Awesome Friends

I just want to say that I have the most amazing friends ever. Too bad they are all in Richmond and I'm up in NOVA now! I had a fabulous weekend that ended up being way more busy than I thought. That combined with my camera battery dying left me not being able to update everyone on the excitingness! I won't go into much detail, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. However other unpictured funness included my first ever drag show where one of Maggie's Radio Disney co-workers was performing, the much anticipated Shadow Games Premier at the Byrd (one of my friends has been working on this movie for years and it also stars many of my friends!), and a trip to the James River with the puppies!.

(Maggie cuddling Charlotte who accompanied me to Richmond!)

First up is a newly discovered restaurant called Palani Drive. It is over in the Libbie and Grove area. Maggie and I got a quesadilla which were amazing, however Sara's wrap was really not that great! So I highly recommend going and getting a quesadilla they have a bazillion options, mine was an italian one filled with "gorgonzola cheese, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, mushrooms, and pesto sauce on a wheat tortilla served with hummus and tabouli"
And of course what trip to Richmond would be complete without some Joes! I met up with Grace there for brunch before the Shadow Games premiere. I got a yummy omelet with feta, mushrooms, and tomatoes!
And then Kylin, my old roomie showed up!
After the movie I met up for dinner with Ashley (another old roomie from a different year), Courtney, and Maggie at Casa Grande (another staple throughout my years at VCU). However I deviated from the normal things I get and got nachos which I was highly disappointed in. Just a pile of beef and cheese on top of chips :(


And Sunday of course was Sara's birthday party! She made tons of little cupcakes and petite fours along with candy apples and rum punch. It was Mary Poppins inspired and everything was not only adorable but also delicious! She even made boxes (yes made them) so we could take home goodies with us!






Anyways I had an awesome weekend and am glad that I'm going back in a week and a half for another friend's wedding!

Peach Cobbler

Well its been an uneventful past couple of days but I am back in Richmond again! After posting on Tuesday I made some yummy pasta for dinner! It was basically a white wine sauce with some gorgonzola, garlic, and diced tomatoes. Then I topped it with goat cheese and basil- a mixture of some basil I had from the store and some from my basil plant! Yay it is big enough to use a little for sprinkling on top of pasta but not quite big enough for much else yet. I would post a picture but I'm in Richmond! My parsley plant on the other hand isn't looking quite as good, hopefully it will perk up soon!
For dessert my mom made one of my all time favorite's- peach cobbler! Holy yum peach cobbler is one of my most favorite desserts ever!
Peach Cobbler
2 cups chopped peaches
2 cups sugar
1 stick butter
3/4 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3/4 cup milk

1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. Add 1 cup of sugar to the peaches, stir, and set aside
3. Put the butter in an 8 by 8 square baking dish and set in the oven while it is preheating to melt.
4. In a separate bowl combine the other cup of sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and milk.
5. When the butter is melted pour the mixture over the butter but do not stir.
6. Put the peaches on top and again do not stir
7. Bake for 1 hour- the batter rises up over the peaches and will be brown and crisp when it is done!

Also if you plan on doubling the recipe (which of course we do for a family of 5) then make sure you still use two small square pans and don't just throw it all in a 9 by 13 because it doesn't bake the same and your edges will get burned while the middle is still underdone!

So Wednesday we woke up early to go to the eye doctor to get our eyes checked and me and my sister needed to get some new glasses! I had a Larabar on the way over!
So my eyes are actually getting better! My glasses were way to strong which is why I couldn't see out of them anymore and I was getting a headache when wearing them! Yeah its not really normal for your eyes to get better until you are like 50, but the doctor said it is definitely unusual for someone in their 20s. I don't care if it's normal or not but hopefully this will keep up!

We had an hour to kill while they put the lenses in our glasses so we went to IHOP for lunch because my sister was dying to go. I'm not that big of a fan of IHOP because I go in and they have these ridiculous sugared breakfasts that I can't not try. How can you say no to pineapple upside down pancakes. They were delicious with warm chunks of pineapple in the pancake and a brown sugar rum drizzle over the top.
And they came with hashbrowns, eggs, and bacon.
It was all deliciously unhealthy.

