RASPBERRY LEMONADE MARTINI

Today's drink recipe is awesomely easy, and can be served two ways- on the rocks (on ice) or straight up in a nice martini glass! Dani & I sipped on these by the pool the other night, and they were the perfect, refreshing, end of summer drinks! 

What you'll need to make them happen:

- Vodka (1.5 ounces per drink- I used Svedka)

- Fresh Raspberries

- Lemonade (I used CountryTime powdered)

- Ice & Toothpicks or skewers

How to make them happen:

Step 1: Mash a small handful of raspberries into 6 ounces of lemonade. You can use a spoon- or a blender if you're feeling REALLY ambitious. Let sit in fridge to get cold.

Step 2: Add your vodka to a shaker or glass with ice and shake like crazy until it's super cold. Pour into a martini glass, or leave in ice if you're having it on the rocks.

Step 3: Filter your raspberry lemonade mixture if you're drinking it straight up, or just pour it over ice & vodka as is. It's annoying as heck to try to drink little raspberry bits out of a martini glass- but isn't too bad with a straw :)

Step 4: Garnish with some skewered raspberries, and enjoy!

Easy, right? The lemonade keeps it just tart enough that you can drink one without feeling like you just drank a cup of sugar, but there's enough sweetness to cut the vodka.

I highly recommend this for a girl's night or a bachelorette/bridal shower!

What's your go-to, easy cocktail?

If you don't have one, feel free to steal this recipe!

xo, lp

For more drink recipes, click here!

IT FELT LIKE A WEEKEND.

Damn this weekend was good.

Sorry for starting the post off with a swearword, Mom- but it was necessary, because it was that good.

This weekend FELT like a weekend. Fully. We utilized every minute to either run errands, see friends, or do work around the apartment.

Bonfire-ing, grilling, drinking, pool partying, and catching up with friends felt fantastic. Seeing some old coworker friends who moved away a few years ago & then stopping at the Farmer's Market were a few of my favorite moments. Sunday I met with some lovely Wisconsin blogging ladies for brunch- which was fantastic to meet some new people in the area! Of course, like a champ...I didn't take any pictures. Meh. You can all picture that, right? 

Here's what's going on lately: 

Finally getting back into taking some #ootd pictures on Instagram. Those red pants are the comfiest. And like $20. Thanks Gap!

Public Service Announcement: Go here and buy this candle. Now. It's on super clearance, and it smells live heaven and Fall. Beside the amazing cedar scent, it also comes in the form of a cute tin mug! Also- ladies- if you live with your dude and he is anti-candle, BUY THIS ONE. I promise he'll like it. It's such an outdoorsy, manly scent!

Gap's new denim is the bomb. Seriously. The Always Skinny and the Legging Jeans are the most flattering jeans ever. Gap is 40% off sitewide ending TODAY, and denim is FINALLY included in the sale. I'll be checking the mail compulsively this week until my order comes. Use code FALLFIX

This next image makes me SUPER happy, because it is telling you all that next week will be HAIR WEEEEEK! Hands down, the #1 thing I get emails, comments, and tweets about is asking how I curl my hair. SO next week I'll be doing a few posts including a couple tutorials and a hair must-have list! 

What are you excited about this week?
Besides cheap Gap denim...


xo, lp



ALSO:

People, this song is my jam. Am I the only one that loves it? Seriously. I have played it wayyy too much for my own good lately. I love that the video just perfectly encapsulates what she's singing in the song. Just the average, mundane day in the life of us normal people :)

PNW - TAKE 2

So as you saw Monday, the first leg of our trip in Portland was success!

We headed off to Washington next...

1. We stopped in Olympia first to check out the State Capitol Building. Nothin' compared to Wisconsin's cap building...but I'm pretty biased.

2-4 Turns out Sea Fair was going on in Seattle which meant every hotel on earth was booked, so we ended up staying in Tacoma. I'm glad we did too, because while searching for a hotel we got to see a lot of awesome things around town! We explored the waterfront & the Tacoma Glass Museum, and had a great date night at Dirty Oscar's Annex. Diner's Driveins and Dives was right- it was delicious!

5. The next morning REALLY early we headed downtown Seattle. First stop? The Original Starbucks! 

6. We spent a ton of time walking around Pike Place and watching the guys throw fish around. I wish we lived in Seattle and had access to that amazing market daily!

7. The Post Alley Gum Wall- we just had to do it. We just HAD to.

8. Rock Bottom Brewery beer tasting. Totally sucked. Don't go there. For realz.

9. Fremont Troll- you just have to Google it, such a crazy cool "statue".

10. Oh come on, you didn't really think we wouldn't do the Space Needle, did you??

11-12. After one of our days in Seattle we headed to Woodinville, WA to do a little wine tasting and brewery touring. Chateau Ste Michelle had great wine- but the chick serving us clearly thought that because we are young we didn't know wine and pretty much ignored us. Major bummer. To forget her, we went to Red Hook Brewery where we had the most fantastic tour guide. The beer was DELICIOUS, we learned a ton, and we ate&drank at their brewpub afterwards. I may have gotten tipsy. Oops. Sorry Michael!

13&14. The next morning we headed to Gig Harbor, WA- cute little sea town on the Puget Sound. I bought even more taffy and we checked out yet another brewery (seeing a theme?). By far best beer of the trip.

15-16.  Finally, we spent our last day in Washington visiting Mt. Rainier. Holy shit it's gorgeous up there. The trees, the waterfalls, the mountain- completely stunning. I now see why crappy scent companies try to create the smell "mountain air". Ahhhhh.

17. Our car for the trip? A Chevy Spark. Aka the clown car. Aka the worst car ever.

18. Just kind of a pretty drive back to Portland... these PNW states love their bridges, I tell ya.

So that's the second leg! We packed a ton of stuff in, and Washington was a stunning state...I already want to go back!

Have you ever been to Washington? What was your favorite part?

If you're planning a trip please email me, I'd love to give more details!

xo, lp

Some of my favourite moments of this summer so far: midsummer's night on the Thames after seeing Patti Smith perform at the Royal Festival Hall, with her son and daughter as back up band; the cat in Parisian bakery window shot never gets old; a drink after watching Hiroshima Mon Amour (without subtitles!) at Le Champo; an unexpected bonus of a cancelled Eurostar train = an

ONE OF THOSE POST THINGS...

I feel like posting a bit now I've got that off my chest! Anyway, this is Andalusia back in June - 2 midsummer days of hot white heat at a villa surrounded by wildflowers and mountains. The only neighbours for miles were a few shepherds and their flocks. The light was so strong that I was unable to take actual pictures with a camera before 10pm, when it was still light. We ate

PYRE...

It was this blog's eighth birthday yesterday and I was unsure what to do. Throw a party, or a wake? I considered putting it on a boat, setting fire to it and pushing it out into the Serpentine lake to watch it burn from a distance while sipping Pimm's. Since the whole "all my images were irretrievably deleted by Google" debacle I have been feeling unenthused. But honestly, as I've posted

HIGH SUMMER ROLLIN...

Hardcore evening gardening once the heat has subsided; finally taming a thorny, unruly beast of a plant into submission - it fought back, I won - sustaining scrapes, cuts and scratches all over. Bonus baby fox cub watching at dusk, dusk stretching into hours. The cuts and scratches on slowly tanned limbs are joined by bites and bruises, scuffed feet and elbows like those of a child: side