Virginia State Fair....

The Virginia State fair is at a new location this year. It's at Meadows event park next to Kings Dominion in Caroline county. They have tons of room there. Jessica, asked me to go along with her to the fair today. She was competing in a celebrity cook-off with her morning show partner, Geoff. I said yes!! Sharon also decided to come along with us. Sharon picked me up this morning and we came to the station, then Jessica drove us to the fair.

There were 3 teams. Jessica and Geoff, then a guy and gal from Radio one, and then a girl team. One of who writes cook books and the other a pastry chef. Totally not fair but whatever. :) Each team had a skillet at their station and a basket of food. They had 25 min. to make whatever from the basket. Jess sorted thru the basket and Geoff grabbed spices and knives.

The food consisted of rice, peppers, onion, apple, payday candy bar, chicken, potato, bottle of water, and green beans.

Jess and Geoff got 2nd place!!!!!!!!!! Woo-hoo!!!!!!!!! Of course, the winners were the cook book writer and pastry chef but the cook book writer did cut her finger while she was cutting an apple. :)


Here is the plate of food Jess and Geoff made. It was good!! :)

Jess showing off the skillet and how messy it looked.

After the competition we walked around the fair. Here's a picture of some turkey legs.



Sheepies!!!!!!!! Jess and I are obsessed with Sheepies. So, we spent a lot of time looking at them. Some of them are wearing blankets to keep them clean for their show competitions.


How cute is he?

This little guy is a messy eater. We found a station set up with wool all over it from some of the sheep being sheared. We also found some free samples of sheepy fur. I took some for my sheepy room. :)
The largest pumpkin was 1,057 pounds. It's the one on the left. Look at all those huge pumpkins!!! How can they get them to grow that big? Miracle Grow?

Little duckies!! :)

Little baby piggy sleepin. He had 11 little brothers and sisters. All of them woke up and started feeding while we were there. He was the last one to get up. It was soooo cute! :)


There were lots of quilts! This one quilt I thought was very unusual. They used boxes from girl scout cookies. How cool is that??

Funnel cake sign!

So.......Before we went into the competition we walked around for a few min. Sharon got a lemonade, and I got a Grape Hawaiian Shaved ice. We came to this cinnamon roll stand and gazed at them. They looked soooooo good. The vendor took a piece off and gave it to Jess. She was like OMG!! :) So as we went to walk away the vendor said "hold on" He got a box, put a roll in it, put extra icing on it and gave us 3 forks. Then Jess told him who we were and that she would talk about him on the radio tomorrow morning. We all ate the cinnamon roll. OMG, it was the best one I've ever had. It was delicious!! :)

Such a fun day!! :)

Cathing up...

Today I met some old WT friends (Tricia and Toni) for lunch. We were to meet at 12:45 at Bangkok Cafe in downtown. I parked my car in the free parking lot and walked up William street. As I'm walking up I see 4 ladies in scrubs walking ahead of me. They stopped and turned and yelled "Bonnie, is that you"? I was like wait a minute, I know those girls. It was Luchie, Karen, Myra and Hannah. All old co-workers from WT Rehab. Then Tricia (one of the ladies I was meeting) came out of her van. And everyone was surprised. It was just a coincidence that the other WT girls were there. They are all PT's and were having a PT meeting. I asked them where they were headed and they were headed at the same place. It was awesome. We all headed in and got a big table. Toni finally got there. We ordered our drinks and lunch and chit chatted non-stop. It was great seeing everyone and catching up with one another. Toni is going on a cruise next month and I can't wait to hear all about it when she gets back. Toni, Trish and me are all meeting for lunch again on November 2nd. I'm thinking Mimi's Cafe. :)

Oh so some of you are probably wondering what I ate at a Thai place. Well I played it safe and got Chicken fried rice with no spice. It was really good. I loved it and would totally get it again. Tricia and Toni got Pad Thai. I thought about getting that but didn't want to chance it. It seemed to have been the popular dish b/c it's what most of the girls got. :)

hmmmm

I miss my Lathering cleanser....I'm out and can't find it. So, my mission is to find my face wash.

