Busy but FUN weekend.....

It all started yesterday. I met Kristen (surprising her with some Paul's Bakery donuts, Tru Blood drink for us to try and some Wylers Light Grape) at her house. The plan was to go to Jamestown. It's about an hour from Kristen's place.

We stopped off at Williamsburg Pottery Factory Outlets. Let me just be honest.....this outlet center was POOP. It was like a big warehouse full of kitchen type things but the merchandise looks like they've been sitting in bins or on the shelves for 6+ years. I saw on the internets that a store called Oneida was in here. My silverware is from Oneida and I thought it would be cool to get some more forks and spoons. Kristen asked the cashier about the store and she told us Oneida left back in 2008. And after looking around for 2 min I see why they left. Way to go internets! Time to update your site! UGH! We left immediately laughing the whole way out.

We finally got to Jamestown. YEY! We paid our admission and saw a quick movie.

A hut that the Indians lived in.

Items hanging inside the hut.

Some handmade baskets and such.

There were 3 ships parked at the dock. We only went into the 1st one. They are really small inside.

On the ship......This was the Captain's room. Such a tiny space. I love the ticking fabric used for the pillow.

One of the cabins on the ship was for the cook. Inside his room was the stove. I'm sure when that stove is cooking it's hot in there.

This guy was just burning some wood.

The fence for the English Settlers to keep the Indians out.

Outside one of the houses there were little gardens and I thought this was cute.

I loved the ticking stuffed with straw. Old Order Amish use ticking fabrics stuffed with straw as there mattresses as well. :)

House
Tobacco hanging to dry in a house.

Door handle at a house.

Door handle in the church.

Church
A boy showing us some food he prepared.

A rooster walking around.

We finally finished with Jamestown. And then we went to find a place to eat for a late lunch. (of course we stopped at Victoria's Secret and I stocked up on some soaps and sprays. I use Love spell. It's my FAVORITE! :)

We stopped at Center Street Grill for lunch. Decent prices.

We both got the Philly Roll. It was Philly steak, onions and cheese in an egg roll. And a cheese sauce for dipping.

And we got a caesar salad. I also got a side of fries. :) It was good.

For dessert Kristen took me around the corner to Sweet Frog. I'm in LOVE!!!!!!

You grab a bowl and fill with your choice of yogurt. I got Cookies n' cream, Peanut Butter, Cake Batter, Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry. I needed to try them all to see what I liked most. The best part.....NO FAT! :)

Then there's a toppings bar. Fruits, candy, cereal, hot fudge....what ever you want....it's there. I put a few rainbow sprinkles b/c I wanted to taste the yogurts to see what I liked best without candy or fruit taking away flavor. I def want to go again (and lucky for me...my town is getting one). Next time I'm getting just chocolate and peanut butter yogurt. MMMMM it will taste amazing! :) Once you load up your bowl you go to the cashier, put on a scale and you pay 39 cents an ounce. I paid $4 for mine. :D

So cute! :)

Then................well it was time for me to finally see the Yankee Candle flagship store. It's a huge store and I can't believe I've never been there.

Jar candles....

Jelly donut....but doesn't really smell like it. Kinda flower smelling instead of jelly.

More candles...

One of my favs! Smells like a orange creamsicle. MMMMMMMMMMMM I got a small votive of this candle.

Bins of votives and tart candles. :)

Cute candle with a teddy bear.

The store also had other stores within it. A Vera Bradley section with tons of Vera Bags! :)

VERA!
I like this pattern. :) I still have my purple punch Vera bag and I use it everyday. :)

Finally at 8pm, Kristen and me made it to the movies. We saw Bridesmaids.....soooooooooooooo funny! Glad we were able to see it. So many laughs.

When we got back to K's we (Kristen, Dave and me) tried the tru blood drink. It was like a blood orange soda. It was good.

On SUNDAY......................Nate and I picked up Sharon and Joe and we saw Hangover 2.

