Fossil Beach

Today we went to Fossil Beach in Westmoreland County, VA.

You have to hike down a trail to get to the beach. Not too bad....until you come back up the 'big' hill. LOL

Big Meadow Trail

Fossil Beach to the left

Some of the cliff areas...we saw some eagles and blue herons flying around. Pretty cool.

Nate picked up a dead crab and threw it at me and it landed directly on this stick that was about 10 or 15 feet away from him. It landed perfect. It was hilarious.

Nate looking for shark teeth and whatever cool things he could find.

Linda (Nate's mom) digging in the water looking for shark teeth.

I wrote 'BON' in the clay cliff. :) Do you see it? (look in middle on bottom)

Sand :)

If you look on that log there is a pretty dragonfly.

Here is our loot. Not much.....We were there for an hour. It started drizzling and then down-poured on us. We got soaked. Then there was some thunder and we thought it was best to pack up and get out of there. The rain sucked. :(

We did each find one tooth. Linda found the one on the left, I found the one in the middle and Nate found the tooth piece on the right.

Linda's tooth was awesome! :) She let me keep it! And I added the loot to my collection jar in the bathroom.

My prized collection. My conch shell from the Bahamas, my starfish from OBX and then my jar full of shells, sand dollars, shark teeth, sea glass, coral pieces, sponge, coconut shell etc. On the other side of the sink is my prized coral (rather large) that I bought from Moorefield Gem Mine. :) Anyways, we had a fun time even if out trip ended early from the downpour.

BFF Day with Kristen

On Vacation all this week. It's really a stay-cation. Today, Kristen and I went to DC! ROAD TRIP! :) Nate backed out after he heard about the girly shopping excursion. :(

First stop: IKEA in Dale City, Virginia.

I spent $12.88. Got a red picture frame for a DIY project, a new blanket for Kitty Lizzy, and a 6 pack of nice simple looking drinking glasses that I've been wishing for.

Oh and then b/c they are always baking cinnamon rolls while you're at the check out I gave into temptation and spent a buck on a cinnamon roll. Kristen was well behaved and did not get one. But it was hot and gooey and just yum. I couldn't resist! (That's what she said-TWSS) :)

Next up: Container Store, Washington, DC.

We got a nice parking space right near the front entrance. It was .25 cents for 8 min. so we put enough quarters in to give us an hour to shop. Luckily, we made lists the other night so we could get in and get out. (TWSS....haha)

Some of My Loot:
I got some more flour and sugar containers for some more baking organizing in my pantry. (for another blog) We got a 20 pack of containers which we split in half giving us 10 each. I was going to buy 6 but Kristen found the 20 pack which was a better deal at $1.49 each. :D

My glasses. :)
Picture frame for a DIY project. I also got a small cylinder shaped tube thing for shark teeth for my Fossil Beach adventure with Nate and his mom tomorrow. The other day, my friend, Sharon mentioned she needed a pill box so I found a cute circular one with a screw on top for her. :)

After that we drove around DC with all the lovely DC drivers. (blech) We did a quick drive down memory lane (for me) on the American University Campus.

Main drive into the campus when I went there.

First hall I stayed in. :) Hughes Hall. :) We drove all the way through. Love that campus!! Didn't take many pics and these were kinda blah. LOL

After that we were pretty hungry. We decided to eat at a place we'd never been before in Georgetown. We walked into Dean & DeLuca. If you ever watched Felicity (one of the best shows ever) you might remember Felicity working here. Of course, when she worked there they only had pastries and coffees. LOL It's freaking awesome but def for hipsters and SNOBBY ppl. (at least in Georgetown...or maybe ppl there today just had a bunch of freaking attitudes).

There was an awesome tote bag but it was $30!!!!!! UGH I didn't even look at the shirt prices.

So cool. :)

We were disappointed that you couldn't eat inside D&L. No tables...all the tables were outside but it was way too hot to sit and eat outside.

So.................We walked down to:

Pizzeria Paradiso

While we were looking over the menu, I saw a lady sitting near our table with a delicious looking pizza. Kristen dared me to ask her what pizza she was eating so I did. It was the Quattro Formaggi Pizza. It's Pecorino, Fontina, Gorgonzola, Mozzarella, Parsley and Garlic. Kristen got the Margherita pizza that had tomato, basil and Mozzarella. MMMMM sooooo goood!!! :)

Then.....well we walked over to Georgetown Cupcake and stood in line for like 20 min.

Health Code Violation: Drink at the front line and a straw in his mouth. LOL

The boy on the far right is boxing up my cupcakes. :)

My 6 pack. I got Maple, Salted Caramel, Red Velvet, Milk Chocolate Birthday, Chocolate & Vanilla and Chocolate Birthday. :)

Cupcakes ready to be boxed! :)

After we got the cupcakes we walked 2 doors down to CB2. I guess it's sorta like Crate & Barrel but maybe pricier? I saw some cute things and then some things I would never ever buy. haha

These serving trays were cute. The larger ones were $15 and there were smaller ones for $3 each. I liked them but not enough to buy them.

The City pitcher was very cute for $5 but was kinda heavy.

Cute glasses

Kitchen stuff
A chair that doesn't look comfy to sit in at all.

