Carrot Cake

Seems like this weekend a lot of people I know did some baking while being snowed in. Lots of goodies were made. :) This evening, Nathan and I wanted something sweet. I had a carrot cake mix in the pantry so I decided to make it. It turned out pretty good but you can't mess up a box mix. :)

Tacos

It's snowing outside!! bleh...I'm ready for SPRING!!! Tonight I made tacos for dinner. They were wonderful good. :) I make mine with ground turkey, some pepper then W sauce. Once meat is cooked, drain it. Put back in the pan on heat. Add the seasoning packet and a little water. Let simmer! :)

Smoothie....

Yummo!! A package of Yoplait frozen smoothie mix with a cup of fat free milk! DELISH! :)

Manwich....

MMMMMM Manwich!! I made manwich tonight for dinner. Quick and simple!!! Instead of using ground beef I always use ground turkey. I add some pepper and W sauce while the meat is cooking and then once it's done add the manwich sauce and let simmer for a bit. Tomorrow I'll have leftovers for lunch. It's good on Tostitos tortilla chips!! :)

Wednesday's dinner....

I made my 6 min stir fry tonight. But instead of using grilled chicken I used steak strips. It tastes just as good. :)

Pho Huy Vietnamese Noodle Soup Company‎

I had a lunch date with Toni and Tricia. These 2 ladies always
make me try new things. We had Vietnamese food!
We went to Pho Huy Vietnamese
Noodle Soup Company‎. Very clean and elegant inside. :)
And Guess what??? I liked it!!! I stuck with something
safe tho. I got Chicken Fried Rice. :)
Tricia ordered Lemongrass chicken.
She let me try it. I loved it!! I'm so getting that next
time. Toni ordered some curry dish. I think I saw fire
coming out of her mouth a few times. LOL
We had a great timecatching up with one another.
We plan to meet again in
March and I thinkwe might do Indian food.
Can't wait!! :)

Dinner: 9 min Italian Sausage & Rigatoni.....

I made this in 9 min!!! No Joke!! It's so simple and soooooo good!! Want a quick dinner ?? Then try for it your self. It's just a Bertolli Classic Dinner. The one I made tonight was the Italian Sausage & Rigatoni. I've tried some of their other dinner kits. I'm impressed at how great they taste!!

Smith Moutain Lake

Growing up, every Summer my parents would pack us 4 kids up and we'd go to my Grandparents for a week. This was normally our summer vacation. My Grandparents had a house right on the lake. You might recognize the lake if you've ever seen "What about Bob".

Anyways, we would go fishing with my Grandpa and my dad. We'd also go swimming, biking, ride the old timey tractor with my grandpa, eat delicious homemade meals made by my Grandma and just be kids. Sooooo many wonderful memories!! My Grandparents have passed away and my Uncle Kenny, now lives there. I decided to go there on a whim to visit the place where I have lots of memories and to see my Uncle. I also wanted to see what items were left at the house. My mother, Ashley and Kristen all came. Road trip!! :) We left Saturday morning. It takes about 4 hours from FXBG. We got there around 1pm. We also stopped in at the Shoprite and picked up some items for dinner.

'Orpha and Bill" My Grandfather carved there names down by their boat launch.

These are some things my Grandma had on the ledge going down the stairs. I've always liked the bunnies!! :)

Once we checked in with Uncle Kenny and chatted a bit Ashley, Kristen and me decided to take the car and drive around. We ended up at the National D-Day Memorial. After that we stopped in at the Bedford Antique shop and Ashley found some pyrex!!

Then we went back to the lake house and made dinner. We made my Grandma's orange chicken. (Chicken breasts, Cornmeal and Orange juice) We also made baked potatoes, macoroni & cheese, green beans, crossiants, and pumpkin bread. It was all very good and very filling!

We came home yesterday! It was nice chatting with Uncle Kenny and it was great to see the place where I have so many wonderful childhood memories. :)

Very cute video!! :)

The last couple of days....

This past weekend Kristen, Dave, Nate and me went to Williamsburg. We went to go antiquing. Didn't really find anything. After antiquing we went to Red City for a cheap Chinese buffet. Hey at $6.95 for all you can eat Chinese food we were all for it. :) It totally wasn't the best but I thought I got my moneys worth. After that we drove back to RVA to check out another antique mall. Nate found a Robert Plant album he was going to get then Dave looked at the records and it so wasn't Robert Plant. Bummer!! Then we decided to go to Plan 9 in Richmond to check out the basement that's full of records. We found two Zeppelin albums for cheap that Nate got. :) Outside of the store there was a guy selling Baja's and Dave (who'd been looking for one) got one for $20! LOL

So............this week I've been on Vacation from the station! Not really going anywhere so I guess it's a staycation! :)

On Sunday, I had to go to the mall and help out with the Radio station fundraising. We collected money for Haiti victims. After I was done, I got some pizzas and Sharon and Joe came over and had pizza with me and Nate!

On Monday, Kristen came down and we organized the basement. There is still work to be done but at least all of Nate's baseball stuff, childhood stuff and family stuff is neatly stored away in their own containers. :) Monday night, Kristen, Sharon and me went to Marquee to see 'The Lovely Bones'. It's a book that both Kristen and Sharon couldn't finish b/c it's so sad. The movie was good but I was soooo ready to walk out if it didn't end the way I wanted it to. :)

The main character from the movie. Susie Salmon...... (Saoirse Ronan)

On Tuesday, I went down to RVA to K's. My goal was to visit a coin laundry place to wash my big king size blankets. It was $3.50 to wash and .25 for 6 min for drying. I'm so glad I have my own washer and dryer at my house. I couldn't imagine having to do that once a week. The whole experience wasn't bad tho. It was kinda fun and glad my BFF came along with me to keep me company. :)

After that we grabbed some lunch and then went to K's to tackle her bedroom closet. We filled 2 bags with donations. It feels good to purge once in a while. It's something that just needs to be done.