Sunday Road trip....

Today, I picked up Ashley and we went to Kristen's. Kristen made pancakes, I made scrambled eggs and Ashley made the bacon. Then we ate breakfast. Afterwards, we went on a road trip to Farmville. Too bad everything was closed. And there really isn't anything there. The town is very small. We drove through the town and through Longwood University. We saw where the party was at last night. Some random frat house that had lots of cars still out front as well as beer bottles and beer cans. It was pretty trashy. After that we went looking for anything that was open. Nothing!! We did come upon two antique shops. We looked around but nothing that we had to have so we left empty handed. Then I searched the GPS for anything we could go and see. We ended up back in Richmond, to the Tuckahoe Plantation. It was a cute plantation right on the James River. :)

Greetings....

This little guy greeted me on my front door the other day. I thought it was awesome and grabbed the camera. This was one of my better shots. Of course, Harley came over and put his paw on the door and the little guy disappeared.

I just looked up praying mantises online and learn a little more about them.

My favorite part.....(in red) (wiki)
"The female may start feeding by biting off the male’s head (as with any prey), and if mating had begun, the male’s movements may become even more vigorous in its delivery of sperms." How nice. You go girl! You bite that head off. LOL "The male engages the female in courtship dance, to change her interest from feeding to mating." And of course the males are always trying to sweet talk the females just like humans. :)

Some more interesting facts.....
"Larger species have been known to prey on small lizards, frogs, birds, snakes, and even rodents, basically anything that it can successfully capture and devour. Most species are known to engage in cannibalism". That's crazy!! I thought they liked grass and plants.

Movies....

Tonight, I went to the movies with Sharon. We saw 'Fame'.

"This movie is based upon the 1980 film which follows NYC talent attending the New York City High School for the Performing Arts, (Known today as Fiorello H. Laguardia H.S.) students get specialized training that often leads to success as actors, singers, etc. In 1936, New York City Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia founded the High School of Music & Art in order to provide a facility where the most gifted and talented public school students of New York City could pursue their talents in art or music, while also completing a full academic program of instruction. In 1948, the School of Performing Arts was created to provide training in performance skills to students who wished to prepare for professional careers in dance, music or drama." (imdb)

We both liked it! We weren't expecting a lot from the movie but overall it was cute. We think it might have been better if they'd focused on a couple of characters instead of like 10 people. And maybe give some more details into the characters storyline. :)

Some previews before the movie were.....'NEW MOON', 'The Vampire's Assistant' and 'Whip it'. After the 'new moon' preview everyone clapped with excitement. I thought it was cool and I told Sharon she totally needs to read the books or watch the last movie. I think she's thinking about it and who knows maybe we can get her to join in on the "Vampire Craze"! Speaking of the "Vampire Craze", a new movie called 'The Vampire's Assistant' is coming out. It looked really dumb to me though. And lastly, the 'whip it' trailer looked cute. From the few commercials I've seen on TV I thought the movie looked dumb but the extended clip tonight made the movie look really cute. I want to see it. Hmmm....a girl's night in the future? :)

Too cute....

Strawberry Cheesecake..........

No words..... :)

A bull at Station

Jay and his crew bring 1500lb. Bruster in studio for the opening of the State Fair of Virginia. This segment is from the second half when Bruster is introduced. Things get a little scary, but no people or animals were hurt during the visit. There was some slight damage done to the studio, but minimal.

Memories....

