Tantalizing Tuesday

I wish I could say that fall is in the aire, but since the last 2 days have been in the 90's it sure doesn't feel like it.  This cheesy soup is very easy, make in like 10 minutes.

Jarrie's Easy Peasy Broccoli Cheese Soup

2 cans celery soup
1 16 oz jar of cheeze whiz
1 32 oz fat free half and half
1 head of broccoli chopped and steamed for 8 min.

Steam up your chopped broccoli and add to the rest of heated ingredients.  Serve with yummy bread.  Serves 6.

Cast Away

This is what Devin did last night.  After using our electric turkey carving knife and my nice cutco knives, Kailers cast is off!  But there is more to the story-Kailer has been playing football with the cast, (without my blessing of course) and he fell and jammed his thumb at practice a couple nights ago.  Needless to say his thumb swelled and Dev said the cast had to come off.  I think the thumb is broken, Dev is taking him to our dentist friend to get an Xray as we speak!! 

New Favorite Piece

New York Day 2 (the rest of a very long day)

After stuffing our faces, I convinced the girls that we couldn't come to NY and NOT ride in the subway.  After a little hesitation, I convinced them and we were off on a new adventure!  This was so exciting to me!

Our next stop was to ground zero-I had a to take a pic of this for Devin;)  Anyway, it was the day before Sept 11th so they were setting up for a ceremony the following day.  It was busy, although, I think NY must always be busy.

Where the twin towers stood.

This is something that i did not no, but when the towers were built, they alsobuilt a fire dept right across the street so it would be available for the Twin Towers.  Literally right across the street.  Anyway we talked with a firefighter who was there when the towers went down.  What an amazing thing to see the memorial and talk to someone who was actually there. 

I love mw some good firemen:)

Following our Twin Towers adventure, we strolled over to Sephora where they painted out face with some sort of airbrushinging stuff.  We looked marvelous!!

Now that we were all gussied up we decided a nice stroll over the Brooklyn Bridge would be awesome-it was kind of a long walk though.  I swear by the end of the night we had walked around 8 to 10 miles.

You know walking that much makes you hungry, so more pizza for us at Ignacios.  This was the best pizza ever.  We also went down to the pier and had us some yummy icecream from the Brooklyn Icecream Factory.

Some nice foreigner took our picture on the pier and then we headed back over the bridge and back onto the subway to get to Times square.

I can't forget we stopped at Magnolia Bakery for some cupcakes.  They were good, but I think I have had better.  Its a good thing we walked so much that day, I still went back to the hotel stuffed and exhuasted.  We fit so much into this one day, but I think it was my favorite day of all!!

Tantalizing Tuesday

This is another family favorite-Quick and easy Taco Salad!! This dump everything in a bowl and mix it up. Can't get any better than that!

1/2 lb cooked ground beef
1 head of lettuce chopped
2 tomatoes chopped
6 green onions chopped
1 can pinto or kidney beans
1 can corn
2 cups shredded colby jack cheese
italian dressing(taste salad till you have the amount of dressing that you like.) Some people like it drenched others not!
crushed Dorito Cool Ranch chips(to your taste) My kids think the more the better.

Cool the cooked beef and add everything in a large bowl.. Do not add dressing and chips until you are ready to serve!

New York, New York Day 2 Part 1(It was a very long day)

One thing I really do like about vacation is sleeping in.  In fact I don't like to feel pressure to get up at all on vacation.  Fortunately I did get to do that 2 of the 4 days I was there.  So we slept till about 9 and got ready for my favorite part of New York.  We took a food walking tour in Greenwich Village.  This quaint little part of New York was loaded with history and aweome architecture.  We jumped in a cab and headed to Greenwich Village.

Carrie and I are eagarly waiting to start the tour and be fed.  We stopped at 5 different eatery's interspersed with different tidbits of fun trivia and history.  Our first stop was for a slice of "real" NY style pizza at Joe's Pizza.  NY pizza has a crunchy thin crust with delicious sauce and fresh mozzarella.  Delish!

