When Kara and Mike told us that the perfect picture they could imagine of themselves was growing old together like in the scene of Up, my heart jumped a bit!!  First of all… LOVE that movie.  And second of all, whenever we see a super cute old couple together, we always get super excited and just want to squeeze them tight!

Life is certainly an adventure!!!  And when Kara and Mike referenced Up, we couldn’t help but be reminded of how AMAZING it is to know you have found that person with whom you want to share that adventure!

Kara and Mike love to go on adventures together… especially when they involve Annapolis!  Not only is it the place where they got engaged, but it is also the place that they have shared many special moments together!… including the first time Mike met Kara’s parents and just happened to be standing in front of Zachary’s Jewelers!  We won’t talk about what happened next… lol… but Kara and Mike just love to stroll through the streets and end their perfect date with Storm Bros. Ice Cream by the water!

What a blast it was for us to be able to share in one of their perfect dates together!! Kara and Mike, we hope these photos always remind you that you have certainly found a special adventure partner in each other! Here’s to a life full of amazing adventures!!!

Cheers to waking up this morning with a smile on our faces.  Cheers to making the decision to do what makes us happy.  Cheers to the sunshine and to the rain.  Cheers to calling our parents to say hello.  Cheers to eating a healthy lunch today.  Cheers to writing in our journals and thanking God for all of the amazingness that surrounds us.

Sometimes it is the smallest things… but everyday provides a reason to celebrate!  We hope you take some time today to celebrate the everyday.  For you, maybe its that you got up 15 minutes earlier to make sure you had time to make yourself breakfast, or maybe you made it to the gym today.  Who knows… maybe it is just that you washed the dishes instead of letting them sit in the sink so you have to think about it later.

Here’s to celebrating the simple things that make you smile.  Take some time this week to recognize what those simple things are and celebrate them!  Everyday!

RECIPE: Nutella Churro Dessert Ravioli

This past weekend we spent all day on Sunday making pasta.  You can read more and find the recipe for some super amazing ravioli here.  After we were done making ravioli, we still had some extra dough so we decided to use it to create a dessert ravioli.  What we came up with was a FANTASTIC Nutella Churro Dessert Ravioli.  Also, we are making these ravioli by hand so if you do not have the Kitchen Aid Mixer Ravioli attachment we used in the last post we will show you how to make ravioli the old fashioned way.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 C sugar
• 1 tbsp light brown sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• Nutella
• Homemade Pasta Dough
• 2 tbsp Butter (not pictured)
• Chocolate syrup (not pictured)

 INSTRUCTIONS:

Step 1: Take a sheet of pasta dough and spoon on two scoops of Nutella, approximately 1/2 tbsp each, 1 inch from the edge of the pasta sheet.

Step 2: Fold over the pasta dough until the Nutella is enclosed entirely in a little ravioli pouch.  Optionally, to provide a better seal, prior to folding over the pasta sheet you may rub an egg white along the edges of the sheet. Once you have folded over your ravioli, use a knife to cut the ravioli away from the rest of the dough and to separate the two individual raviolis.

Step 3: Using a fork, press down firmly along the outside edges to seal the Nutella inside the ravioli.

Once all the ravioli are sealed, place them in the freezer overnight or for at least 2 hours.

 Step 4: While the ravioli are in the freezer, prepare the churro coating. Combine the sugars and cinnamon in a bowl.

Step 5: Bring a pot of water to a rapid boil and add ravioli. While the ravioli cook, melt 2 tbsp of butter in a small pan over medium high heat.  Once the ravioli begin to float remove from the water and place in the pan to fry.

When frying anything, be careful as the hot butter may splatter. Allow the ravioli to cook for approximately 2 minutes per side or just until they start to turn crispy and begin to brown.

Step 6: Remove the ravioli from the frying pan and place in a small dish. Thoroughly coat each side with the cinnamon and sugar mixture.

Step 7: Place the Nutella Churro Dessert Ravioli on a plate and drizzle with chocolate syrup.

Time to enjoy an amazingly delicious Nutella Churro Dessert Ravioli!

Cupcakes and wine are probably two of our favorite things.  There is just something magical about ending a day of super amazing work with a glass of wine and a cupcake.  So when we discovered that there was a vineyard called Cupcake we were in a little bit of heaven … which brings us to this week’s Friday Favorites.