Cute bedspread. I like the colors. It's like the color boxes on e-mails or paint program on your computer. Whew....what a great day with the BFF! :)

When we got home my brother mentioned one of our boards fell down in our backyard. So, I went out with Nate and held the nails while he fixed it and also fixed up some of the other loose boards. :)

All fixed! YEY! :)

Under the Kitchen Sink Make-Over

I didn't take any before shots of the chaos under my kitchen sink. But I did take pics of the after. :)

Cabinet...........Kristen was nice to give me 3 bins that she wasn't using and didn't want to return to the store. She told me I could have them so I gladly accepted. Thanks Kristen! :) The before I had everything just loose in there. The side behind the trash can had a piece of foil laying down with items neatly on the foil. Then I used a bin that I had on hand but it was too big and the trash can didn't fit in front of it.

On the left side I keep the trash can and on the right side are things used most of the time, like green works spray, dishwasher detergent, new sponges, floor wipes etc.

On the left side (I moved out the trash can so you could see) there are some extra items (dish soap, dishwasher detergent etc) and also wasp spray, raid, oven cleaner, duster, WD40 pen etc.

Up close of the everyday bin...

Up close of the other bin. Little cluttered but once I run out of the current soaps in the everyday bin those will be moved over and I don't plan on keeping extras. If I run out, target is 15 min away. I don't need to hoard 3 bottles of dishwasher detergent when it's just not necessary. You know? :)

New Things Monday

My little sister Ashley was here the other day. I went with her to the store as she stopped in for a few things she needed for her camping trip. One item she needed was bread. She saw these Nature's Own Sandwich Rounds and they were on sale. Buy 1 get 1 free. They have Whole wheat, Whole grain and multi-grain. Ashley said she only needed 1 package so she said I could pick the free one. I picked the whole wheat. I love nature's own whole wheat bread so I figured the rounds would be good too. I told Ashley I would feature them as my next 'New things Monday' and she smiled and said "ok". :) I tried 1 by itself as a snack later that day. Sooooooooooooooo good. I love it! Nate had one with some leftover manwich and he loved it too. He also used 2 for some tuna sammiches he made for his dinner. For lunch, I made myself some pb and apple sammich rounds. I spread the pb on the bread, added sliced apples and had a little sammich. Very good! :) I will buy these again and again! :)

4th of July Weekend 2011

I worked on Saturday from 10am till 2pm and then VACATION started. Woo-hoo! :) Nate headed down to Norfolk for a wedding so I was Nateless for the weekend. :(

Anyways, I got a VIP pass for Buffalo Wild Wings from one of the PD's at work. We have a new location opening up and they were having a VIP night. It was a pass for 2. I'd never really gone to a VIP thing before so I was excited to check it out. Sharon and I went together. It started at 6pm. Everything was FREE except the alcohol but Sharon and I don't drink so we didn't have to pay for anything. :) We got an appetizer of soft pretzels. It came with 3 pretzels and for dipping they gave us a cheese (kinda like cheese wiz) and then mustard. The mustard was kinda sweet and was very good with the pretzels. For our dinner, we both got a house salad and then wings. Sharon got wings with the bone and I got boneless wings. We both agreed the wings should have been hot or warm. By the time they got to us they were cold. :( They were still good but would have been better if they'd gotten to us hot. But hey we didn't pay anything for it so we didn't complain. We tipped the waitress $5 each and then headed out to meet Joe (Sharon's hubby) at the movies.

Joe met us at the movies. We watched 'Bad Teacher'. It was ok. There were funny parts but pretty much all the funny things you see in the preview for the movie are the only funny parts. One family left like 20 min into the movie. They had a small child with them so maybe they realized the R rating truly was a R rating and that their small child shouldn't be in there. I mean geez come on ppl. You want to see a R rated move then leave the little ones at home. Thanks! It's R rated for a reason. (sorry for the rant...it's just so irresponsible)

On Sunday, we went to Kristen and Dave's for a cookout! :)

Kristen had decorated her outside umbrella with some cute 4th of July decor.

Mini cupcakes that Kristen made. How festive? :) So cute! And these were soooo good. I couldn't get enough. I can't remember how many I ate throughout the day. haha

Kristen had some fresh strawberries and blueberries out for us. She served it with some vanilla yogurt for dipping. So good! :)

Sharon made a carrot salad. She knows I can't have a lot of green veggies so she wanted something that would be good for me to eat. :) She mixed carrots, raisins, pineapples and pineapple yogurt together. I thought it was good. Everyone tried it. Sharon didn't like it. She said it would be better with plain yogurt and smaller shreds of carrots. I thought it was good.

Crystal and Eddie brought delicious deviled eggs and some fresh fruit. Soooo good! :D

I didn't take any pics of what I brought. I brought 'green stuff' (coolwhip, pitashio mix, and crushed pineapples). I also brought baked beans and some reduced fat chips. Everything was gobbled up. :P

Our cook, Dave. :)
Burgers just about done. :) Sharon's burger is all the way to the left with 'fake cheese'. LOL

We ate and ate some more and talked and talked. We also watched some of the closing arguments for the trial of the century and all expressed our thoughts and opinions. We also played hand and foot. So fun! What a wonderful day with wonderful friends! :)