Then we ate dinner at Red Robin. We chatted about the movie among a ton of other things. Somehow we got on the topic of Sharon working at Disney World. Sharon told us about her Disney World job and Nate and I determined we will never let our kids go there. Sharon needs to write a book with all the scary stories. *shivers*

What a awesome busy but totally fun weekend! :) Loved every minute of it! :)

New Rug for living room

I got a new area rug for our living room. I didn't want to get a light color this time. I wanted a red wine or a plum purple but couldn't find any of those colors. And I didn't want to spend a fortune. I found this brown 5x7 one at lowes for $30. :)

I was excited to get to it so I asked my brother to help me. We pulled all the furniture out and cleaned the entire room. We vacuumed and mopped the floor as well. Might as well get the room all nice and clean. Billy even got down on the floor to scrub some mysterious 'spill' that was under the couch. GROSS!

BEFORE PICTURE:

AFTER PICTURE:
I'm not a huge fan of the brown but I think it will do for now. :) The quilts are in the wash! :)

7 layer dip

At my cousin Lora's 30th Surprise party we had 7 layer dip. It was so good. Everyone loved it and I got the recipe so I could make it. I made it today. :)

You need:

1 can refried beans (with green chiles)

2 avocados mashed (or 1 pkg already made guacamole that you can find in the deli section)

1 8 oz sour cream

1 pkg taco seasoning (you can mix or sprinkle on top)

1 cup chopped tomatoes

1 cup chopped green onion

1 bag shredded cheese

1 small can of sliced black olives

serving platter with lid

tortilla/corn chips

When I made my dip I went ahead and doubled everything except the olives.

Spread the refried beans evenly on the bottom of your serving platter. Spread all the way to the edges.

Spread avocado/guacamole on top of refried beans.

In a bowl mix your sour cream and taco seasoning.

It will turn a light orange color.

Spread mixture evenly on top of avocado/guacamole.

Chop up your green onions and tomatoes.

Spread your tomatoes around on top of sour cream mix.

Spread green onions on top of tomatoes.

Spread cheese evenly on top of tomatoes and green onions.

Spread sliced black olives around on top of cheese. I thought this looked a little boring so at this point I wanted to make it cuter like the one I ate at the party.

I added a dollop of sour cream in the middle and then spread some more tomatoes and green onions around.

Cute! :) Cover with lid and refrigerate for 1 hour before serving. Serve with tortilla/corn chips.

Quick project

From the classes I've taken at Miller Farms I have papers that Jo (our instructor and owner of the farm) gives us at each class. I don't want to throw any of these papers away and I know I'll be taking more classes in the future and will be getting more papers. So I needed something to store these papers in.....

Loose scattered papers....what to do?

I went to Target and got a binder, dividers (for each class) and sheet protectors.

Everything in the book....

Nice and neat.
And it fits perfectly in my cabinet with my recipe books. :) YEY! Took about 5 min to put it all together and there's plenty of room for future papers.

New Things Monday

Peanut butter and Banana treats=AWESOME! :) Never really tried pb on a banana until recently and I'm hooked. I've been eating these as a quick to go snack and it's healthy and oh so good. I got the idea from a clip of one of the Survivor Redemption cast members. She ended up going to the holding house since she was a member of the jury. The clip showed the house and what the members do while during the wait time since they can't go home yet. This was a quick and easy snack that I knew I wanted to try and it's especially good if you have some bananas going bad and need to use them up.

You will need:

bananas

peanut butter (I use reduced fat)

foil

storage bag

First use a cutting board or lay down foil. Peel bananas, and cut the ends off. Then cut each banana in half.

Slice the banana to make halves. (long ways)

MMMMMMMMM Peanut butter! :)

Spread Peanut butter on one half. As little or as much as you'd like.

Add the top part of the banana back on. Kinda looks like a banana sammich. :)

Wrap each piece in foil and then store them in a freezer storage bag. Let sit out for a few min before you eat.

Strawberry Fruit Roll-up

I saw on pinterest, 'Strawberry leather' which is Fruit Roll-up. I looked at the recipe and thought it was easy enough and decided to give it a try.

You will need STRAWBERRIES.

I did 5 cups like the recipe stated. (I'm excited about this pic....Nate even said "good shot"). :)

After your berries have been washed, cut them up and put them in a pot.

On low heat, cook the berries for 15 min. Be sure to mash them to get the juices out. The Pampered chef mix n' chop is perfect for mashing fruit.

After 15 min put your berries into your blender and puree them till they are smooth.