For dinner my mom grilled some ribs. They were okay- not a big fan of food that makes a mess when you eat it, I'm much more a fan of bbq sandwiches. But we saved all the bones for Charlotte, and I brought them down to Richmond with me so Charlotte could share with Corbin! (yes Charlotte came down to Richmond too!)
And yesterday did not start out so great. I thought I had food poising but my mom said she had a similar stomach bug a couple days before so it might just be something that was going around. I spent half the day in bed and I had to cancel my babysitting job. Eventually after sleeping most of it off I was able to get up, eat some soup, then shower and I felt tons better. So I was able to come down to Richmond after all. Today Maggie and I are going to take the puppies to the river. Hope you all have a great start to the weekend!

Muddy Buddys!

I hope everyone's week has started well! I spent most of yesterday and some of today laying out by the pool in the hot hot weather!

Sunday started off with a bowl of vanilla chobini with some mango granola while I blogged to you about my staycation!
Then for lunch was a slice of leftover Mellow Mushroom pizza (there was only one slice because my dad ate some of it at the restaurant once I was finished) and a slice of a frozen Kashi pizza. I added some goat cheese onto both of them to make them even tastier!
My dad grilled steaks for dinner and we had some squash from a local farm to go along with it.
For dinner we picked up this cake from costco- a sponge cake with a raspberry filling and lemon topping. It was pretty good but I think it needed more raspberry in it, because the filling wasn't very strong and didn't have a lot of flavor.
Yesterday I started the day off with some juice (the usual combo of apple, carrot, beet, and ginger) and a slice of Apple Strudel bread with PB&CO Mighty Maple Peanut Butter. This was probably the most amazing pb toast ever. Yum!!!!!!
For lunch my mom popped in some quesadilla rolls into the oven. I was too busy helping her set up a facebook account to think about taking a picture! Does anyone else's parents have facebook? When my friends parents first started getting facebook I thought it was the weirdest thing ever. I am one of the original facebook users with the mindset that facebook is a college thing, when I signed up you had to have a college e-mail account to get a facebook account. I remember waiting for VCU to be on the approved list of colleges and then once I had a facebook waiting for my friends at smaller schools to have their schools approved by facebook so they could get one! Anyways I've slowly accepted that facebook isn't like that anymore and have started to warm to the idea of others getting it (both older adults and younger high school and middle school kids). Several of my aunts and other friends of the family have facebook, including many old friends of my parents, now have facebook so I've been telling my mom that she should get one so she can catch up and keep in touch with these people. Well she finally gave in and I helped her set it up. I think its great for her and it was really fun going through to find people she knows and add them as friends!

Anyways for dinner, we've had tons of catfish sitting in the freezer that my brother and grandpa have brought back from fishing trips. We finally got around to cooking some of it. My dad insists that the only way to eat it is fried, but my mom and I have been trying to find other things to do with it instead of that. She decided to compromise with him and oven fry it, but we have tons more to try other things with. I was really not a fan, I would much rather try it another way to see if I might actually like catfish cooked differently.

After dinner my sister made some Muddy Buddy's! Muddy Buddys aka puppy chow or garbage are a staple from our childhood. My grandma use to always make them and every now and then we think to make them now. I've made them on many occasions for my friends in Richmond and I think everyone agrees that they are amazing and addicting.
Muddy Buddies

9 cups of your favorite Chex cereal (Corn, Rice and/or Wheat)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup peanut butter
¼ cup (½ stick) butter
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
about 1 ½ cups powdered sugar

1. Add the chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter in a microwavable bowl
2. Microwave for one minute and stir until smooth (if its not melted enough put it in for 30 seconds at a time until its smooth)
3. Stir in the vanilla
4. Add the chex and stir until they are all evenly coated.
5. Add a small layer of powdered sugar to the bottom of a large tupperwear container (or two medium sized ones)
6. Add the chex mixture and then cover with more powdered sugar.
7. Shake the container until all the chex are covered with powdered sugar.
8. Enjoy!!!

