Cookie Hat!

I've mentioned a few times about David's love for late night cookies so when we went hat shopping a few weeks ago we found the perfect one for David!

A cookie Monster hat!! Suits him well, doesn't it?

Top part of the hat

Cookies inside too!!! I couldn't convince him to get it though. It would have been pretty funny every time he put it on.

It's BAAAAAAAAACK!

My garden that is! It was a miracle and some of the plants are coming back!! Some are still dead, but I'm happy with anything at this point.

I added some cages to the zucchini, yellow squash and tomato plants.

Well, this is suppose to be broccoli. We figured out what was killing it.

Caterpillars! Apparently they were binge eating my broccoli leaves. You honestly can't see them until you get really close. There was tons. I'm talking in the 20ish range.  Anyone know what kind they are?

My Zucchini plant has gone crazy. The leaves are GIGANTIC! It has been like this for a few weeks.

Do you see what I see?!!? It's the start of a zucchini!!! I was so excited when I saw this, you have no idea. That's why my picture is blurry. Actually if you are Michelle, Mom and David then you heard me scream and squeal through the house.

Here is a better photo of it.

The other plants that are doing well are the cucumber, basil, yellow squash, oregano and tomatoes are doing okay.

The lettuce is also looking promising. If I can just produce 1 zucchini I will be happy, so grow baby grow!! We got to try David's Sister, Gina's, Mother-in-law's home grown vegetables this weekend and they were amazing! I'll keep you posted.

CNN Tour by Michelle!

Hello All! Greetings from Michelle! I am guest blogging today to share our trip to the CNN center. I love news and I thought it would be fun to see what goes on behind the scenes.

Can you guess who is who?

Wrong... I'm on the right!

It was very interesting inside CNN. It was very crowded as we went during lunch. Thanks also to James and Myself, I got in free for being military! I also got Jen and Mom in for $3 off their tickets.

The person said we were going to go up to the 8th floor. I didn't realize we were going to do it in one shot on this escalator. After a minute, I started getting hot, putting my face down and my body in a lunge position. I was gripping the sides for my life. Two and a half minutes later we were finally at the top. I didn't like that ride at all. During the tour we saw live anchors getting ready to go on the news and how everything works.

 Me and my bud Anderson, I told him he was looking a little thin. Overall it was a fun experience and you should definitely check it out. There was no cameras allowed during the tour so that's why you don't see many more pictures. Hope you enjoyed my post! I would also like to wish my husband, James a Happy 3rd Anniversary and infinity more to come!!

Sushi Night!!

Hi Everyone! I feel like I haven't posted in a while. My sister and Mom have been in town the past week and we have been exploring Atlanta. We went to the CNN center, Ikea, Lake Lanier, Botanical Gardens and much more! I will post on those this week. We had another homemade "sushi" party last week and the girls had lots of fun mastering their sushi rolls. 

Michelle and Amber stopped off before dinner at Olive Garden for wine. Did you know that if you buy a bottle and only drink 1-2 glasses, they give you a to go box and let you bring it home!

We took a quick picture using the timer before Ashleen and Audrina arrived.

A sushi party isn't complete without Saki! Ashleen had never had it before and she was not amused by the taste. She said it tasted like Lake Lanier. Shell isn't a big fan either.

Here is our setup- sticky rice, chicken teriyaki, avocado, cucumber and salad with ginger dressing.

Here is a montage of Michelle perfecting her sushi roll!

Ashleen also didn't like the seaweed wrap that you use, maybe thats what she called Lake Lanier.

Audrina was also a big help. 

Everyone had a great time and apparently everything was funny that night. We all had fun catching up. It's been a year since we were all in the same state. 

Before

After. 

Top Three Thursday- TV Shows, Take it back

This week's top three Thursday is on TV Shows- Take it back. My favorite shows when I was a kid are:

1. Fraggle Rock

2. Care Bears

3. Smurfs!

What is your top 3 TV shows from back in the day?

Food Frenzy at Chateau Elan- Part III

As you enter the hotel and go past the lobby, the hotel opens up to this gorgeous center courtyard area. The breakfast, dinner and lunch buffet happens here at Versailles. We had lunch there with a variety of foods and salads.

We had lunch here with a variety of foods and salads.

For dinner we went back over to the winery (it's a separate building than the hotel) and had dinner at Cafe Elan. Its very open and has a great atmosphere.

David had the house salad and salmon over a bed of rice (his is on the left side) and I had Cesar salad with tortellini and vegetables. We were stuffed from all this and the loaf of bread they give you to start with so we skipped dessert and ate our chocolate covered strawberries at the hotel.

I love how the wine bottles are in the background of our photo. We ate in the back of the restaurant so it was good for scenery. 

The next morning we didn't want a big buffet for breakfast so we opted to try the golf course restaurant. There was no one in there at all so we had the whole place to ourselves. We watched some golfers get started and enjoyed our breakfast.

David ordered the golfer's breakfast sandwich with egg, cheese and bacon. I opted for the cinnamon french toast with yummy bacon! It hit the spot.

They have really thought of everything at Chateau Elan. After breakfast we went for a walk around one of their trails that they have on site. It goes around to the spa and loops back. They also have tennis and a playground that we saw on the way.

We hit the pool some more, packed up and headed for lunch on the way out. We went to Paddy's Irish Pub. It is a cool little place inside. We had Chicken fingers, Fish and chips and Sausage with Mashed potatoes. We were trying to use the rest of our meal plan money. I went over a little, oopsy, I think my eyes were way bigger than my stomach.

We had a great time exploring every inch of Chateau Elan. If anyone needs recommendations or tips, let us know. Thanks so much David for planning our trip! Cheers!

Into the Winery & Vineyard! Part II

After spending the morning relaxing by the pool and eating lunch we decided to head to the winery for a tour. They showed us how traditionally barrels were used, but you can only reuse them a few times and that gets expensive. They have switched to stainless steel fermentation tanks.

To keep the cedar flavor from the barrels, they use cedar chips in the tanks.

Here are the fermentation tanks. They are temperature regulated and as you can see, this one had ice on the side! They chill the wine to stop the fermentation process.

We also got to see the bottling, corking and labeling area. Our tour guide was a bit annoying and would always have a personal story about wine and her experiences with it. Let's just say she wasn't very wine educated, which she needed to be.

Onto the tasting! We had over 40-50 people in our group. It was a huge group and hard to maneuver around, but the bar area went across the whole back of the gift shop so we all fit. We even got to keep the wine glasses as souvenirs.

We got to try 5 different wines.You can see the list of wines behind us. Here is an interesting fact. The only grapes they grow on the property are for the Pinot Grigio. They import other grapes from Georgia and California. That was a little disappointing to me, but guess I'll have to make it out to California wine country one day. David enjoyed the Port, which is a dessert wine and we tasted it with chocolate. We brought home their best seller, a Summer sweet wine, and the Pinot Grigio.

After the tasting we decided to go explore the vineyards. The muscadines are a type of grape that is used to make the Pinot Grigio. Here I am with my shopping bag of wine ready to explore.

The grapes are hard to see unless you get really close to them.

We had fun with the camera and set it up on a picnic table to take some shots. Here's the best one, it kinda looks like I'm falling, but we are experts so no worries.

View from the top of the winery going into the vineyard. It was a very fun day and we enjoyed ourselves. I bet you are wondering what we ate though. Stay tuned tomorrow for the food post, because besides wine that's the most important thing, right?