Meals This Week and Baked Potatoes

Meals for this week:

Sunday - baked potatoes with butter, cheddar cheese, chopped bacon, green onions, sour cream and rotisserie chicken with sweet baby rays bbq sauce on it. Sooo easy and my kids loved it!

Monday - tilapia fish tacos with this recipe

Tuesday - pork chops in the air fryer seasoned with char crust (via Amazon), steamed broccoli and the box of scalloped potatoes

Wednesday - chicken fajitas (sheet pan chicken tenderloins with onion, red yellow and orange peppers and fajita seasoning)

Thursday - make your own pizza night. I got a few mini pizza crusts and they can use leftover veggies and meat to make their pizzas.

Weekend

Well, it was a good weekend! Hope yours was too!

I got to be Grady's mystery reader on Thursday. He lights up when I walk in. Love it! I read the book shown below The Book With No Pictures that they loved and If I Built A School which was cute too.

Thursday night I drove to Columbia, SC for a friends dads visitation. After Kevin's mom died, I saw how much it meant to us to either have friends there, friends send things or send supportive texts. I was able to be there and I'm so glad. I got carry out at Cantina 76 for dinner because I was short on time. So good!

getting back was a little challenging as I-77 closed. I navigated around and got home only 20 min later. Glad I had stopped to get gas!

Grady had his first baseball practice on Friday night for the season. He loves it!

Saturday morning I played tennis then we all went on a walk. Sorta, more like a ride! Yes, Grady had baseball again.

Getting her started early. She's a good driver already!

yum!

Saturday night we went out for a birthday to Catalina again. Sooooo good!

Sunday the kiddos performed at church!

We had some friends over that afternoon for the kids to play with. All good!

Cute Finds

I had a bit of time on Monday night this week so I was able to find some extra cute things.

ONE - a fun St. Patty's shirt that I ordered

TWO - going to try these ivory sailor jeans. $53

THREE - any time I see a good quality dress that is versatile for work, fun, classy event, work dinner etc, I try to grab it. That way when I need a nice dress, I have it. Isn't that how it works? Whenever you have an event you're looking for something, you can never find it? I've learned to grab one when you can. And especially under $200. 

FOUR - this top caught my eye. 

FIVE - tennis season is almost here. I may have to try out this new lightweight skirt. 

Meals Lately

Thought I'd share some recent meals in case you need any inspo! I only do quick meals or things I can make ahead of time!

Creamy Chicken Noodle soup - put this in the crockpot about 6:30am and it was delish when I got home. 

Egg Roll In A Bowl - haven't made this in awhile so this is on my list this week

Chicken Fajitas - red yellow orange peppers and chicken sheet pan dinner. Easy and kids love it. 

Shrimp Alfredo - using protein barilla noodles and Rao's Alfredo sauce. Will add broccoli too. 

I made burgers last night on the grill and served with butter beans from the freezer and leftover tater tots. 

I also have salmon on my radar for this week. The kids (mainly Molly Anne) have loved doing "make your own" salmon bowls! Rice, salmon, cucumber, roasted broccoli, special sauce (mayo and siracha), edamame etc

Out and Hunting

On Friday night we went out to celebrate Kevin and Hilary's birthdays at Catalina in the Elizabeth area. It was DELICIOUS. The eggs below were unreal good. Hilary and I just split a bunch of appetizers.  

They gave Kevin this funny pillow with an old picture of me and my clarinet. It was funnier than the pic leads anyone to believe. It was hilarious. 

Saturday morning Grady had his last basketball game. He loved playing basketball this season! I loved helping coach both his and Molly Anne's teams. 


After his game, I set out on a little hunting adventure with friends at a club in South Carolina. It was "fancy hunting" as I call it! Super nice place. We blew some explosives up with a machine gun. We did five stand with clays. We went hog hunting. And the second day we hunted quail. Whew, I learned so much! It was awesome. Very out of my comfort zone but very good to do that every now and then!









In our hog hunting stand. We stayed there for two hours and only saw two deer. Not deer season so didn't bother them! Our buddy got 4 hogs so I held one with a little liquid courage when we got back. 




It was a great time - a wonderful dinner, some dice and card games, fireside conversations, just all around good stuff with good friends. 

The quail from day 2!


I haven't really gone away for fun on the weekend by myself in a longgggg time. Like since I've had the kids I think. So this was a welcomed treat! 

Last Day in Baha Mar

Sunday was our last full day as we were scooting out pretty early on Monday. We used Sunday to basically do anything that the kids wanted to do again - more waterpark, more of certain pools, some beach. Also she wanted to get her hair braided. 

And Grady got a necklace ahhh! 

She made a mama and baby sea turtle and Grady built a barrier so the tide that was coming in wouldn't ruin it!


Cutie girlie


Looking right off our balcony - where I really wanted to be!


The last night we had dinner at Costa which is the fancy Mexican restaurant at Rosewood. It was stunning! Pineapple daiquiris of course. 


You sit in these cute open air buildings surrounded by koi ponds. 


The last one is where we sat. It was cool!


Walking back through Rosewood we met the nicest guy who couldn't have been kinder! These two LOVED talking to him. He gave us all hats and me a Bahamas bag. Soooo sweet. He was part of the concierge team there. 


The landscape at Rosewood was out of this world. Truly stunning. 


Watching the fountain show one last time!




Monday morning departure


Homework at the airport


It was a great trip. I think we are good on the big resorts for awhile. It got so crowded as Presidents weekend went on. Kinda made me crazy because people were everywhere! 

Yes it was super expensive for food and drink. It wasn't terrible overall for the five days but it wasn't cheap. We were reasonable about what we ordered though. 

I'm SO glad my kids can swim so well. It makes trips like this so much more enjoyable as I don't stress as much. Makes all of those weekly swim lessons worth it over the last 9 years! 

Molly Anne and Grady LOVED it. We chose this place mainly because of the waterpark and lots of pools. The beach by itself is semi boring to them which sounds ridiculous but is kind of true because of the convenience of Ocean Isle. 

Anyway, glad we did it. We are in park for awhile but thankful for the sunshine and 80 degrees in February as a big, big treat for Kevin's big birthday! 

Baha Mar Day 3 - Boat Day

This was our favorite day by far. The resort is fine but this boat situation was amazingly awesome. Probably our favorite day ever as a family. We booked a boat with Island Time Charters - Jason Wheeler. We got the 6 hour trip and basically used those 6 hours to do whatever we wanted. We didn't waste time petting pigs (gross) but we saw them from afar. We got to fish in the morning. We went to a local beach bar on Rose Island called Footprints and they cooked what we caught - a trigger fish, a yellowtail snapper, a spiny lobster and a strawberry grouper. They had country music loudly playing, high noons and plenty of other drinks. It was the best. 

Snorkeling and spearfishing for a spiny lobster. They were successful! What an experience for Molly Anne! The captains were impressed with her swimming ability against a major current. 








At the best beach bar ever 






The kids LOVED younger Jason!






It was not a rough day in my world. 


Not in theirs either haha







Molly Anne and I swam with the sea turtles! She knows no bounds in water!


Drive by the pigs!




Circled up a "pirates ship" for Grady buddy as we went back in. 


Terrible pic but solid memory - making tequila cocktails for young Jason (who was not captaining by this point) and I! We listened to Tequila On A Boat loudly and roared into the dock! 


Best day ever thanks to two amazing captains - father son Jason and Jason! 


Our car picked us right up and swooped us back to Baha Mar, even with getting stopped by the police for the driver not wearing a seatbelt. Ha! We hit the pool when we got back for a bit. 

Pizza lab for an easy dinner then desserts at Sugar Factory!