Friday Favorites – Thirst Quencher – Red Velvet Cupcake Wine

We were sitting in a giant circle at Making Things Happen, surrounded by some AMAZING women (yes Ryan was the only male in the room), and we were discussing our most perfect ideal day.  To our right sat the ever so fabulous Emily Ley.  As she described the perfect day with her husband she mentioned “enjoying a glass of Red Velvet Cupcake Wine.”  I think our reaction was something like “No way! There is a wine called Red Velvet Cupcake Wine!” We immediately knew we had to try it.

Since then, Red Velvet Cupcake Wine has definitely been on the top of our list of go to wines.  It even made an appearance in our promo video and in the photos in the Our Story portion of our website.

From the tasting notes “Our first blended red wine for Cupcake Vineyards has over the top aromas of chocolate, deep rich blackberries, red fruits that follow through the palate to a creamy mocha finish that is unmistakable in its intensity and length, with a hint of coconut. It’s reminiscent of a blackberry chocolate cupcake with a mocha coulis.”

The description alone makes our mouths water.

Plus, what is even better is Cupcake Vineyards tag line – “Live Deliciously”  AMAZING!!!

So this Friday for happy hour, grab a bottle of Red Velvet Cupcake Wine and live deliciously!

On a side note, in addition to learning about Red Velvet Cupcake Wine, attending Making Things Happen was definitely one of the best things we ever did for our life and our business.  If you are looking to make BIG things happen in your life, you have to attend a conference with Emily, Lara, and Gina while you still can.  There are only a few spots left on their final tour so be sure to check it out today!

Earlier this year while we were visiting our good friends Justin & Mary we chatted about the need to have more AMAZING people in our lives. We jokingly said that we needed to create a match.com for small business owners to help us connect with other similar minded people. Although we were joking about this idea, it did spark another idea…

All large businesses and many nonprofits have a Board of Directors. One definition we have heard for a board of directors is a group of people that provides a company with direction and advice. We continued to think on this and thought, why can’t we have a Board of LIFE Directors that would provide us with direction and advice for our LIFE. Why couldn’t we have a Board of LIFE Directors!

Last week, as we were reflecting on our AMAZING Life Manifesto Video: Surround Yourself by Incredible People, we knew we had to turn our idea into a reality.

We came up with a short mission statement to describe our Board of LIFE Directors:

“The goal of our board of life directors is to surround ourselves by amazing people that we can turn to for advice. People that live a similar lifestyle, have similar values, and people that are not afraid to tell us the honest truth when necessary.”

Next, we came up with two simple duties for our board members.

1. Support us and encourage others in living an AMAZING life.
Our lives are short and are not meant to be lived in stress, working jobs we are not passionate about, or living someone else’s dream. As a member of our Board of LIFE Directors you are already living your own AMAZING life, we only ask that you help us to encourage others to do the same. We would love your continued support and feedback on additions to our AMAZING Life Manifesto, ways to improve our message and ideas on how to help others live their own AMAZING life.

2. Provide us with true and honest feedback
In order to grow as a business and a couple we need people that are willing to provide us with true and honest feedback.  People that are not afraid to tell us when an idea we think is amazing may actually be off the mark. People that will keep us in check and push us each day to live better, follow our dreams, and never give up. Only with true and honest feedback, will we be able to improve our business, our brand, our message, our life, and the lives of others.

Next, we created a fun little invitation and began inviting our board members:

Currently we have filled half of our board member positions with four AMAZING people.  Once we fill out our entire board we plan to ask each member “What does Living an AMAZING life mean to you?” We will then feature each board member and their responses on our blog!

So, this brings us back to the main point of writing this post.  We want to encourage everyone to create their own Board of LIFE Directors that will help them to live a more AMAZING life.

Over the weekend, while you are watching the baseball playoffs (let’s go O’s), take the following simple steps to create your own Board:

1. Write out a Mission Statement for your Board.  Not sure where to start? Think about what strikes a passion in you, or areas in your life and business in which you need a little extra guidance and craft your Mission Statement around those things.

2. Create a short list of simple duties for your board members.  Most people already have super busy lives so be sure to make the duties simple enough that they do not overwhelm your board.

3. Brainstorm a list of people that you would like to have on your board.  We hope to have 8 members on our board but you could have 2 or 12.  This is your board and there are no rules.  Also, you can always add to your board in the future, so don’t worry if you can’t fill all your spots right away.

4. Invite your board members. We created a fun graphic and invited our members via email but feel free to be creative when asking your members to join the board!

For another perspective on creating your own Board of LIFE Directors, be sure to check out Justin and Mary Marantz’s (current members of our board) blog today!