Applemania!

Ahh fun night!  I'm sure I'll get more great pictures from the other ladies later on but I'll share the few I snapped. 

But first, remember my packed lunch from earlier today.....

Well I spruced it up with some brussel sprouts and broccoli at work.  Yum. Much better.

After work I ran some errands.  Grabbed some supplies for the road race, I felt a little sketchy about my purchases..... duct tape, 200 feet of rope and tent stakes.....  

Then I stopped by the grocery store.... again, to grab some pears for the recipe I found for ladies' night.  On my way home I stopped to trim up some hostas in the planter downtown, just cut back their flower stems so you can see some mums that we planted.

Changed and freshened up and was off to ladies night.  Soon my friend Aviva's house was a flurry of activity......  Lots of apple chopping going on!  I should have taken a picture of all the apples (I'm a bad blogger).  She had 3 huge buckets of them, a bucket of each variety.  They were all so yummy!

I started off as bartender but then Amy here got adventurous and tried her hand at it.  The results were delicious!

Caramel apple martinis!

My contribution to the meal was broiled apples & pears with rosemary. 

They smelled awesome and tasted great!  I would highly recommend it, especially since it is a quick, easy and simple recipe. 

Another martini.   ;-)

Plus so me water.

DINNER

-pork roasted with apples, onions & cider

-broiled apples & pears

-pumpkin/cheddar cranberry ravioli w/a maple pecan cream sauce to which we added apples (this was a bit of a cheat as it wasn't from scratch, instead its from a local pasta company.  They make awesome pasta & sauces, Terra Cotta Pasta Company, so good though!!!)

Not the most colorful meal, but it was extremely flavorful.  We all definitely enjoyed ourselves and the wonderful apples from Aviva's house!

My camera forgot to come out for dessert..... oops. 

But we enjoyed a delicious apple crisp w/ vanilla ice cream.  The perfect ending to our apple themed dinner.  Ahhh.......

It was great to hang with the ladies and catch up.  We haven't done one our ladies's nights since July and even then it was a small crew.  Life gets so busy and we get wrapped up in all the craziness of it.....  it feels so great to take a break and have some belly laughs with friends.  Going to bed happy for many great reasons..... I know I'll be stressed again tomorrow, but I'll hang out in my happy place for now.  Plus the race will soon be done and tomorrow is my "Friday" so that I can be free to work on last minute race details on Friday (and get my haircut). 

When was the last time you connected with good friends and had some belly laughs?

Have a great night!!

Britt