Weekending - July 26, 2019

Weekends.  They just flat out go by too fast!  Last weekend I hosted a couple of my friends from Kansas City and it was packed with all the fun stuff.  Here's a recap ~

Friday I took off work to enjoy the day and get ready for our weekend company.  Although the weather was a bit warm, it was still glorious to sit outside in the morning and read.  It's not often enough that I get to start the day in this relaxing way, so I soaked it up!

The official purpose of the visit was to discuss our book club selection - Lilac Girls.  If you've not read this book, I highly recommend adding it to your TBR list.

Available HERE

To set the environment for the book discussion, our message board announced the book.  Linda and Mary were also welcomed with goody bags in the bedrooms with a true lilac theme.  I'll be sharing more on those in a later post.

When they arrived, we spent the evening relaxing around the fire pit, sipping wine and making s'mores.  It was a perfect way to start the weekend and catch up.

Saturday morning we hit the ground running!  We went to the farmer's market in O'fallon, Illinois and stopped in a little resale shop before heading over to the Fox Theater for their 10:30 am tour.  This is my second time around for the tour and it was just as enjoyable as the first time I took it.  If you are visiting St. Louis, or if you live here, this is a must-do if you enjoy theater at all.  

                      

The Fox Theater is so beautiful on the inside.  It's nice to have an opportunity to experience the beauty when there's not a show about to begin.  

You even have an opportunity to see a real live Tony up close and personal!

After the hour and a half tour, we headed to Fountain on Locust to enjoy a cocktail and lunch.  This restaurant is located close to the Fox and has the coolest vibe.  I'd stopped by for the boozy ice cream desserts they are known for, but hadn't experienced their food before.  We shared a bowl of their dill pickle soup - and before you wrinkle your nose up at that, let me just say it was FABULOUS!  I'll go back for the soup alone.  Not kidding.  

Even though our lunch was very filling, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to partake in their "World's Smallest Hot Fudge Sundae".  Oh my - it was delicious!

From there, it was off to the Joya birthday celebration sale going on at The Spotted Pig.  Joya was celebrating four years and doing it in style.  We each played a game and won amazing prizes.  So worth the stop!

The Joya sale got us in the shopping mood, so we drove straight to the outlet mall.  Each of us found things we "needed" and bargains we just couldn't pass up.  

From there, we went to our scheduled cooking class at Kitchen Conservatory.  It was the first time any of us had taken a class there, but it definitely won't be our last.  The theme of the session was Tiki Time.  Our instructor guided us through making a special cocktail, slaw, broccoli, plantains, pork steaks and a key lime icebox cake.  

When the class was over, we had the opportunity to purchase many of  the items our instructor had used.  Not one of us left there without adding some new clever tools to our kitchen inventory.  

Sunday morning we got up and took a nice walk in the park before visiting Eckert's for some fruit picking and lunch.  If you've read my blog for a hot minute, you've heard me talking about Eckert's.  We love that place!  On Sunday, you could pick peaches and blackberries.  We chose to pick both.  

From the look of the peach trees and the blackberry vines, we'll be able to visit again before the season is over!

We finally got around to doing our book club discussion over lunch at Eckert's restaurant.  Their fried chicken, green beans and mashed potatoes made for the perfect Sunday lunch.  But the highlight was definitely the peach butter cake dessert!

I'll be doing a full book review of Lilac Girls in a later post, but I was happy to hear Linda and Mary had enjoyed the book as much as I had!  

I'm not going to lie, when the girls pulled out of my driveway to head back home I was sad.  We had the most fun weekend and I didn't want it to come to an end.  Times like this are just so good for the soul.  Plans are already in the works to get together again, so I'll just have to look forward to that!