Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Make sure you hug your loved ones extra tight today.

:) :)

{Photo by me - February 2012}

Homemade Pizza Night

Monday already?  Why must the weekend fly by so fast??

This weekend we laid pretty low.  The weather was freeeezing and snowy outside both Saturday and Sunday, so we opted to stay warm and cozy in our house the whole time.  We finally got around to decorating the house a bit.  It's amazing what a little bit of decor can do for a home!  Other than that, we didn't do much.  Oh, except for make delicious homemade pizza Saturday night!

We've been making homemade pizza ever since we started dating over 6 years ago.  I'd like to say we've gotten pretty good at it.  We always make our own dough from scratch and usually stick to either plain cheese pizzas or cheese and mushrooms.  That was, until Saturday night when we made the mother of all homemade pizzas: margarita pizza!  Ohhhhh my goodness.  I cannot express in words how delicious this pizza was.  We got fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil from the grocery store and made our own sauce from scratch.  It was the best homemade pizza we have ever made in our 6+ years of making homemade pizza.

And now I want more!!  Do you make homemade pizza?  What's your favorite toppings??  We are always up for trying new kinds! :) 

Troegs Brewing Company

Our road trip to the Harrisburg area a few weekends ago actually stemmed from one specific thing: beer.  We were itching to go on a road trip and wanted to check out a few breweries along the way.  One brewery that we've been meaning to get to was Troegs Brewing Company.  And we finally went!

Troegs was AWESOME.  They just moved into a new, bigger facility right outside of Hershey Park!  We made our way over in the early afternoon on the Saturday of our road trip.  There were a lot of people there, but the brewery was so big that it didn't feel overcrowded.  As soon as we enter, we headed straight to the self-guided brewery tour.  This is something neat that I haven't experienced at any other brewery that I've visited.  Instead of a group tour with a tour guide walking you around the facilities, you were free to roam wherever you wanted along a path and read all the signs outlining the different parts of the brewing process.  It was relaxed and pretty cool.

         

After we roamed around the brewery for a bit, we headed into the tasting room/bar area.  Of course, to drink some beer!  We each got a pint and decided to roam around the brewery again, this time beers in hand!  The whole atmosphere and environment of this brewery was so inviting and relaxing.  It was very awesome.

 

After we finished our pints, we headed back to the tasting room and decided to try out the 5 beer sampler.  Obviously.  The sampler gave 5 tastes of Troegs' most popular year round beers.  It was delicious.  

We spent a decent amount of the afternoon just hanging out at the brewery and sipping on some tasty beers.  They even had some food options to munch on, but we were too full from lunch and lots of chocolate to indulge, unfortunately.  

Along with the self-guided brewery tour and awesome tasting room, Troegs also had a huge gift shop full of shirts, glasses, hats, and pretty much anything else you can think of.  While we didn't end up buying anything, I did find a shirt for our future child.  (NO, I'm not pregnant!)

   

Our future child WILL own this.  Troegs Brewing Company was definitely one of the coolest breweries we've been to.  I can't say enough awesome things about the atmosphere and overall feel of the place.  It was the perfect laid-back afternoon, indulging in some great beers.  We will definitely be back!  Hopefully next time, in the summer so we can sit outside on their awesome porch!

Here's to 2011...

Well, I know it's already February...

but I finally had time this weekend to finish my 2011 recap video!

It was a great year!

Enjoy!*

As you can see...

apparently, we just rode around on our bikes a lot... ;)

Weekend Road Trippin' - Part 2

Onward to Sunday of our mini weekend road trip.  (Man, we seriously packed A LOT into just 2 days of traveling.)

The day started with the strong need for coffee.  We packed up, checked out of the hotel, and went on a search for some morning fuel.  It seemed that nothing in downtown Harrisburg was opened except for Dunkin Donuts.  So Dunkin Donuts it was.  We each got a coffee and a bagel.  It sufficed.

(My husband loooooves when I take pictures of him.)  After breakfast, we played tourist.  It was hella windy in Harrisburg and freeeeezing, so our time walking around outside was somewhat limited.  We made our way over to the Capitol Building and decided to partake in a guided tour.  This building was seriously gorgeous on the inside.  My favorite part was the stained-glass ceilings.  They were beautiful.

By the time the tour was over, we were ready for lunch.  We made numerous attempts to find a place to eat in Harrisburg but nothing seemed open, still!  So we headed out of the downtown area and ended up finding a tasty burrito place to eat lunch at: Neato Burrito.  I mean, the name says it all!  And instead of just driving straight home from Harrisburg, we decided to make a detour to Johnstown (where we met and used to live) since we had the afternoon free.  We love going back and visiting Johnstown every once in a while.  We made some great memories there and had some really fun times.  We decided to hit up a couple of our favorite old places, starting with bowling at Richland Lanes.  We used to walk here from our old apartment and bowl all night long for soo cheap.  It rocked. 

  

We embarrassed ourselves pretty severely with our bowling scores after a few games and decided to call it quits and head to dinner before hitting the road to drive home.  We decided to go to one of our favorite restaurants in Johnstown: Rizzo's.  This place has been around forever and has the best homemade pasta and sauce that I have ever eaten.  I have yet to find a place that tops it.  