On a parchment lined baking sheet ad your puree'd berries. On 150 degrees bake your fruit roll-up for 6 to 8 hours. The lowest temp setting my oven will go is 170 degrees. So, I put it on 170 degrees and at 2:40 pm I put the roll-up in the oven. I checked every time I went into the kitchen. It surely made the house smell like I was canning Strawberry jam. LOL :)

8 hours later...........

Looks kinda cute.....

Blech....the middle is still not done. I didn't care....I wasn't spending anymore time on this. I ate a few pieces. Not much flavor at all. I was a little disappointed. The berry flavor isn't really there anymore. Nate said he felt the berry flavor was cooked out. I'm glad I made it but it def isn't worth the time it takes. Not for me anyway. You could add sugar or honey or maybe even lemon juice if you want to but I didn't. I wanted to keep it as healthy as I could by not adding anything to it. I know I won't be making this again.

Lora turns 30

My cousin, Lora turned 30 on Friday. My Aunt, Karen threw her a surprise party. The theme was a Mexican Fiesta! Nate, Ashley and I got there early to help Karen with last min party prep. Kristen and Dave showed up shortly after and we got to chat a little bit before other guests started showing up.

Lora thought she was dropping her daughter off to Karen to watch while her husband and her were going to go see a movie. But little did she know that she was not going to be seeing a movie.....

Lora coming in through the garage, looking very surprised and laughing.

Lora wearing a '30' pin and a little sombrero that Karen got her.

Here is the cake I picked up from the store. It was cute with the pink daisies. And all the vases on the table that Karen had set out had multi-color daisies so it perfectly fit in. It was meant to be. haha

Some appetizers to munch on while everyone was chatting and while the rest of the dinner was getting prepared.

This is 7 layer dip! It was soooooooooooooooo good! A huge hit and so colorful. It's a dish that you bring to a party and you can't expect any leftovers. It's that good. I'm not a fan of guac, or sour cream or even olives but on a chip with all of these flavors together it's A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! :)

Karen's BFF-Barbara (who's sooo very wonderful) told me her sister made this.

I picked up some little plastic sombrero hats at party city. It was a pack of 8 (2 yellow, 2 orange, 2 red and 2 purple) hats for like $2.99. So, I knew I had to have them b/c they are silly and fun. They were a hit.

Karen rented a Margarita Machine. When we got there Karen needed our help setting it up. Nate and Ashley did more than me. I sat on the chair and watched and held the empty tequila bottles. LOL :) A little more tequila was put in than should have been but who cares. haha

Kristen had found some cute favor ideas for Karen a few days before the party. And she chose one for some spice mix. They were so cute with a little recipe card attached.

Barb made a strawberry dip. She told me it was cream cheese, marshmallow fluff and a little brown sugar. It was good! :) Karen had also made some frozen bananas with chocolate and pecans.

For dinner there was a lot to choose from. Tacos (hard or soft shells) with chicken or beef. There was Tequila Lime Chicken, Spanish Rice, Dirty Rice, Queso, and of course shredded cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and salsa.

Karen got a pinata that she filled with 80's themed candy. I helped hang them up outside.

Lora hitting the 3. We didn't have a pinata stick so Lora used a golf club. LOL The 3 took a few hits and it finally busted. The 0, Lora had to hit a bunch of times before it finally busted. haha The party was a lot of fun and everyone had a great time! HAPPY BIRTHDAY LORA and welcome to the 30's!!!!! :)

Worms and Dirt

The other day when I was running some errands with my brother he mentioned that he wanted to make worms and dirt. He asked what he would need to get. I told him what he would need and he got all the goodies and later that night he decided to go ahead and make them. They turned out great. Who doesn't love worms and dirt? It's easy to make, and it's fun and cute.

You will need:

plastic cups

gummy worms

oreo cookies

Instant chocolate pudding mix (fat free milk)

Make your pudding according to the box directions. Crush your oreos. Once the pudding is done and has been set go ahead and mix in some of your crushed oreos. You can also add in some cool whip if you'd like but it's not really necessary. Fill your plastic cups with the pudding/cookie mixture. Leave some room at the top and then add some crushed cookies. (as much or little as you'd like) Then add some gummy worms. Enjoy! :)