Weekend In The Mountains, Part II

When our friends arrived in the mountains, the party started!

We first headed to a nearby trout farm where you can catch your own trout out of a stocked pond and then leave it there for a few hours for them to smoke it.  Then you just pick it up and serve it cold with little forks, lemon wedges, and capers -- sounds perfect, right?!  

Sadly, we learned this year that they no longer offered the smoking option, due to some sort of government restriction.  Which kinda makes me wonder about the other times that Ian and I enjoyed this smoked trout.  Hmmm.... not gonna let my mind go there.  So we decided to just head back to the house, but not before I snapped this cute and candid picture of our friends Kim and Cass (you saw their wedding in this post).

When we got back to the house, the guys headed down to the stream to fish for a little bit, and we girls sat out on the patio and had some girltalk.  I also took a break to pour us all some Honeycrisp Apple Sangria that I made -- recipe found here -- after spotting this lovely concoction all over the blogs & Pinterest.  It was absolutely wonderful, and all of the girls loved it.

After a while the guys came back from the stream and decided to shoot a little bit.  The house is at the very top of a mountain, and we always make sure to shoot right into a side of the mountain that juts upward so there is no worry about a stray bullet hitting something or someone.  We may have guns, but we play very safely with them and take shooting targets very seriously.  Okay, off my soapbox now.  :)

Ian and the guys shot first, and then I wandered outside to take a turn too.  I shot a small revolver belonging to one of the guys that has a gorgeous mother of pearl grip.

We had shiny silver cans on tree branches to use as our targets.  I can't claim the below picture as my own shot, it was done by a shotgun and not a pistol.  Pretty cool regardless.

When the guys came inside, we all lit a fire and played our favorite game, Taboo.

For dinner, we cooked steaks on the grill with roasted onions and potatoes and butternut squash soup.  For dessert, we had the cupcakes that I made for Ian's birthday.

Cupcakes, might I add, complete with trick candles.



And afterwards we hopped in our swimsuits and spent the rest of the evening in the hot tub.  Perfect weekend in the mountains!