Vacation Destination!

Drew and I have been mulling over different ideas of where we would like to go for our anniversary trip this year; we finally made a decision and booked our trip earlier this week! We discussed going to several different places but we finally decided on Costa Rica! We are going in mid-August because Drew's school schedule does not permit another break until November. We are flying directly from Atlanta into San Jose where a driver will pick us up from the Airport and deliver us to the resort. It is a 2 and 1/2 hour drive on treacherous mountain roads...eeek!

I have been working with a travel agency and doing a lot of independent research on the country and the area we choose to stay at is called Manuel Antonio; it is the only part of Costa Rica that has white sandy beaches in addition to the rainforest. Manuel Antonio is also only a 10 minute ride to the town of Quepos, which is one of the most popular sport fishing destinations in Central America... and I promised Drew that we would could spend at least one day fishing (I think he is the most excited about that part of the trip!). The resort we choose is called The Parador Resort and Spa (this might be the part of the trip that I am most excited about!).

Areal view of the property. 

View of the pools and Pacific Ocean.

We also plan to do a few other touristy activities like a canopy tour of the rainforest, zip lining, wildlife encounters and white water rafting. This will be our most adventurous vacation..yet!

Canopy tour!

Mommy and baby monkey!

I also hope to be finished with the last of my classes for my MBA by the time we leave for CR - another reason to celebrate!!

Lori & Aaron's House

Lori and Aaron are nearing the end of their house building adventure! They started building at the end on March and hopefully will be moving in within the next couple of weeks. They purchased a beautiful hardwood lot in Shadow Moss which is located just a couple miles north of Waynesboro. The house is 3 bedrooms with 2 baths and the main living area has an open floor plan which I think Lori and Arron are really going to enjoy...

          Here are some of Lori's pictures throughout the building process:

This is their lot; I am SOOO jealous of all of the beautiful hardwood trees!

This was a couple weeks after they started the building process.

Siding, porch, stonework... finished!

This is the stone they had installed to cover the cinder block foundation. I love all the different colors and it was a great choice to complement the siding!

Beautiful dark kitchen cabinets!

Adding the beauty panels in the dining area!

Floors being installed (this was taken this week!)

Yep...

Saw this on Pinterest this morning.. I can relate!

Japanese Steakhouse Inspired Zucchini and Onions

A couple of weeks ago I was at Bi-Lo in Waynesboro and I purchased a bottle of Makoto Ginger Dressing; not really sure of what I was going to do with it at the time. Last night Drew and I ventured out for a golf cart ride and picked a few (giant) zucchinis out of my parent's garden. That was when the thought hit me to saute the zucchini in the Makoto sauce!

  First, I cut the zucchini into long thin strips and diced 2 Vidalia onions. I'm not sure how much I ended up with, but it was a lot for just 2 people. Then I tossed them in a large bowl with kosher salt, black pepper and the ginger dressing (probably 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of dressing). I let the veggies marinade in the ginger dressing for appx 30 minutes before cooking.

I cooked the veggies in a wok with a little bit of EVOO on medium-high heat. It took about 10 minutes to get the zucchini tender. I added a little bit of corn starch at the end to thicken the sauce up.



The zucchini and onions turned out a lot better than I was expecting them too and I am looking forward to getting home and finishing them off! :)

Rainy Days

This rainy Sunday could not be anymore welcomed by the McCary household. Drew and I have been so lazy today AND I am between classes this weekend so I did not have any homework to do! Mama whipped up her famous international medley of food and peach cobbler for lunch! Other than that this day has been rather unproductive. As of 8pm we have already calculated over 3.5 inches of rain and man oh man did we need it.

We laid around most of the day...

..and played in the puddles when it cleared up for a few minutes.

Daddy's pond is FULL - fuller than I can ever remember it being.

Water running out of the field and onto the road.

"You mean to tell me that you let me play in the mud only because you were planning to give me a bath??!"

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Saturday was my sweet mother's birthday! We went out to eat as a family to Country Boy's in celebration and it was fantastic but a little on the spicy side for me. I won't say how old she turned; we can let the candles do the speakin'. ;)

Busy, busy, busy...

I have not had time to update this blog in a couple of weeks, sorry! I have been extremely busy with work and school (which has been anything but fun!). Here are some of the highlights from the past couple of weeks:

11. Save the Lake 5k. I walked it with Caroline, Kathryn and my sister-in-law Kristin and her sweet baby West. It was a good time and we got a t-shirt out of the deal!

22. Spring Thaw at the river.. This was my first Spring Thaw experience and from what everyone said it was very mild in comparison to past years. We just went for the afternoon and left before it got dark.

33. Drew and I have been reliving days of the past and have been taking advantage of cooler evenings by riding dirt roads! We can get from our house to Justin & Kim’s new house without having to get off a dirt road –that is nice!

4. Me, Deb, Kim and Parker went to Tampa last weekend for my cousin’s graduation. Although I forgot to take pictures of the graduate himself but I did get a picture of Parker in his adorable frog jon-jon.

We went to the Hard Rock Casino; here is a picture of Kim and my Uncle Wayne playing digital blackjack:

  

5. Advanced Strategic Management. This class ends on Friday and I still have 2 papers to write! eeekk - I guess I will get back to it..... :(

Low Carb Stir Fry

Drew and I are both fans of Asian cuisine so I decided to cook low carb stir fry last week. Drew ate his over rice which looked pretty appetizing! My favorite part of stir fry is the vegetables so I always prepare more veggies than meat.

I used: sliced carrots, broccoli florets, sliced bell peppers, sliced onions, bean sprouts and whole snow peas.

We purchased the pre-sliced steak strips available in the meat section of most grocery stores, appx 1 pound.

