Weekend Love

What a great weekend....I'm still trying to recoop!  But once the week gets here the business just keeps on coming.  That's ok.  I'm prepared this week!  Bring it on!

Getting Lost in The Plains

On Saturday, after watching Tommy run an amazing race, The Busy Bryants headed to The Village of The Plains.  I won't lie...The Village of The Plains sounded like a horror movie title to me.  But as it turned out The Plains is nothing like a horror movie.  It's more like a Norman Rockwell painting.  Small, quant and seemingly stuck back in time this place was the perfect spot to stop and get lost.  And get lost we did.  But what do you expect when you walk into a corn maze?

The Corn Maze in The Plains has to be one of the very best mazes/pumpkin picking/children's play areas I've ever been to.  There was a small shop with goodies, lots of play stuff for the kids, a hay ride, pumpkins ready for the picking and a giant corn maze of course. 





 
Before heading into the maze there was a briefing....basically they told us that if we got lost they would see us tomorrow...haha.  Actually they gave each group or family a tall flag and said if we got lost and didn't want to keep walking around in circles to wave the flag and they would come get us.  There were six stations in the maze that would give us clues.  You had to answer a question at each station and if we answered right then we got pointed in the right direction.  We must have answered right  because we found our way out.  I didn't time how long it took but when we went in Emma was awake and walking.  By the time we walked out she was snoozing hard in our arms. 

The maze is located a little east of Manassas right off of I-66.  And this particular maze does moonlight maze hunts that seem pretty cool.  General admission was $9 for adults, $8 for 12 and under,  3 and under free.  The hayride, maze and all the play equipment (there was a lot for kids to play on) was included in the price.  There was a concession on site with hotdogs, hamburger, chips and drinks.  Over all I really enjoyed this place.  So if ever in The Plains during the end of September or October stop by. 

The Tree has a New Skirt

With the changing of the seasons and the new Halloween Tree I felt like I needed to change up the tree skirt.  I took the idea I used back at Easter time (info here) and made a special skirt dedicated to Halloween.  Take a vinyl tablecloth in the color/design you like, use old tree skirt as a pattern and make your cuts.  Voila! Place your new tree skirt around the tree....super easy!

Vinyl tablecloth

Old tree skirt for pattern



After my cuts



Around the tree.....that easy.



It looks a little distorded here but I pulled it out
to show off the skirt. 

Happy Halloween decorating folks :)

Monday Love

It's a rainy and cold Monday but the weekend was beautiful...and full of adventure.  A visit to Manassas Virginia and The Plains had us screaming our heads off and scratching our heads at the same time.

Nothing like a hundred or so kids running to bump up the excitement level



Plus a little visit to a big corn maze and pumpkin patch



And Emma trying out some
big girl socks




If anyone sees Mark in there...tell him to come home!


It was great weather for the outdoor parts of our weekend.  And the cold weather hit just in time to get inside with a cup of hot coffee and pumpkin scone from Starbucks :)  Life is good.  Happy Monday and start to another week.

Apricot Pork Chops

Last Sunday I tried something I've never done.  I made a load of food and stuck it in the freezer so that on busy days I could just pull it out, nuke it and serve it up.  I was a little worried about putting all that food in my freezer simply because I had never done it before on this large a scale and how would the food all taste once I thawed it and cooked it?  Last night I had my first of the "freezer" food....and I'm happy to say it was great!  I tried a new recipe, apricot pork chops, and have to say they were a hit.    Really simple recipe over all but since it takes an hour to cook I'm glad I did it my way.

The original recipe came from Allrecipes.com and can be found here.  I tweaked it a little to make more.

1 jar of apricot preserves
10 ounces of Russian Dressing
1 packet of dry onion soup mix
8 pork chops (mine were just standard bone-in pork chops)

Mix the preserves, dressing and dry onion soup mix.  Pour over, under and mix with the pork chops.  Bake at 350 degrees, uncovered, for an hour.  After baking if you want to freeze them: let them cool, put into a freezer container or bag and freeze.  I divided mine into 2 containers and split the sauce between the containers.  To serve for dinner I pulled one container out the night before and left it in the refrigerator and then microwaved it for 4 minutes before serving.   

I really didn't think I would enjoy anything covered in apricot preserves...but with the dressing and onion mix it makes a tangy sauce that it super yummy.  I do think that you could make at least 10 chops and have more than enough sauce since it really cooks well.  Plus I cooked once and made two main dishes.  I'm always in the market to make more in less time.




Apricot pork chops