I absolutely love entertaining, especially in the summer, and ever since we moved into a place with a backyard, we've been having friends over almost every weekend. Usually I'll pour a couple glasses of wine or grab some beers out of the fridge, but lately I've been itching to serve up some fun cocktails instead. This one is full of bright, tropical flavors and a little hint of elderflower, which makes for the perfect drink to celebrate the start of summer. I kind of love the mix of fruit with floral.

Ingredients: 

• About 2 tablespoons of diced pineapple
• 2-3 thin slices of fresh mango
• 1/4 cup vodka
• 1/4 cup elderflower liquor
• 1 cup orange juice
• A splash of tequila (optional)
• Sliced blood orange, for garnish

Instructions: 

1. Separate the pineapple and mango between two glasses. Muddle the fruit with the end of a wooden spoon. Fill the rest of each glass with ice.
2. In a cocktail shaker full of ice, combine vodka, elderflower, orange juice, and tequila. Shake until it's so cold you don't want to hold it anymore. Pour the cocktail mixture over the ice and give it a stir to incorporate the muddled fruit. Garnish with a slice of blood orange (regular orange would be fine if you can't find blood oranges) and enjoy.

I plan to share more cocktail recipes from now on, so if you have an ingredient you'd like me to work in, let me know. Cheers!

It was a balmy 92 degrees this weekend in Charlotte and my brother and his girlfriend were staying at our house. Everything about it was cozy and sweet--exactly the kind of thing I picture when hosting out-of-town guests: pouring iced coffee in the morning, sitting on the back patio with our dogs, making burgers and guacamole before all of our friends came over for a cookout, taking them to our favorite places for lattes and crepes and gluten-free grilled cheese sandwiches, sprawling out on the couch together under blankets after a long day of entertaining. Ender loves Sean so much so every morning I would wake up to him crying outside of the guest bedroom door, hoping his uncle would either come out and play or let him in to snuggle.

And then Sunday evening arrived and my brother and Jane packed up their stuff and loaded the car as big dark rain clouds rolled in, and I found myself getting so incredibly emotional that they were here and now were leaving. Summer is so exciting sometimes, and even though it's not my favorite season I can feel the magic in it, and the emotional highs and lows that rise and crash like waves on a beach. Long weekends slam into work weeks, and sunny mornings are wiped out by afternoon thunder storms. Summer is so joyful and fun and charged with energy, and for an incredibly sensitive person like myself, it can be exhausting. 

Lately I've been feeling a little burnt out, so I'm trying to look at this summer as a highly creative experiment in being kinder to myself, and allowing the room to get what I need. Working from home often makes me feel like I need to be hustling 24/7, but I've found that these weekends where I don't even pick up my computer have been so good for my soul and my mind, especially when I'm relaxing with people I love. So I'm going to do more of that, and I hope that something beautiful will follow. 

It's almost summer. It's time to slow down.

Last year we spent Memorial Day weekend in South Carolina with our friends Tina and Michael, and this year we were lucky enough to do the same. Both times, Rob and I have come home completely relaxed, well-rested, and sore from laughing for three straight days. This year there were ten of us at the beach house, and it was a weekend packed with sunny mornings on the water followed by rainy afternoons of endless games of cards, homemade piña coladas, bottomless chips and queso from the grocery store, and our beach tradition of a Saturday early bird hibachi dinner at a Japanese steak house, which had us back at the house well before 6 PM for more cards (and queso). 

I really haven't been to the beach with anyone but Tina in some time--I wrote this post in 2014 after her Dewey Beach bachelorette, when my parents were breaking up and I was wondering what family trips might look and feel like after a divorce. I hadn't thought much about trips with friends before that point--maybe because we hadn't done too many of them, but Tina and Michael's house in Richmond has always been a place that felt a lot more like a second home than a place to spend a weekend away, so until we started vacationing together I hadn't really given any of it a second thought. Regardless, it's been such a gift these past few years to get away and relax with some of your favorite people.

I have always been blessed with friends who feel more like family, and multiple times over the past few days--as her husband and mine stood under the porch grilling burgers together or while Tina and I chopped fruit over glasses of wine and reheated cheese dip and wiped down the coffee pot before heading the the beach to catch whatever sun was left in the forecast--I was once again overwhelmed with gratitude for these rituals we've put in place as we've grown up. And I'm already looking forward to the next long weekend.

I hope you had a beautiful holiday, wherever you were.