Dread Penny Society

I had the MOST FUN experience this month and I am struggling to narrow down the pictures, so I may just include them all because I love them so much. 

Background information: My current favorite author is named Sarah M. Eden. She writes historical fiction/romance and my favorite series of hers is the Jonquil Series. It's just so clever and well-written and fun. Each book follows the story of one of the brothers, but the entire family grows and evolves through each book and it's just so great. Even though that series is my favorite, I love all of her books. 

She announced that she would be releasing the final book in her Penny Dreadful series, which I have also really enjoyed, and that she was going to host a themed event to celebrate. 

Amy reached out and asked if we could get a group together to go, so I asked Jenna, who has read all of her books, too, and Melissa who has read the Jonquil books. Eventually, Brooklyn got pulled in and we booked our tickets! But then we started to look for costumes. My neighbors across the street are incredible costume designers and I won a custom costume at our ward's youth auction last year. I reached out and asked them if they would consider outfitting me and my sisters in Victorian costumes instead of making a dress for me. They said "We only have Victorian ballgowns, would that be okay?" Umm... yes! We had such a fun time being fitted for our dresses and attending the event. 

Dress Fittings

Robin and Roxanne had a rack of Victorian ballgowns and they basically just went down the line from smallest to largest. I ended up in this beautiful pink and cream dress - which is easily the most gorgeous dress I've ever worn, even more lovely than my wedding dress. 

 I especially loved this dress because Robin herself wore this in one of her Opera Productions and it was just so neat to share this dress with her. 

DREAD PENNY SOCIETY 

The night of the event, we met up to do hair, then went over to Robin and Roxanne who helped dress us and get us on our way. My ONLY regret of the night is that I didn't hire a professional photographer to take pictures for us. I thought about it over and over but I just wasn't sure what the timing would be like and talked myself out of it. I really wish that I had, though. That aside, we had such a fun night. 

The event was held at the McCune Mansion in SLC. Our dresses were amazing and it was so fun to arrive at the event all decked out in our finery. Rubbing shoulders with the Upper Crust of society. 

We entered through the front door, receiving a penny bracelet to represent the pennies of the "Dread Penny Society" from the book. Each room had a story and something relating to one of the characters that you had to figure out. 

The ballroom was located on the top floor of the home and it was breathtakingly beautiful. That's where we met the Author, Sarah Eden, and she signed our brand new books. After that, we exited the building through a fun back staircase to a garden area where there were fancy refreshments and tables to visit around. As I was walking past, I heard my name and saw two of my friends that I hadn't seen in a really long time. Sarah and Michelle had been in the group right after us and it was fun to run into them and discover a shared love of Sarah Eden. 

 

These pictures ended up being my very favorite, even though the picture quality isn't quite as good because it was so dark outside. I love them. 

I loved going to this event with my sisters (all of them). Dressing up, being in a fancy house, doing something unique. This night was completely just for fun and I am grateful that I was able to experience it. 

#cousinsmakethebestfriends & Baby Molly

My sweet sister Jenna just had her baby, Baby Molly. She's perfect and we love her so much. Adding one more to this cousin crew is just what we needed. I'm grateful that even though we don't have a LOT of cousins the same age, these kids are developing good relationships with their cousins. 

I got to go by myself to meet Baby Molly and it was such a special night. As I held her in my arms the first time, I couldn't help the tears springing to my eyes with how wonderful she is. She's got a special spirit in the tiny body and I'm so grateful I will get to be part of her life. (Maybe not favorite Aunt status, because she will have a LOT of Aunts, but hopefully a loved and supportive role in her life.) 

We loved having the Haderlie kids at our house while Jenna, Kevin, and Molly were at the hospital and afterwards. This crew of 7 (now 8!) really are the greatest little friends. 

And we can't forget little Juniper! When Matt and Brooklyn came to visit this summer - we spent some time with Juniper. Lucy and Juni playing together is just the sweetest thing. They could be twins. 

 We also were able to go and celebrate Zachary for HIS birthday! We have some set traditions that we do with Zach and I'm grateful for that relationship and the time we get to spend with this family, too. We are looking forward to our annual Gardner Village excursion this fall. 

Thus summer we were also able to get together with 

Renchers + Indiana Peadens

We love having the Renchers so close and even though their kids are older than our kids, they are always attentive and loving to them. The Renchers play with them and entertain them and our kids adore them. Even though we don't see Matt & Julie's kids very often, the boys play together really well and we are grateful for them, too.

Even though we aren't close to all of the kids cousins, we are grateful for the relationships that we do have any we try to nurture those relationships (both as adults and for the children). These kids are lucky to have such wonderful cousins because #cousinsmakethebestfriends

Egg-stravaganza

Have you ever seen "Runaway Bride"? There is a scene that references her not knowing what kind of eggs she likes (instead, just adopting the favorite eggs of the person she is with at the time). As a casual nod, to that, but mostly just a desire to do something fun together we decided to try a bunch of different types of eggs and rank them to see which ones were OUR actual favorites. We'd never made Eggs benedict, poached, or soft boiled eggs and we wanted to try! And we dubbed it our...

Egg-stravaganza! 

We made: Avocado Toast, Frittata, Poached Eggs, Eggs Benedict,  Breakfast Bowl, Soft Boiled Egg 

(And a Sausage, Egg, Biscuit sandwich - but we didn't score or take a picture of that.) 

Just look at how beautiful these turned out!

We judged on Appearance (1-5), Preparation (1-5), Taste (1-10) with a 2 (+/-) swing points. 

Here are our combined rankings: 

-Avocado Toast [53.5]  <--- Winner!

-Frittata [49]

-Breakfast Bowl [45]

-Eggs Benedict [40]

-Poached Eggs [37]

-Soft Boiled Egg [32] <--- Last Place. 

Jenna's high score-Frittata (18), Fan-favorite-Poached Egg (17), Least Favorite- Soft Boiled (10)

David's high score - Breakfast Bowl (tied with Avocado toast (17), Fan-favorite - Frittata (17), Least Favorite - Soft Boiled Egg (5) - very close to Poached Egg at (6). 

Shantel's high score - Avocado Toast (19), Fan-favorite- Eggs Benedict (17) or Soft Boiled Egg (17), Least Favorite- Poached Egg (14)

 It was SO fun to try our hand at making the different types of eggs. I loved making the eggs benedict, which I've eaten but never made.  I've always wanted to try soft-boiled eggs and it made it into my fan favorite mostly due to the novelty. But I liked it and so did Lydia - so maybe the two of us will eat it together occasionally.  Jenna particularly loved learning how to make the poached eggs and that ended up being her favorite dish, even though it got slightly less points. 

I love thing like this and it was such a fun thing to do with my sister. And now I have so many more egg-making skills than I did before, which is great.