Little Life Update

Since it has been quite some time since posting on here, 2.5 years, I thought it would be fun to do a little life update of the big things we have accomplished and celebrated.

1) We moved in together! We found the cutest little house that we nicknamed “The Purple House” as it is what my grandma calls it. Purple is her favorite color and she was thrilled to say the least.

2) We traveled to several cities! We flew to Japan with my brother for two weeks at the end of 2018! We went to Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Kyoto and Tokyo. Japan was incredible and Ryan mentions weekly how much he would love to go back. The culture was so kind and respectful and everything was amazingly colorful and cute. In early 2019, I traveled to Waco, TX with the company I work for to sell pops at Spring at The Silos, Chip & Joanna Gaine’s Magnolia property. Afterwards, Ryan flew out to meet me in Austin, TX to celebrate my 29th birthday. We also drove to Comer, GA to visit my favorite flower farm, 3PorchFarm, which was so incredibly beautiful. We flew to Seattle, one of my favorite places in the world, for a week. I had family there growing up and haven’t been in 15 years. It was a special and beautiful trip. I cannot wait to get back to visit more of the PNW.

3) Ryan moved M.C. Pressure into his own studio space! After years of sharing space with friends and their various companies, Ryan found a warehouse space to call his own. It’s a huge accomplishment for Ryan and M.C. Pressure as he’s come a long way from printing on a tiny letterpress in his kitchen.

4) We hosted our 4th Annual Pie Party! We sadly weren’t able to host Pie Party this year due to the Pandemic but hope we’ll be able to host it again this or next November. For the first time in all of our Pie Party years, one person won three awards! Stephen & Mia won for best tasting, Nana’s Choice and Grandma Edna’s choice with their potato and cheese pie. Our friend Jen won for most creative with her sushi pie and I won best presentation for my pistachio rose panna cotta tart.

5) Ryan received a pizza oven for his birthday is the beginning of 2019 and he started working on making his own dough and sauce for homemade pizza nights. All of his experimentation led to the creation of Bootleg Pizza Friday’s where we make pizzas every other Friday for friends. We’ve created all kinds of specials and some of the most beloved specials have been: Pepperoni, Homemade Pickled Jalapeños, with Hot Honey Drizzle // Gorgonzola Cream Base, Roasted Garlic, Caramelized Onion, Pear, and Prosciutto // and Homemade Vodka Sauce Base topped with Parmesan and a Pesto Swirl. Ryan makes all of the pizza dough and sauce, I help shred all of the cheeses, make toppings and run orders out to our friends cars. We also serve homemade lemonade which I squeeze fresh each Friday morning. I call it Okay! Lemonade…even though it is much tastier than just okay ;)

6) We flew to NYC for a pizza crawl in celebration of Ryan’s 29th Birthday in the beginning of 2020 before the world shut down for the Pandemic. We visited 8 different pizza shops, 6 were in NYC and 2 were in Philly. In NYC we visited: Prince Street Pizza, Lucali’s, Rubirosa, Best Pizza, F&F, and Scarr’s. In Philly we went to Pizza Shackamaxon and Pizza Beddia. Our top three favorites were Pizza Shackamaxon (their tomato pie was incredible!), Pizza Beddia and Lucali’s. Needless to say, we had the best time and came back feeling inspired to keep making the best pizzas we know how to at home.

7) The world shut down due to the Pandemic. It happened just a few days we were supposed to leave for my 30th birthday trip to New Orleans. I was jealous of all of the birthdays later in the year that would most likely get to celebrate their birthdays post quarantine and pandemic. Spoiler alert- everyone’s birthday this past year has been a Pandemic birthday so we are all in the club of cancelled plans…that is for those of us that are responsible ;) We spent the day instead celebrating with bike rides, a picnic and tons of Thai food and birthday cake. We will make it to New Orleans one day and it will be all the more special when we do. This past year we have mostly stayed home to keep from spreading the virus. We have cooked all kinds of new recipes, read lots of books, worked on gardening, I finally learned how to make paper flowers, we watched lots of tv and movies, and just find ways to have our own fun.

8) We got a pup! His name is Abe and he is a Bouvier De Flandres. He’s the same breed of dog as my parents dog, Teddy, and our first family dog, Diesel. Fun fact, Abe is actually Diesel’s great nephew. We picked Abe up on Mother’s Day and he just turned a year old in November. Penny protested quite a bit when we first brought him home but they are friends now, most of the time anyways. He goes to the shop with Ryan daily and is the perfect letterpress shop dog.

9) We got engaged! Ryan proposed this July at home at The Purple House. We had just talked about how much I missed traveling, finding new restaurants, exploring and finding our traditional chemical photo booth to bring home souvenir photos for our collection. Ryan made an at-home version of a photo booth with a big frame and a bunch of books stacked as tall as our heads so an I-phone can rest on top. In the middle of the photos he pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him. It was so sweet and felt very us. We were able to celebrate just the two of us together with takeout burgers, fries and champagne. We called and FaceTimed our families and friends to share the news since we all couldn’t be together. It was the best.

10) We bought a vintage model-14 chemical photo booth! It has been on our bucket list for years to hopefully own one and we finally found one online for sale in NJ. Ryan took a quick 48 hour trip to NJ to meet with the seller and learn how to use it. It turns out, the man that sold us the photo booth also works on a lot of the booths that we’ve used for our souvenir travel photos. We had it shipped down to FL where it lives at M.C. Pressure for hopefully all to use when the Pandemic is past us. Until then, Ryan and I have had the best time growing our collection of photos we hope to pass down one day.

11) We got married! We were thinking of waiting until next year, however, we wanted my grandparents and both of our immediate families to be present. We knew if we waited until next year we could be taking a gamble with my grandparents health and that wasn’t a risk we were willing to take. My great grandparents, grandparents and parents were all married on November 28th and we knew we wanted to continue the tradition as the fourth generation to share that special day. It was coming up quickly, so we planned everything in about 6-8 weeks. We kept it teeny tiny as it’s how we always imagined our wedding would be, sweet and private between those that matter the most to us. Covid also played a large factor in keeping it intimate so we could all be safe to be together. More details to come but it was definitely the best thing to come out of this year!