Texas State Fair: Part II

Went to the fair again tonight.  This trip will go down in my memories as the night I learned about Fair Food.  I knew it existed.  I saw the news stories and read the Observer.  But I have never been to the fair with people that actually participate in the purchasing of the food.  WOW. I loved it!  I saw a totally different side of the fair.  Typically I go and walk around, people watch, get my Fletchers Corney Dog with Lemonade and call it a day.  Play a game maybe, but that's it.

Tonight....was awesome. I went with this fabulous group of people.

The night started with getting to drive right on into Fair Park with a parking pass and then appear on the Midway.  FREE.  Thaaaaaaaaaaaaanks Bill!  We made our way to our meeting spot.  Big Tex, duh.

Never gets old. We are in our 30's.

After our initial meeting and "Look at me! I'm with Big Tex!" moment....it was time to start the food.  Summer and I walked around numerous times and just couldn't make our minds up.  We finally went back to our first stop, Fried Grilled Cheese Sandwich.  Just look at that! Perfect triangles of love.

The other option was the Fried King Ranch Chicken.  Bill got this little gem.  It was cool because it was in the shape of the state of Texas.  However it was murdered before I got a photo.  It's ok though, the flag is cool!

Back into the indoor food court we went.  Fried Spaghetti and Meatballs. 

Then it got crazy from there.  I don't remember everything that was ordered, but in no particular order you have the photos for the following:

Fried Oreo's

 Fried Cake Balls

 Fried Butter

 Fried Thanksgiving Dinner: aka The Best

 Red Velvet Funnel Cake

 Fried PB&J with Bananas

 And your classic, Turkey Leg

I would like to send a special thank you to Bill for allowing me to snap photos of him taking bites out of food.  You were a great model and I appreciate your service. 

Everyone was stuffed by the end of the night.  Coupons where bought and spent.  But besides all the food, I took some shots of the Midway itself. The Texas State Fair really is so much fun.  If you have never been to it, I recommend you go.  

 

 

Till next year.........

Wanna Get Away?

This past weekend we went camping! In the past 2 years we starting getting into the camping thing.  Normally we go to a place out by Possum Kingdom.  This time we stayed close to Dallas, just about a hour away.  It almost didn't happen though!

Friday was low key with Preston making a pasta dish to carb load.  Since we knew we were going to be gone on Sunday we did our long runs for training on Saturday.  The weather was so humid!  I was drenched in sweat within the first mile.  Saturday morning was the Texas/OU Red River Rivalry which plays at the Cotton Bowl.  It's a mile from our house so on my run I could see the cars already on their way to the stadium to tailgate.  This was taken around 8:30 am.

By noon we were both showered and eating a Subway sandwich.  It was one of the best tasting sandwiches I had in awhile.  Sometimes you just need an old school meal.  I got our camping bin out of the garage and made sure everything was good to go.  I made a quick run to the grocery store to pick up some apples, bananas, and ice.  Backed my Jeep into the garage for easy loading and then we waited. 

The whole Government shut down has finally affected my life.  It's kind of hard to go camping at a national park when it's closed. Now I wasn't the planner of this camping trip, so I didn't really think about it until it was time to go and we had no where to go.  We ended up not leaving the house till close to 5pm on Saturday! Every time we do go camping its with the same group of people and I love it.  We all know each other and what to expect from the trip.  Certain people bring certain things.  It's easy and relaxing.  Hidden Cove was our place of choice this trip.  It is up in Frisco, TX off of the lake.  Every single time we go camping it rains.  Not necessarily the whole time, but it happens.   Without fail on our drive there the sky opened up and poured.  We were still driving so in a way, we were ok.  But our friends....were already there and setting up camp.  By the time we got there, they were drenched! We moved to a different location as the spot we original had was now mudville.  

 

After we got the campfire set up, dinner cooked and eaten, we went on some trails.  This was also the area that we originally were suppose to be camping.  It was soooo dark and muddy back in there!

 

The rest of the night was spent sitting around the campfire just talking and sharing stories.  We had some music going so it was a nice setting.  Not sure what time we all went to sleep.  Preston and I woke up around 7:15am, ate an apple, and then went back to sleep.  Everyone was up by 10am and we had started the fire again to cook up some grub.  We all got out of there by 1pm.  It was a short trip, but totally worth it.  It was nice to get out of the city and not hear traffic, sirens, or watch TV.  It made the weekend itself seem long.  I'm ready to start the week and eat some veggies!  I feel kind of yucky with only eating apples and hot dogs.  

Mavs, Fair, Lion King...Oh My!