We took our muddy buddy's down to the basement and watched Coraline. I hadn't seen it but I had been wanting too. I really don't know what to say about it, it was very strange and kind of creepy but really good and I would probably watch it again!

I stayed up pretty late finishing the book I was reading (The Little Lady Agency- it was really good, I suggest it if you like chicklit!) so I slept in pretty late today! I skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch- a Portabella gardenburger with provolone, hummus, and tomatoes on a 7 grain bread. It was delicious!
Then I laid out by the pool for a while, but decided it was too hot and came inside to do some yoga instead. Now I'm going to hit the shower and see what my sister is up to, since she doesn't have to work tonight! Hope everyone has a great evening!

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!

Staycation!

The pool has been calling my name all week and I've been listing to that instead of listing to my computer telling me to blog! Instead of updating you on everything I will tell you a few exciting things from the week and then blog about today!

Most importantly- Tropical Smoothie is now open! That is right Gainesville, VA now has a Tropical Smoothie- it is about time! I saw the Now Open sign on my way to babysitting Thursday morning and of course stopped there to get lunch on the way home. I got my go-to favorite smoothie- a Blimey Limey and a Hummus Veggie sandwich. It was even more amazing than normal because I hadn't had Tropical Smoothie in such a long time. My only complaint is that this one doesn't have the combos. I really wanted the half sandwich and smoothie combo but it all worked out because I just ate the other half of my sandwich for dinner that

Another exciting thing was a find at Giant. PINEAPPLE CHOBINI!?!?! If you know me at all you know I love all things pineapple. I saw this and literally was like Oh My God! Of course I bought some!
Dinner last night was this ginormous salmon. My mom bought it at Costco, thus the ginormousness of it. It didn't look this big in the package but when I pulled it out almost a quarter of it had been folded underneath because it was so big it didn't fit in the package. I saw someone else make Martha Stewarts Salmon with an Herbed Yogurt on their blog last week and so of course I tried it with my salmon. It was delicious. It was also super easy, I highly recommend this, especially if you are trying to impress people and have no time! It is literally greek yogurt, dijon mustard, dill, and parsley smeared on top of the salmon before you pop it in the oven. I loved the yogurt mixture with or without the salmon and found myself picking little pieces that flaked off when I put the leftovers away. Try this immediately!
On the side I had some eggplant that I marinated in balsamic vinegar and herbs. It was delicious too!
For breakfast this morning I busted out the pineapple chobini! It exceeded my expectations and I was very satisfied with it. My only complaint is they don't sell it in the big tubs and only in the single serving containers!
I mixed it with some Bear Naked Mango Almond Agave granola. It was pretty amazing, too bad I showed it to my dad and he sat down and ate half the bag. He loves mango and I knew he would love this granola too. The big chunks of dried mango were perfect with the pineapple yogurt!
Then for lunch I made the most delicious sandwich out of the leftover marinated eggplant, some tomatoes marinated in the leftover balsamic marinade for the eggplant, some fresh basil, vermont cheddar cheese, and a "mayo" that I made of greek yogurt, dijon mustard, and dill (essentially the same as the topping on the salmon only I was out of parsley). It was delicious!
Dinner was not as exciting as lunch was. My parents decided to grill hot dogs and I decided to try a veggie dog. I'm not going to lie I was a little disappointed. I love veggie burgers so I thought I might love veggie dogs, but that was not the case. It wasn't horrible it just wasn't that great. I wouldn't buy them again but I suppose I'll eat the rest of the ones I have in the pack. I much prefer my veggie burgers! To go with that I had some Annie's Mac and Cheese and some cherries.
My family is staycationing this week! We are going to go hiking at a couple places nearby, go to a dinner theater, and do other fun things! I was going to tell you I might not be blogging as usual, but I haven't been blogging as usual so it won't be much of a change! I think once summer is over I'll probably get back into a more regular schedule but right now I choose laying out by the pool and reading over sitting inside in blogging! Until next time I will leave you a picture of Charlotte looking ridiculous. I came in from being out by the pool and found her like this.

