fun fact: My sister has never been that much of a drinker, but when we were in Paris together my mom forced her to order wine everywhere because it was cheaper than ordering a diet coke! In honor of this historic memory, we are taking her out to the Paris Club tonight in River North. I’ve heard some good things about their food, but i’m more excited for the champagne!

Anyways, back to the grind.

Yesterday’s work day flew by with the help of a quick refreshment/snack break at Starbucks. Did you know that their “Treat Receipt” promo is back? If you order a coffee in the AM and keep the receipt you get any cold grande beverage for only $2 after 2:00 p.m. I took full advantage of this discount because I am my mother’s daughter, and because I was really craving their very berry hibiscus cooler.

So crisp and refreshing! Just what I needed to motivate me through the rest of the day.

After work I headed straight to the gym because the heat index was unbearable. I completed a light 3 mile run on the treadmill followed by a lot of stretching and foam rolling. I tell yah, I do not miss running on the treadmill whatsoever. I get so bored, it is really hard for me to keep my focus/motivation.

When I got home after the gym, a very special something was waiting for me in my mailbox…

MY LOLLAPALOOZA WRISTBAND! I’m so excited for the festival I can hardly contain myself. However, I am also a bit scared as I have never been and large crowds tend to scare me. Welp, no turning back now!

On the menu for dinner was exactly what I made the night before – plus a fried egg! Brian was so jealous of my meal he wanted me to recreate it for him, and I happily agreed as I’m pretty sure I could eat this almost everyday for a couple weeks before getting sick of it. So many combination choices!

His and Hers – I like my fried egg well done 🙂

Hope you all are staying cool in this heat wave – don’t get too crazy out there!

Perfect Running Days

Perfect running days.

This weekend has been full of absolutely perfect running days.

Friday afternoon, I took my sister, Kristan, out to dinner before she headed back to the burbs.  We stopped by ROCKS in Lakeview because they have a good variety of lunch options, and they have a great outdoor patio area.  Kristan and I both ordered wraps, which were absolutely delicious.  Mine came with Chicken, Lettuce, Goat Cheese and Red Onions all wrapped in a light tomato tortilla.  It also came with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing, but I opted to have in on the side because I feel like dressings more often than not just make wraps soggy.

This baby was gone in a flash – we worked up quite the appetite after our morning run.

The rest of my Saturday was spent doing some light shopping and hanging out with this girl…

She is a huge fan of my BIC Bands 🙂

I ended up meeting a few friends out that evening to grab a little food and enjoy a few alfresco drinks.  I ordered a Moscow Mule for the first time ever and now I am officially obsessed.  So light and refreshing – I love ginger beer!

My cocktail intake was limited to one followed by many glasses of water due to the fact that my friend Lindsay and I were tackling our FINAL long training run Saturday morning.

I set my alarm for 5:00 a.m. and woke up feeling great!  The weather was warm, with a slight breeze and a picture perfect blue bird sky.  When Lindsay got to my house, we didn’t really have a route in mind so we just decided to run south for an hour and then run back up north for an hour.

The run down south was great – nice and shaded.  Since I had been gone from work since Wednesday, we had a lot to catch up about and talked pretty much the whole way down.  We made our turn east right before the river on Grand and then turned up north on the lakeshore path.  It was really fun running through the streets in the River North area because we don’t do it … like ever.  Since we were running so early to “beat the heat”, no one was around in the downtown area so we didn’t have to dodge any walkers.

The lakeshore path, however, was a whole different story.  SO MANY RUNNERS!  It was awesome!  There were also local runners associations that had set up hydration stops along the path with water and gatorade which was much appreciated by everyone who was out.  I couldn’t believe how calm the lake was.  There were a lot of athletes training for triathlons out taking full advantage of the perfect water conditions.

We too full advantage of taking pictures 🙂

Although it was extremley sunning on the run back up, it was still a lot of fun and the run really flew by.  We weren’t really paying attention to our pace, just enjoying our surrounding a totally grateful that mother nature has graced us with awesome summer days.

Once the run ended, Lindsay and I parted ways and I headed straight to the grocery store to pick up some recovery treats.  Bagels and Coconut Water. Yummm Yumm

As soon as I got home, I stretched showered and headed back to my friends rooftop to soak in the sun with my best friends.

We didn’t stay out in the sun too too long because we all needed to get pretty for the final birthday celebration that evening 🙂  Since there are so many of us, it’s always a struggle to try and find dates we can all get together, so last night we all celebrate my friend Lauren’s 24th birthday and my 25th birthday!

The celebration started at my friends new apartment with a few pre-dinner cocktails…

We then headed straight to Cantina Laredo in River North where we feasted on Mexican food and delicious drinks!

Let’s be honest… the best part about going to a Mexican restaurant is the drinks, right?

And the chips and salsa!

It was a wonderful celebration, I’m truly blessed to have such great friends!

Summer Spritzers and ‘Staycations’

Good Morning!

It is absolutely GORGEOUS outside today… the humidity has left Chicago and I finally feel comfortable opening up my windows again.  Good thing too because I am currently on STAYCATION 🙂  That’s right, I’m off work today and tomorrow and plan on enjoying the sunshine as much as possible with family, friends and Bailey.

This morning I got up bright and early and took Bailey out for a run.  Of course my phone and iPod were both on the verge of dying so I didn’t have anything to document the beautiful scene outside, but if you live in Chicago you know what it looks like!

My run was a quick and simple 5 mile loop around the neighborhood followed by a good amount of stretching.

Last night I had one of the best meals of the summer that was hosted by Brian’s cousin Diane.  She always knows how to throw a great party, so when Brian told me that she was offering to cook us dinner to celebrate my birthday I agreed immediately.

When we arrived she was working hard cooking up little zucchini quinoa fritters for us to enjoy as an appetizer.  Along with a delicious and refreshing watermelon spritzer.

This drink SCREAMED summer.  Pureed watermelon, Gin, Lime Juice and Club Soda.

So good, I had to have two!

The appetizer/drink round was followed by a crisp avocado salad and personal grilled pizza’s.  Diane had threw together a bunch of dough and portioned them out to the perfect personal size.  Before we threw the dough on the grill, we needed to prep all of the toppings and boy did she have the best choices!

Onto the grill went tomatoes, mushrooms and marinated shrimp.  Plus, she also had sauteed fennel and onions on the side as well.

Once the vegetables were done, she brushed the pizza dough with a little olive oil and put them on the grill just until they were slightly crispy but not too brown.  Then came the fun part – making your own pizza!

I topped mine with just about everything including sliced fresh mozzarella cheese, shredded fontina cheese and shredded basil.

Brian’s looked pathetic compared to mine (Brian’s is the bottom one), he clearly does not have the Italian gene in him 😉

The pizza’s went back on the grill for only 4 or 5 minutes, just long enough to melt the cheese and get the bottom of the crust nice and crispy.

They turned out SO SO well.  Oh my gosh, they were so delicious.

The evening ended with a delicious strawberry/blueberry shortcake, some white wine and lots of laughter.

I’m so blessed to have such good friends in my life, especially ones who are good cooks!

Bon Appetit!