This week has been very active for a work week.  It started off with Monday night going to the first game for the Dallas Mavericks pre-season.  We both really love the Mavs and really love basketball so it was great to be able to get back to the sport with the first game.  The night started at one of our favorite restaurants in Dallas.  Victory Tavern.  It is where we went on one of our first dates and it is also where he proposed.  Awwww.  And...AND...it is right across from the AAC.  You can literally sit on the patio and be looking at the  AAC.  See! 

We ordered one of our favorites, Mac and Cheese, and then tried something new.  Their Crab Nachos! They were really good.  Washed down with some wine and the weather was perfect so we people watched until it was time to head inside.

Since it was pre season it was way easier to get middle court upper level seats.  We both feel like we have been all over the AAC for seats and as much as fun as court side was (see engagement story) upper level middle really does have the best view. 

I feel like you can see all the action, but the down side is you can't FEEL all the action.  The Mavs ended up losing, but we got to see 2 up and coming players.  You have "easy on the eyes" Gal Mekel, who I think they are setting up to be the next thing. Look at him! very. nice. 

And then you have Jae Crowder.  This is his 2nd year playing professional ball, but he put up some good numbers.  He is someone I'm going to keep my eye on for sure!

Tuesday was boring. Blah Tuesday. Boo You.  We both ran and then sat around the house in silence until one of us managed to make dinner.  Wednesday was exciting!  Home Depot!  I won't bore you with the house duties.  Thursday...tonight...was spent going to the fair and then seeing the last Dallas Summer Musical of the series.  Preston bought me the whole season as my birthday gift this year and it has been wonderful!  So wonderful that I renewed our tickets and then got an email from Preston about 2 hours later saying, "so I see you renewed the DSM tickets."  I was like, "What? How did you...what."  I failed to remember that it was all under his name so he got the email notification of purchase.  Opps. SURPRISE!  Anyway, so here are the pictures of our Thursday.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!  We are going camping to get out of Dallas.  It's TX/OU weekend and we can't stand being here.  It doesn't help that we live a mile from where the game is playing.  Makes it even worse for traffic.  Ugh. 

It ended with Apple Cider.

This weekend has been great.  Relaxing just like I wanted it to be.  I didn't get a lot of items around the house that I wanted done, but I'm ok with that.  Everything else we did makes up for my lack of "housewife".  Preston's parents came over early Saturday morning and we headed to the local Nature and Science museum.  They had not been yet so it was exciting to go!  Every time Preston and I go we see/learn something new.  The weather report for the day was that a cold front was coming into town.  When we walked out of the museum around 11am, the cold front had arrived.  It was a great feeling! It was chilly.

After that we headed to lunch and then back to our place.  It was time to pick out our excursions!  We are going on a cruise with Preston's parents in December.  I'm so excited!  It's on a cruise line I have never been on AND to locations I have never been too.  I keep forgetting that we are going until I see it on my calendar and I'm like, "oh yeah! I'm going on vacation!".  So excited. Just writing about it makes me want to go look at the ship again.

Later that afternoon I decided to try out my newest gadget.  Steam curlers!  I have to be honest, the first time I tried to use them I did it all wrong.  Didn't let them sit on the base long enough and then I didn't curl them tight enough.  But after a second go at it, I got it!

The rest of Saturday was spent watching scary movies on Chill and Syfy.  The front windows were open along with the back door so a cool breeze ran through the living room.  A good hearty dish of spaghetti was whipped up for dinner as Sunday morning was a big day for us!  Sunday's are our long runs, but this particular Sunday was our milestone runs.  I was running 6 miles, which I hadn't done since my 10k in June and even bigger was Preston's run.  The farthest Preston has ever run was a half, which is 13.1 miles.  This morning he ran 15 miles!!  Words can not even express how proud I am of him.  He has never run that long in his entire life. Ever. I personally thank it's really cool.  I know that is nothing to some people, but to me...well anyway.  So that was this morning.

After our running we sat for awhile and just thought about what we did.  By noon we were showered and had our lap tops up and ready for football!  Preston started the crockpot of beef stew.  Yummy.  During the Cowboys game I moved to our side sofa and lounged out with my latest book The Scorch Trials.

By 5pm dinner was almost ready.  I decided to try a Pinterest recipe that I had just seen yesterday!  Rosemary and Feta biscuits.  yum, right?  Here is the link to the recipe, but here are my pictures. 

Ingredients

Chopped Rosemary

Add the Feta.... 

Add the beer....

ooooo, foamy.

Bake

And Tada! Feta and Rosemary biscuits.

 They turned out really tasty and perfect with the stew.  The feta wasn't overwhelming and the Rosemary was the perfect amount.  This will be a repeat for sure in our house.  Dinner is over, dishes are done, and we are both worn out!  Before I started typing this up I made a cup of Apple Cider.  As soon as that cup is empty, I'm going to bed.