For me, the aroma of summer smells like BBQ. Burgers grilling and buns toasting! We kicked off our first summer in Louisville with a little cookout to celebrate the great weather. We played with traditional potato salad by using sour cream and greek yogurt with a ranch dressing packet and boom - so good! This picture depicts my happiness over said cookout and the fact that I haven't killed the herb kits I got at Target. Success.

These pictures of burgers and potato salad are from our kick-off cookout last year, for the effect ;)

I've decided I'd like to make a Summer Check List of sorts, to try out fun activities to see if we'd like to make them traditions. That's one of my favorite parts about being married - deciding on family traditions.

The point of this post is to ask for your help! What are some of your favorite summer activities and traditions? Let me know in the comments. I'd love to add them to our list!

We ventured down to Florida and Mississippi last week, so I wanted to share a few highlights of our trip, including adult lunchables and pretty to-go coffee cups, courtesy of Target's clearance section. It's about a 12-hour drive from Louisville to Tallahassee, so we had plenty of what I like to call "talk time". My husband Derrik happens to be my favorite person to chat with, so those 12 hours were well spent :)

Here's what I'm calling an Adult Lunchable - see above. Did you love eating those kids Lunchables with the cracker sticks, delicious fake cheese and turkey squares? As a child, I firmly believed they were the best thing Publix had to offer, which is saying a lot given my love-love relationship with the place.

Part 1: Tallahassee, Florida

We were fortunate to stay with friends during our trip (such an awesome way to catch up, and eat wonderful food when your friends are such good cooks!). This trip was full of good food. Side note - I'm realizing I really like parentheses. It's like letting you into my internal dialogue. Ok, moving on!

Did I mention this trip was full of good food? It's fun to go back to where you used to live and enjoy your favorite foodie spots while you're in town. At least that's how I justify it! ;) That Chai Latte was from RedEye Coffee - a shop Derrik and I frequented when we were dating. Such good memories! That amazing looking pizza was from Blaze Pizza, a chain we'd been wanting to try. We ordered the BBQ Chicken pizza and added roasted garlic and Siracha for a little kick. We went back later that week and ordered it again because it was that good. I'm glad we have a Blaze Pizza in Lousiville because 12 hours would be a little long of a drive to satisfy that craving!

I had to get a picture of these beautiful dogs while we were at RedEye Coffee.

“It’s so FLUFFY!”

— name that movie

Part 2: Mississippi Gulf Coast

The second leg of our trip took us to Mississippi to visit friends and family for Memorial Day weekend. We were able to celebrate Derrik's mom's birthday while we were in town, and continued the trend of amazing food. One of my favorite activities we did was walking down cute streets in Ocean Springs. Fashion boutiques, candy stores and bakeries? I can get behind that!

#carbs for the win.

After going to church and walking through downtown Ocean Springs, we relaxed on the porch where Derrik's mom has a cute area full of healthy plants, including these little succulents, evidence of her green thumb.

A birthday celebration wouldn't be complete without birthday cake! My mother-in-law always goes to a certain bakery in her town called Anderson's for every occasion that requires cake, which I think should be nearly every occasion! Every time I taste something from that bakery, I'm reminded why she's so loyal to it (she ordered our Rehearsal Dinner desserts from Anderson's and they were a hit!).

Part of the birthday festivities involved a legit master-level buffet. We tried to sample foods we wouldn't normally order when we go out to eat, so we took full advantage of the crab legs!

We rounded out the trip with a stop by Derrik's old stomping grounds: the University of Southern Mississippi. It was neat to hear his stories about college there, and feed off his excitement to be back.

I had two photoshoots while we were down south, one which was posted last week (see here), and I'll be posting the second this week, so stay tuned!