Here we are all stuffing our faces!!!

This here is a cheese ball from Faicco's Itialian Specialties.  This was really good, some concoction of rice, cheeses, and slightly coated with bread crumbs and fried to perfection.  I have never had a rice ball before but I will say, it was very yummy.

Next was Palma.  I guess this little quaint resturaunt is where a lot of celebs have parties and such.  There is a hidden coutryard inside of the building.  They served this cauliflower dish with currants and pinenuts.  WOW!

We stopped at a strange Japanese restuaraunt that was only vegetariean.  Everything in the above Bento box is veggies-the meat was made out off gluten.  I really like this.  Especially pickled seaweed with the fake meat.

Cannolis are big in NY- I don't care for them, but Carrie said the one she had in Little Italy was better.  We actually also got a choclate chip oatmeal ookie from another place, that to me was really good.  I didn't get a picture of the last place we went.  it was a cheese and sausage place.  I am kinda a good old colby/jack kinda gal.  So it  was just alright to me.

This is only a 7 foot apartment.  I think the gude said it is the smallest apartment in NY.  Can you imagine?  All you could fit would be a bed.

Here is a little yard for some kids to play.  To me this is just sad!

New York, New York Day 1

I finally went to NYC!!!  Can I just say OH MY GOSH!  It was amazing!!  This might be a long post, but we did way too much and took way too many pictures! Probably about 1 1/2 years ago, my girlfriend Carrie and I started planning that someday we were gonna go to the Big Apple.  Honestly how often do you say "lets do a girls trip to so and so," and then it never really happens.  So we chatted about it all the time, but really I didn't think that it would EVER happen.

We left bright an early, way before the sun came up, and those of you that know me, know that I am NOT a morning person.  I think we set the alarm for 4:00 A.M.  Nikki (Carrie's neighbor), Carrie and I headed off to the airport so excited!!  We arrived a whole 1/2 an hour early which is always a bonus.  Especially since we were on the very back row-the non reclining row.

When we arrived we were immediately attacked by taxi drivers galore.  Holy Moly, I had expected this, but I wasn't rapping my mond around the hustle and bustle of the people.  We actually caught a cab from the airport and just happened to be sharring it with Project Runway's  Christian Siriano's assistant.  I didn't catch her name but, she was telling us all sorts ofthings about fashion week and Project Runway.  If you don't know who he is:

Afterchecking into our fabulous hotel, the Westin at time Square we decided to get out and experience NYC.  Ok, I hate amusement parks and anything that has too many people.  Time Square took the cake on the amount of people in 1 area that I have ever visited.  Not my thing.  I like to walk in a a straight line and not have to worry about bumping into people.  I think i learned by the end of our stay, that people in NY don't care if they bump into people, eww I just hated it!  Say out of my freakin personal space!!!

  Don't I look sooooo happy!  I have to admit, it was pretty amazing!  We went to the H&M store first thing.  This place was a zoo too, but later in the trip we found another one and had a better shopping experience with less people.  I didn't even have to try on my clothes in the middle of the store!!


This really was all a blur, I can't even remember what we ate-but we did go back to the Westin and freshen up for WICKED the musical.  Devin took Kailer to see Wicked back in November when I was in Hawaii.  Dev loved it and said it might just be a fav over Les Miserables, which of course in his eyes was hard to beat.  Let me just say FAB-U-LOUS!!  My favorite part is right before the intermission where Elphaba (who becomes the wicked witch) decided to not try to be something that she is not and really decides to defy everyone.  So powerful, the song just made me want to stand up and cheer!!

After the show we just happened upon the place where the actors come out of the dressing room after the show.  This dude is the guy who ends up falling in love with wicked witch Elphaba.  As you can see we were very starstruck and just had to get a picture and an autograph.

After the show we got the most delicious nachos and snuggled into bed where we slept till probably 9 or 10 the next morning.  I love vacation!!!