No More Staycation

Well our staycation was fun! We did some hiking, dinner theater, saw some caverns and the natural bridge, and I spent some awesome alone time laying out by the pool while my family went down to the beach ( I am really not a beach person, I love me some Outer Banks but not so much Virginia Beach where they were going).
Staycation started with a fruit pizza that my mom made! I love some fruit pizza, and for some reason this was the first one she had made all summer!

Sunday after church we kicked off staycation with lunch at Desiderio- a new italian restaurant in Gainesville that makes their own mozzarella and pasta! It was delicious! We started out with the bruschetta duo- one was topped with a cheese mixture and one topped with tomatoes marinated in a balsamic mixture. I had half of each and they were both delicious!
For my dinner I got a Seafood Fra’Diavolo which had "Shrimp, mussels, and calamari, tossed in our spicy Fra’Diavolo sauce and served over linguine" It was pretty much amazing! Also the portion sizes weren't as massive as you sometimes get, it was still a little big but not huge which was good!
Of course I sampled everyone elses meals as well. My brother and sister got the ravioli, which was their handmade pasta stuffed with their homemade mozzarella and some parmesan and ricotta. I had high expectations for this and it definitely lived up to that!
My dad got lasagna which was pretty good too, but the sauce needed a little more tomato base to it. However the huge globs of the mozzarella totally made up for it.
My mom got their daily special which was penne in a spicy marinara with fresh local sausage. I'm not a big sausage person but this was really good!
And for dessert we couldn't resist the cannolis . We got mini cannolis- you could pick chocolate or normal shell with chocolate or normal cream inside. Of course I got chocolate chocolate- and it was amazing!
Thursday night we went to the Lazy Susan dinner theater to see their production of Little Shop of Horrors. I started out with their signature cocktail- sans alcohol since my parents don't drink. It was still pineappley and delicious!
For dinner they had a buffet. You couldn't walk around and see what was on the buffet, so not knowing what was at the end I got stuff at the beginning that I wished I had not because they had better stuff at the end. Its safe to say that I definitely did not eat all of this, I just kept finding better things to get! My favorite was probably the mac and cheese, it had a thick layer of just cooked cheese and a little bread crumbs- yumm! When my sister makes stouffers mac and cheese (which is a lot) I usually eat the burnt part around the edges because it is my absolute favorite and she does not like it!
I wasn't going to get any bread until I saw the apple butter, and I can't say no to apple butter!
Yesterday we went hiking at Crabtree falls and on the way back stopped in Charlottesville for dinner. We went to Mellow Mushroom, which I guess is a chain but I've never heard of it. It was really cute and they had tons of stuff on the menu that I would want to eat. I couldn't resist a pizza, but they also had lots of sandwiches, including tons of vegetarian options. My pizza had tomato sauce and pesto, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, mozzarella, and feta. The whole thing was amazing, but the crust was especially delicious!
Now it is raining so I don't think we will be doing much of anything today, just relaxing and enjoying the last day of our staycation!