 

(Mesmerized by my pasta, obviously.)  So we're eating dinner, having a good ol' time when we hear someone walk by our table and say "holy crap, it's a blizzard outside!"  I was like "umm, say what?!"  The entire weekend was so sunny with not a cloud in the sky.  We literally walked into the restaurant just an hour before with the sunny blaring.  Not the case when we walked out.  Everything was completely covered with 2 inches of snow already and it was still coming down and fast.  We couldn't believe it.  So what we thought was going to be a nice, relaxing 2 hour drive home turned into a disastrous 3 hour drive home, witnessing numerous accidents along the way.  Thankfully, we made it home safely. 

Other than the freak blizzard out of nowhere, we had a really great time spending the weekend road trippin'.  I have a feeling many more mini weekend road trips are in our future.  And anything that involves traveling makes this girl happy.  

Now, onto the adventures of this weekend!

Have a great weekend, everyone!*

Weekend Road Trippin' - Part 1

Chocolate, beer, and live music.

That pretty much sums up our road trip this past weekend!  It was such a nice mini weekend getaway.  We headed out bright and early Saturday morning.  We were going to leave Friday night, but decided it would have been much too rushed to try to get packed and out the door after work.  So Saturday morning it was.  The sun was shining, we were hopped up on coffee, and zooming down the turnpike to Harrisburg.

Before heading into Harrisburg, we detoured to Hershey for some chocolate and beer!  But first, lunch.  As soon as we pulled into the town of Hershey, we found a cute little cafe: The Chocolate Avenue Grill.  It hit the spot!

     

After lunch, we went directly across the street to HERSHEY PARK!  I haven't been to Hershey Park since I was wee little.  I looove chocolate, so this was uber exciting.  I was probably more excited than some of the 5 year olds there...  don't care!  And you better believe we road the Chocolate Tour Ride.  We maaaay have been the only couple there without small children... again, don't care!  We got free chocolate at the end, so that was all that mattered.  

After Chocolate World, we put on our "adult" pants and made our way over to Troegs Brewing Company.  This brewery was AWESOME.  In fact, it's getting its own post because of its complete awesomeness.  We spent a couple hours there taste testing beers and wandering around the brewery on a self-guided tour.  It was awesome.

Once we got our fill of beer for the afternoon, we headed over to downtown Harrisburg, where we were spending the night.  We got to the hotel and were happy to discover that they upgraded our room to a King suite!  Heeeyooo!  And then we took a nap...

 

Once we got our second wind, we were ready to take on the night!  We grabbed some beers & dinner at a local pub McGrath's, then made our way over to the Appalachian Brewing Company for WinterFest.  For a $10 entrance fee, we got to see over 15 live bands on 2 stages while drinking awesome beer into the wee hours of the night.  It was seriously so much fun.  Our favorite band of the night was a blue grass band from Scranton, PA and I can't remember their name, but they were awesome!  We had such a blast.  The night ended with pizza.  Obviously. 

 

(I didn't realize how many photos I was going to have from this little weekend trip, so I split it up into 2 posts.  Part 2 coming soon!)

February!

Happy February!

One step closer to the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring.

(Not that I'm counting down or anything...)

With it being February 1st, that also means that I am officially through one month of my 365 photo project!  I've been loving this photo challenge so far.  And I'm challenging myself to try and only use my real camera for my photos.  Yes, occasionally an iPhone photo will sneak in there every once in a while, but overall I'm doing pretty well with making sure I bust out my real camera every day.  And I'm loving it!  I know I wouldn't be using my real camera nearly as much if it weren't for this project.  So yay!

Take a look at my progress so far & let me know what you think!

A Little Happy List

How gorgeous is this sunrise?  I was greeted with this beauty yesterday morning on my way to work, which helped make Monday a little more bearable...

And now it's Tuesday and I'm already counting down the days to the weekend.  We had a great time road trippin' this past weekend and I'll share more on that later.  But for now, how about a little happy list?

Here are a few things making me really happy lately:

1.  The beginning talks of potential vacations for the year (!!)
2.  Warm coffee to help fight off the cold winter temperatures
3.  Spending my morning commute listening to Josh & Chuck on the "Stuff You Should Know" podcast
4.  Having the ability to pickup & take spontaneous road trips with the husband
5.  Getting to spend this past Sunday afternoon in Johnstown reliving the simple life
6.  The fact that the past 10 boxes of clementines we've bought have all be AWESOME
7.  Knowing I finally get to see Hanson in 15 days
8.  Getting tickets for the Avett Brothers right before the concert sold out (within 3 minutes!)
9.  Jack Johnson Pandora stations that let me drift off to beachy dream land
10. Weekends with nothing to do but relax and make delicious dinners (this coming weekend!)

What's making YOU happy lately?!

Wanderlust

I have had a serious case of wanderlust lately.  I want to go anywhere and everywhere.  Luckily, this weekend Brett and I are taking a little road trip!  We are heading over to Harrisburg for a weekend full of brewery tours and live music.  We're planning on hitting the road today after work and staying until Sunday evening, just exploring the area, drinking great beer, and having FUN together.  Sometimes even the littlest weekend getaways are just what we need to refresh.

Big comfy hotel king bed, here we come!