I added all if the veggies to the wok (medium-high heat) with a little bit of evoo and 2 tablespoons of water and cooked until they were almost completely tender, stirring often.  Then I added the steak strips and let everything cook for about 3 minutes (meat will cook quickly). At this point I reduced the heat added the stir fry sauce and stirred constantly for 2-3 minutes until it thickened up and coated all of the vegetables completely.

Sauce: 3 tablespoons of chicken broth
1.5 tablespoons of soy sauce
3-4 packets of splenda
1 teaspoon of corn starch.
stir all ingredients together until corn starch is dissolved before adding to wok.
This made about 4 servings. Enjoy!

Misc Mountain Stuff

Here are a few of the highlights from our trip to Gatlinburg! 


We went to the aquarium and we were both pleasantly surprised at how nice it was given that it is so far away from an ocean (much better than the one in San Francisco). They even had a penguin display area! AND it was basically deserted = awesome! 

This was the best part about the aquarium - the underwater tunnel was great! notice the saw fish sleeping on the top and that there are no other people in the tunnel; literally a ghost town!

Drew and I were mesmerized by this fella.

Penguin - sleeping against the glass on their enclosure. 

Sleeping on the job. 

We went to Dollywood on the 1st day - SO EXPENSIVE!  Not sure that I would go back again, however, she open Dollywood's Splash Country next door to the main park and that looked pretty promising! ;)

We ate dinner at the Hard Rock Restaurant on our last night in Gatlinburg, I had bruchetta and a side salad and Drew had a massive cheeseburger and onion rings ...mmmmhh. 

We also rented go karts at a track in Pigeon Forge and rode this bad-boy. Good idea at the time, it was so rough and bumpy I had to go back to the room, take a swig of pepto and lay down... ooh how times have changed!

Smoky Mountains National Park

Our inner nature enthusiast came out in full-force while we were in Gatlinburg. We spent a lot of time exploring the park especially because one of the entry gates was about a tenth of a mile from our hotel. The first day we hiked 5 miles to Rainbow Falls (we were ill prepared; no water or snacks and we had the wrong shoes). Here are some pictures from the first day of hiking:

This was about  a mile into the hike.

The second day we spent a couple of hours in the car riding around the park (looking for bears). We did not see any bears but we saw several beautiful rivers and streams.

The last day we decided that we were going to get up early in the morning and go hiking on the Grotto Falls trail which is only 3 miles round trip. After driving less than a mile into the park we saw a black bear crossing in front of us! It was neat to see although I was expecting it to be much larger than it actually was. After seeing the bear I was pretty much freaked out about hiking. Drew coerced me into going anyway so I spent the next 30 minutes constantly looking behind us making sure a bear was not charging us. About a 1/5 of a mile from the top we come across a fresh pile of bear poop. Game over. I was not going any further and we made it back to the car in record time.



Gatlinburg

Drew and I went to the Smoky Mountains this past week/end, we had a lot of fun getting away for a few days with one another (this was only the 2^nd trip we have taken without family or friends joining us – the 1^st trip being our honeymoon). This was my first trip to the mountains so after doing a little bit of research we decided to stay at the Park Vista hotel in Gatlinburg. We left Wednesday evening after work and stayed the night in Spartanburg, SC and got up early the next morning and drove to Sevierville, TN to go to Dollywood. The weather was beautiful the entire time we were in Tennessee. We learned (several interesting facts) through observation about the Tennessee/Gatlinburg area an it’s inhabitants:


1.       The Gatlinburg area attractions are relatively expensive, but there is a lot to do and see. I think it would be a great place to visit with young children.
2.       May is a good time to visit if you have the Fennell-Syndrome (i.e., don’t like people or crowds). We never had to wait in lines or wait to be seated at restaurants! YES!
3.       Tennessee men have no qualms about wearing tank tops or cut-off t-shirts regardless of the occasion or weather.
4.       Tennessee people like their pancakes. It seemed like every other restaurant was a pancake establishment. (No complaints here!).
5.       Tennessee people have a distinct accent. Drew described it best: “it is a heavy southern accent with a hint of ‘I married my sister’ in the mix.”
6.       Normal waiters were far and few between.


Here are some pictures from the hotel:

This one just came off their website (I forgot to take a picture of the outside).

Hotel room - we were on the 11th floor.

This was the view from our balcony.

Weekend/Pictures

This weekend was relatively slow for Drew and I (just how I like it!). We had Scott, Laurie, Justin & Kim over on Saturday to tryout the outdoor kitchen; entertainment provided by Parker. The weather was nice and the gnats were surprisingly tame. Sunday evening Drew's parents and brother Ben & sister-in-law Kristin came over for dinner. We cooked-out again and I got to practice my photography skills on my nephew West for his 9-month-old pictures. Here are a few:

*Special thanks to Kim for the chalk art!

Pesto Chicken

We tried a new chicken dish last night that I saw on Food Network. It is called pesto chicken and it was  delicious and really simple to make. This recipe is being added to the 'will have to make again' list. The only complain I had would be the difficulty of finding pre-made pesto sauce at my local grocery stores (and by local I mean Waynesboro and Louisville). I did however find it in the refrigerated section at Costco in Augusta for only a few dollars.


Ingredients: 

• 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts halves
• 1/3 cup refrigerated Pesto with Basil
• 3 plum tomatoes, sliced
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Line baking sheet with heavy-duty foil.2. Place chicken and pesto in medium bowl; toss to coat. Place chicken on prepared baking sheet.3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink in center. (I covered the chicken with tinfoil for the first 10 minutes).  Remove from oven; top with tomatoes and cheese. Bake for an additional 3 to 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.                

 

If the breasts would have been thinner this would have made a delicious panini!

*picture quality is not-so-great; I need to learn to stop using my cell phone camera!