Back when I was a kid, Welch's Jelly put their jelly in collectible drinking glasses. Once you were done with the jelly, you washed out the glass and had a cute little glass to drink from. I remember four glasses that we all loved to use. Antiquing yesterday brought back the memories. We found 2 of them. They were a little faded so I didn't get them. I want all four glasses and I want them to be in like new or perfect condition. I know they are out there!! If you come across them I want them!!! :)

Here's what they look like: My favorite is the Brontosaurus! (green one) :)

Model Kitty

My love! I took this photo of Harley and I just love the way it turned out. :)

Sister, Sister Road Trip

Today (Sunday), Ashley and I took a Sister, Sister road trip. We decided to go out to Culpeper, Virginia. I chose to go to the 31st Annual Old Dominion Draft Horse and Mule Show. I thought it would be neat to get some pictures of show horses. Ashley looked up some antique shops on the web that we could visit too. We stopped off at the horse show first. Not a lot of people there. We had to watch where we walked. Lots of fresh poo all about. LOL We took some pictures of horses but Ashley was a little embarrassed at my camera. She said "It's all professional looking and big". (that's what she said) We later ended up in an area where a lot of professional photographers were and their camera's were bigger than mine. :) It was cool to see the horses. I got some great shots! :)






After the horse show, we plugged in the address to the GPS for Country Shoppes of Culpeper. Ashley found a few pieces of 'Beanie Babies'. No actually, that was the code word we used if one of us found the real items and then we would come running. LOL We were hunting for 'Pyrex'. The place was never ending. They had a cute sheepy, but I left him on the couch in his section. I don't think I need anymore sheepies right now. We did see a small barbie suitcase full of naked barbies dolls. Creepy!!! And one dealer sold old barbie and ken clothes still in the packages. When Ashley found her first piece of Pyrex she forgot to say beanie baby and she totally shrieked with excitement. It was pretty funny. Oh we also saw a guy with crazy cowboy boots on. If he goes into Walmart with those boots on he def needs to be put on peopleofwalmart.com. haha :)

After A's purchases we headed for downtown Culpeper to find a cute townie cafe. Ashley sorta laughed at my parrell parking. I hate to park like that cuz I get nervous. Am I too close to curb, too close to car etc. We found a place to park and went to the Frost Cafe. It was really cute!! We both got Triple decker BLT's with fries, and chocolate shakes. Yummo! :) Thanks again for lunch Ashley! :)



Then on the way back to the car we looked at some of the shops as we walked by them. We saw a shop called, The Cameleer. :) It was kinda like Ten thousand villages. We walked around inside. After that we went into a sewing shop called 145 Art & Design Studio. Kristen will totally love that store. It was very cute. Some things sold in there were handcrafted items made in Nepal. (I find Nepal interesting b/c my friend, Niraja is from there) The lady working in the store was nice but someone called her while we were looking around and she kept laughing and telling the person on the phone that it's like the wine flu (instead of swine) in the evenings around there. It was sorta funny but I think she might be a drunk. I hope she doesn't drink and sew at the same time. Her quilting might not be that good then. haha :) After all that we plugged the address in for one last antique shop that A wanted to visit. MinuteMan MiniMall. Let me just say one thing first. We should have realized why the place is called MINUTE MAN. As soon as you enter thru the front door a big whiff of cat urine hits your nostrils. So most people probably walk in and leave within 1 min. ahahaha A sign on the front door says not to leave the door opened or that kittens/cats will get out. Ummmm....ok??? So, either the teenage girls working there do not ever change the cat litter box or the cats just like to pee on all the antiques. I was getting a headache from the cat pee and A's throat was hurting. We quickly got thru the place but everytime we saw sections set up with carpet we figured cats peed on it. Ashley did manage to find a few pyrex pieces. She spent $10 on 4 or 5 items. She got a good deal. Very nice!! After that we headed home. We stopped at bloom and got some taco stuff and made tacos for dinner and watched 'Interview with the vampire' on the SyFy channel. :) It was a great weekend!! :)

Walking with the Dinosaurs

My Promotions Director, Sean got tickets for 'Walking with the Dinosaurs'. It was playing at the Verizon Center up in DC. I wanted to go when it came to DC a few years ago but didn't. Sean gave me 4 tickets! I invited Melissa, Dillon and Debbie.