After that we caught up on Big Love. The new season started earlier this month and I hadn't seen any of it. So, we watched the first 2 episodes. OMG that show is great!! I don't believe in Polygamy but the show is entertaining.

I find myself rooting for the 3rd wife all the time. (I love Margene, she's the one on the left)

Kristen had class at 7pm so we left around 6pm. K left for class and I left to go visit my little sister at her apartment. Ashley made me some chicken tacos for dinner and of course we made a target run afterwards. It was a fun day!!

Today, Wednesday I met Jess at the gym and then cleaned up a bit around the house. I also made some chicken breasts, corn, baked beans and baked potatoes. YUM!

VACATION IS NICE! :)

So ready to cruise...

Cruise reservations: Check

Cruise deposit: Check

Cruise paid in full: Check

Passport Cards: Check

Ahhhhhhh....Now March just needs to hurry up and get here. :)

ICE!!!! :)

Sometimes, working in Radio has it's perks....like getting FREE tickets. I got 4 tickets for a show called ICE. The only bad thing....We had to drive over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to get to where we were going and the GPS didn't tell us where to turn so we ended up in Oxon Hill, Maryland which is ghetto and from what I hear a little worse than Southeast DC. We even saw some guy just whip it out and pee on the side of the road. GROSS!!! We finally got to ICE. It was 2 Million pounds of ice and 9 degrees!! It was so cold but I think we were all pretty warm and comfy in the big coats they have you put on before going in. Kristen, Melissa Dillan and me went and we had a blast.

Dill going down the slide.

Dill at the end of the slide. He liked it so much he went down it again.

Penguins in an igloo carved of ice.

Elf Butt!!!

SHEEPY!!!! :)

National Harbor

Frozen!

After our ICE adventure we taught Dill that it's never too cold for ice cream and we went to Cold Stone. Dill got a milk shake and the rest of us got Peanut Butter cup Perfection. MMMM!

Kristen was sooo close to a tractor trailer that we could actually see her car in the reflection.

Baked Ziti

Yesterday Sharon, gave me some meatballs with sauce that Joe made. Sharon raves about these meatballs all the time. I had to try them!!! I decided to throw something together for dinner tonight that was quick and easy. (that's what she said-haha) I made some ziti noodles and added them to a pan. Then I topped off the noodles with the the meatballs and sauce. And of course, added cheese on top. I covered with foil then baked for half an hour on 350 degrees. It was very good!! Thanks Sharon and Joe for the meatballs!! They are terrific!! :)

Colonial Cupcakes

Today, Kristen came up for Adam's birthday party. We needed to kill some time before the party so we went downtown and found Colonial Cupcakes. It's a very cute place that has lots of potential to succeed. I do highly suggest that they do some sort of advertising to get the word out. If you know the FXBG area Colonial Cupcakes is right next door to the 'big ugly' or AKA the executive plaza.

There are soooo many different types of cupcakes to choose from. I saw Chocolate, Vanilla, Red Velvet, Apple Spice with Cinnamon, Apple Spice with Cream Cheese, Chocolate, Irish, Molasses and Mimosa. Kristen tried two tiny cupcakes, Mimosa and Apple spice with cinnamon. I tried a regular size Apple spice with cream cheese and a hot apple cider. Very good!! :)

The lady above is making some cupcakes. I think she is the owner b/c the guy in the front kept referring to 'she' makes all kinds of flavors and then looking back at her in the kitchen. :)

We then took a quick trip to best buy so Kristen could buy a remote control for the xbox and then we went to rack room and she bought some new sneakers. Finally, it was time for the birthday party so we went to Natalie's and celebrated Adam turning 5.

A lovely Saturday

Today, Nate and I went downtown to visit antique shops. Nate wants to collect all of the Led Zeppelin Vinyls. He got this idea from our friend Dave who has The Beatles Collection. It's an awesome collection, displayed in his office on the wall. Nate looked up the Zeppelin albums and sees that there are 8 in total. I told him he can't just go on ebay or craigslist to get them. He has to actually search for them in antique stores. He agreed b/c the hunt is what makes it fun.

We had no luck finding Zeppelin in any of the stores we went into. We did find some really cool albums. We decided to go to one last store. As we walk by the window display, there was a Zeppelin record right in the window. How cool is that? This perticular store had a huge section of records that were pretty well organized and even had a stool for you to sit on while you looked through them. That was nice. :) We went to the window and looked at the album sitting there. It was Presence. It's their 7th album. Nate was happy so we spent the $35 on it. It's a good start.

Cover of the Presence album by Led Zeppelin.

After our searching ended for the day we decided to grab lunch at my favorite deli. Virginia deli! I got my usual chicken salad on wheat bread and Nate got the Thomas Jefferson. It's a turkey sandwich with bacon, swiss, lettuce and mayo. It used to be my favorite till I had the chicken salad. :)


It was a nice lunch. :)

After lunch I wanted to go to some new place (Colonial Cupcakes) that I heard from FXBG Blogger was open but we couldn't find it and we were short on time. I had to be on air at 3pm so I figured we would just have to find it another day. It sounds pretty cute and the workers wear colonial attire. How cool!!!! I just found their website. Not much to it. I also found a mistake.....On Sundays, they say they're open from 12a till 8p. I doubt that they are open at 12 in the morning. I think they mean 12p. At least I know their address now is 611 Caroline Street. :)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!!!! Wishing that 2010 brings you joy, happiness and success! :)