VA Beach and Richmond

Alright so as promised here is my post about the beach and Richmond! We left for the beach around 8 Monday morning and after many pit stops (I drank coffee and have the world's smallest bladder), a lunch stop (a quick chicken salad sandwich from 7-11), and getting lost from our google directions we finally made it there around 1ish! It had been raining off and on during the drive down but had been bright and sunny when we started getting closer to the beach. Of course as soon as we changed into our bathing suites, got sunscreen on, and went out to the beach the clouds rolled in. We were out for maybe an hour and half in the cloudy weather before it started raining. It started drizzling and we endured it but then it started raining harder so my mom and I went up and sat under the covered part of the deck. Eventually it stopped raining but it got cold! I sat outside longer debating about going back down to the beach or changing out of my bathing suite. Eventually I gave into the coldness and went in and changed. I was so glad I had packed a pair of jeans to take to Richmond with me because I definitely did not want to put the shorts and a tank top on that I had been wearing earlier. I went out to my car and dug around in my vera until I found jeans and a non tanktop shirt! Then I wrapped my towel around me and went back out onto the deck so I could at least still see the ocean while I was reading!

Once Emily got off work I headed over to her house and then we went out to get Mexican Food at a Mexican restaurant that I can't remember the name of. I ordered Seafood Chimichangas which were absolutely delicious!
We spent a long time talking over dinner, then went back to her house and hung out more, we even ended up talking in the driveway for a while as I was about to leave. Even though we had seen each other a couple weekends ago at Stephen and Mandy's wedding we really didn't get a chance to catch up as much as we needed to, so we had a lot of stuff to talk about! I hate living so far away from my friends and I feel like I never get to talk to them or see them anymore!

Anyways as soon as I got to Richmond I went with Maggie and some of her friends to Sonic where I got an unpictured limeaid chiller. Other than that it was a pretty laid back night!

This morning we hung out around the house for a while and then took Corbin to the River. We decided to have a picnic lunch there so we stopped at Noodle and Company for food to take to the river with us.


It was pretty good. My noodles had pesto, mushrooms, tomatoes, basil, and parmesan. My only thing was this was something I could have so easily made at home and made it better. So even though it was good I'm not sure how I feel about paying for something that I could make better (but I guess I really couldn't have made it at Maggie's because she doesn't have a working stove). They have three different sections of their menu- Asian, Mediterranean, and American. I think if I were to go back again I would definitely try some of their Asian noodles instead because even though all the Mediterranean ones sound good I think they would all be similar to this and would be something I would rather make at home. Oh and the American noodles really didn't sound very good, except for maybe the macaroni and cheese.

After eating we played with Corbin in the river.
Then we stopped at Baskin Robbins on the way home for ice cream. I got a lemon custard with pineapple toppings- yum!!!!! It has inspired me to make lemon pineapple raspberry ice cream sometime soon (the raspberry because Maggie had ice cream that had raspberry and we both thought it would be good with mine.)
Corbin was so exhausted from all the excitement he immediately slept when we got home.
Later we met up with Sara for sushi at Mai Sushi (they don't have a website). This is probably the best sushi place in Richmond (it is in the Village shopping center by Ukrops for any Richmonders). We use to always go to Akida (which is also really good if you want sushi closer to VCU its on Robinson between Grace and Broad) but one time decided to try Mai because it was so close to Maggie's house and we have been hooked ever since. I started out with some miso soup.
Then I tried something new, a tiger roll.

It had shrimp, cream cheese, and asparagus inside and salmon and avocado on top. It was delicious. Shrimp tempura and philly rolls are usually my go to sushi but this kind of combines both of them together and its healthier because it doesn't have the fried shrimp in it!

After dinner Maggie and I played High School Musical Sing It for quite a while and now I am about to head off to bed! Goodnight everyone!