I met at Melissa's house and then we drove up to Burke, VA to pick up Dill's grandma, Debbie.
Dill knew we were taking the metro some where but he didn't know what we were doing. It was a surprise!!! Then Debbie took us to lunch at Bertucci's. We all got pizza. It was pretty good. Dillon kept saying "Is this my surprise" and we kept laughing at him and telling him "no, not yet". We parked at Franconia/Springfield Metro. Took the blue line train to King Street then jumped on the yellow train to Gallery Place/China Town to the Verizon Center.

Here's Dill on the metro.

We got to the Verizon Center at 6:30pm. We got some popcorn and sodas/pop and then found our seats for the 7pm show.

The show was AMAZING! Dill couldn't believe what he saw. He was the happiest little boy in the whole wide world. We all loved it!!! The pictures don't really show you how real everything looked. The artists that made these dinosaurs made them so life like. I was so glad we went!

Once, the show was over we jumped back on the metro to go home. Dill couldn't stop talking about it. Since there was barely anyone on the metro, Melissa let Dill stand up if he promised to hold onto the pole. He was so cute and very well behaved. He loved his surprise! And he was very thankful at the end of the night that I got the tickets for him to go. Too cute!! I can't believe he 7! Time flies!!!! :)

Mini pizza bagels...

I made some mini pizza bagels for dinner tonight. So easy to make and they are very good too!! I kept them simple. Mini bagels, pizza sauce, italian cheeses and pepperoni's. :)

Linda's Lasagna...

Linda (Nate's mom) came over on Sunday and made dinner for us. She also brought along stuff to make her famous lasagna. I watched her make it, asking questions along the way. It's a long process but I think I can do it. I baked the lasagna on Monday and we've been finishing it off all week.

Funny recipe.....

I looked up a recipe for Chicken Paprikash and came across something in the recipe that I thought was funny.

Ingredients:
24 oz. (1.5 lbs) boneless skinless chicken breasts
12 oz. sour cream
48 oz. chicken broth
1 onion
3-4 tablespoons Hungarian paprika
2 tablespoon garlic
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ginger
2 bay leaves
corn starch (or preferably potato starch, if you have access to a health food store)
olive oil
1 Fudgesicle

Read the last ingredient again. Yes, it calls for a fudgesicle. LOL So, I thought for a moment why would you put a fudgesicle in this recipe. And then I kept reading.....

Make spaetzel; put in a bowl. Alternatively, you can buy spaetzel from the store, or prepare any type of noodles you prefer.

Chop up the chicken breasts into small pieces.

Put the chicken and garlic in a pot; sautee in olive oil.

Chop up the onion into small pieces.

Put the onions and some chicken broth into the pot. For now, use just enough broth to keep everything submerged, but don't flood it. You should have some broth left over (maybe around 16 ounces); the remaining broth will be used below.

Stir in the other spices (paprika, salt, black pepper, ginger, bay leaves).

Simmer to let the chicken and onions cook thoroughly. While it's all cooking, eat the Fudgesicle.

ahahahaha....it's for you to eat while everything is cooking. Now that's one of the best recipes I've ever read. :)

This is Awesome!! :)

Yard Sale

Ashley told Kristen and me about a yard sale at Fayth's and Tom's. It was going to be a huge neighborhood sale. So, we decided to bring some big ticket items and try making some extra cash. It turned out to be the biggest yard sale we ever participated in. I made over $120! :)


Fayth baked some goodies. She made pound cake, banana bread, brownies, pretzel rods with chocolate, nana cookies and some scones. I had a scone with cherries. It was delicious!! All of the proceeds from the bake sale go to breast cancer research. The annual 3 day walk is coming up next month and Fayth and Tom are raising money for it. It's such a wonderful good cause.