Visiting the Nation's Capital

As you can see, I'm reading a travel book on Washington, DC. Rob has to go to DC in October and my brother and I are going to tag along. We have been lucky enough to get to travel with Rob's job to some fun places and this year is Washington DC.

I actually visited DC during my senior class trip in high school and actually enjoyed the city more than I thought I would. However, at 30, I'm a little more mature and appreciative of this great country so I'm excited to experience it again!

I bought this book earlier this week and am learning as much as possible before we go. I'm attempting to plan out our days. Of course we will hit as many high notes as we can...you know the Capitol, the monuments, Smithsonian, etc but are there any "must-sees" that we need to know about before we go?

If anyone has any ideas of great things we should look into, please tell me! Any great finds, restaurants, shopping places...I'm open to any advice!!

We Are READY!

Thanks to Crystal's Creations, we are ready for football season!! I have been looking for something for our front door for a while and finally found this cute wreath for football season! She seriously makes some of the cutest stuff - her wreaths are adorable - football teams, Christmas, and even wreaths for nurseries!!

I love it on our front door! (Just wish it didn't have that orange and blue on it...haha) Oh well, you see what color our door is! Ha! RTR! :)

Happy Football Season (almost)!

Newest Members of the Mac World

You read that correctly!! We finally crossed over to the dark side! :) We have talked about this move for YEARS and FINALLY bit the bullet! So far, we could not be happier!

We went this weekend and purchased a MacBook Pro and I LOVE it!!!!! We are very close to being an exclusive Apple family! (and that's just fine with me)

Photo courtesy of apple.com

I hope my love for this MacBook continues and maybe the blog will benefit from it too! :)

Parmesan-Ranch Chicken

I don't know about you but I get really tired of eating the same things over and over for dinner. So, I've been trying some new things out and this has been one my favorites. And now that our house is finally back in order from the tornado and our kitchen has been remodeled - cooking is actually a LITTLE enjoyable! (Pics coming soon) This excitement for cooking won't last long so I'm embracing it while it's here! :)

If you're looking for new things to cook or bake, check out Plain Chicken. She blogs a recipe a day and most of them are fairly quick and easy recipes. I've made LOTS of things from her website and we have liked them all.

This Parmesan-Ranch chicken is SO quick and easy! I will definitely make it again!

You will need the following ingredients:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I actually did 3 medium breasts and it worked fine)

1/2 cup Ranch dressing

1 cup Panko bread crumbs

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp seasoned salt

1/4 tsp pepper

cooking spray

This was my first time taking pictures of each step so I forgot to take pics! :)

Preheat oven to 425. Pound chicken breasts to an even thickness. Combine bread crumbs, parmesan, garlic powder, seasoned salt and pepper on a plate. Dip chicken in ranch (or marinate over night) and then coat in bread crumbs. Place on baking sheet. Sprinkle with additional parmesan cheese (if desired) and spray with cooking spray. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

So good!

If you are looking for a quick and easy recipe for dinner, try this out or check out Plain Chicken. You are sure to find something! I'm hoping to try out some new recipes this week and will blog if I find any new great ones! :)

To Plan Or Not To Plan...

I'm not going to lie - I'm a sucker for office supplies! When I was younger (well, even in college) I loved nothing more than buying school supplies. When I was a kid, I would unpack and repack my backpack every day for WEEKS until school started. I would take out all of my new pencils, folders, etc and look at them just longing for the day I got to use them! NERDY, I know! I'm still like a kid in a candy store during school supply season!! HA!

A few weeks ago on Twitter I heard about Erin Condren's planners and how AMAZING they are! Let me just say, I'm a SUCKER for a good planner!! And yes, I know that there are lots of calendar and planner apps for the iPhone but I'm old school and like paper!! Something about cute paper and colorful pens make me HAPPY! (It's the small things in life, ya know)

Her planners have room for everything! Each day is broken down into morning/day/night and gives you LOTS of space to write. Each month has lots of room for notes and there's lots of pockets to hold other stuff that you need. She even includes a few free gift stickers and labels for you to enjoy!

If you haven't checked out Erin Condren's company and all she offers, you are missing out! She has the absolute cutest stuff!! Thanks to Twitter, I found out about a great deal and ordered one as quick as I could pick one out (which took a while because there are LOTS of cute choices)!!

Yesterday, I came home to this box (her FedEx boxes are even cute)

I tore into the box before I took time to take a picture of how cute it was wrapped in the box. Seriously, how cute is this planner??

AND it came with a $25 coupon off my next order!!!! Needless to say, I made my second Erin Condren order yesterday, which includes an address book, some personalized note pads and gift tags!

If you are a sucker for a good planner like me, check this video out and then head on over to Erin Condren and order yours!!!

Instagram Pictures

I know, I know - I'm the worst blogger ever these days. Since the tornado in April, life has pretty much been consumed with house stuff. These projects are almost completed so I will post pics soon!

I'm totally addicted to the Instagram app on the iPhone. It makes your pictures look so much better than a normal cell phone picture. Here are a few from the past couple of months...