Restaurant Nora

So because we heard that my farmer supplied bunny wabbits and baby cows to Nora's we decided to go there. My mom has always wanted to try it and when you are only paying for yourself a fancy restaurant isn't so bad...right? It is right in the heart of DC and after dinner it was fun to drive around and hear my mom's stories of living there as a girl.

Restaurant Nora is:

Our appetizer was amazing, it was flatbread with free range steak and greens and parmesan, mmm, I wish it had been bigger. Which was definitely a running theme throughout the dinner.

My mom got the scallops, yes that is 3 scallops which equals $10/scallop. Gulp.



Remember these guys? I did too and I couldn't resist ordering a couple bites of them! Literally only a couple.

Yum! This veal was so good. Because it was more mobile than non organic veal it wasn't as tender, but I've never had veal before so I didn't know the difference. It was delish and it was on a bed of mashed cauliflower, so yum. I was so excited that we had seen the veal the day before so I showed the waitress the pictures of the cows. I'm sure she was thrilled with my story, but she was getting like a $30 tip so she smiled and nodded like a good girl.

Chocolatey goodness. Such a great meal, thanks for a fun time mom!

Stolzfus Farm

In July we took a day trip to Lancaster County Pa. This is a traditional trip for my family, and this time we decided to stop by my farmer's house to get a tour and visit with his family.

Here are his Dutch Belted cows that he sells to this restaurant (we also get milk/cheese etc from the same adult cows that is amazing) Usually the cows are pastured but since these are sold as veal they are kept in the barn.

This is a one week old bunny (and cute Simeon) that they umm...also sell to the same restaurant :(

This is Alvin Jr. He was so cute and just loved showing us around.

These are their baby turkey's that we'll be eating in a few months! We had one last year and it was so yummy. They keep them in this warmer shed until they are big enough to go outside.

This was the family dog nursing her pups. I have never seen a dog actually nursing so I had to document.

Yes the Amish do have trampolines!

They also go swimming in their own pond! (not pictured here are about 8 other young Amish girls in swim suits that Simeon and Alvin were spying on!)

These are the cousins of the Stolzfus' who live just down the road...I couldn't resist, they are so sweet!

I know I have said this before but I love the Amish people! I get to chat with David and Miriam (who are the son and daughter) when they deliver the food every month and they are just so interesting to talk to and so happy to answer all of my questions about how different foods are made etc. It was really fun to see Miriam on her own turf. She is 17 and is so sweet, she was excited to show us around her farm and it was so nice to see where my food is coming from. When we got there they had just finished killing the chickens, I was a little disappointed but kinda glad because I think the kids may have been traumatized :)

The next stop was Roots Market. We had gone last year and I remember it being really fun but this year we sort of saw it for what it was. A glorified swap meet. As evidenced by the following pictures.

Sweet 300 sharpies for $1!!

Oh wait, those are Skerples.

Nevermind, here is another pack of authentic Sharpie Markers for $1.

Dang! Wrong again, these are those blasted Shoupie Markers.

OK, these are really the actual Sharpies and good thing, b/c $1 is a great price for 10 markers.

Dag nabbit, I guess we're outta luck.

Yes there are Amish vendors there but they sell fruit that is sprayed 3x a week and there wasn't one organic or at least unsprayed vendor. There were even people selling Dole stuff, like they went to Costco and brought it to the farmers market...very strange. But they do have an auction and its always cool to see the auctioneer at work.

They also had the best hand dipped ice cream which usually means they scoop it out of the bucket by hand, but this one was actually homemade by a local Amish family, we asked so its gotta be totally true.

Either way you can't beat the prices and it was seriously good and the kids dip was like a double adult size, huge!

E, Hyrum and Nee Nee

The next stop was Hershey's chocolate world. They have a free tour that takes you through the chocolate making process. I have been coming here for so many years and E loves it. But not L, he was pretty freaked out.

"Woo hoo, I get a job working with Chocolate!!"

"Its in a factory? Crap."

"This job sucks, no foolin"

Rats

While Nee Nee and I were in Lexington Va. this summer we stopped in little ice cream shop to get some very good ice cream. While there we saw this candy:

Yum a Pet rat! Hmmm...I don't know, it seems like it would be unhealthy to eat a giant candy rat.

But never fear, this candy rat contains 100% of my daily vitamin C. Excellent, I'll take 2 please.

Nature Center

There are a few beautiful nature centers in Va. I can't remember the name of this one but it is right next to one that we used to go to as kids called Zachary Taylor Park. There is just a creek and some woods, but for city kids its great.

E found the perfect Ariel rock on which to do an Ariel pose.

Here she is being coached by Nee Nee, future fashion poser/photographer (you will see more of Miss Nee Nee's great work in a post to come)

And here is the great Miss Nee Nee...isn't she a beauty?

Photo Shoot

Photos of E taken by the talented Miss Nee Nee. E was of course an all too willing subject. Both of my kids are total hams....just like their dad. haha.

Date Night

Can and I had a date night at the Temple and here tonight.(not a huge fan of the empanadas but the avocado salad was yum and the platanos were grreat and very generous. I decided that hispanic food is my soul food. Rice and beans with a piece of fried "cow meat with crust" too bad I'm a meat snob or my belly really would have been really happy tonight)

It is so nice to go to the temple and refocus and remeber why we do the day to day. Its so easy to get distracted by life. What a beautiful and serene place it is, we are blessed to live so close.

Camping

E was dying to go camping one day so of course I promised "sure sure, yeah we'll go camping in the backyard tomorrow, mm hmm"

So when tomorrow came I had to deliver or feel like a piece. Luckily the tent was pretty easy to set up, we only asked Hyrum for help once.

Successful!

My parents have a very hard deck so we pulled in the queen sized air mattress, you must camp in style. Of course it had approximately 8 holes and you couldn't close the door with it in but we made the best of it and watched Bolt for about 30 min. Well actually more like 1 hour if you count all the times we had to restart it because of the faulty wiring on the DVD player and with all of the jostling because of the quickly deflating air mattress, it was a lot of times.

4th of July

The 4th of July at my house growing up was about 2 things. Fireworks and crabs. Every year my family has a crab feast, and we definitely feast! Although it is pretty hard to get full on crab. Usually I say uncle when my fingers are bleeding from all the cracking and picking. But it is worth it!

This is my pile, I'm very proud of the fact that I ate 13 crabs...go me!

L liked the fireworks at first, but then he decided he was very nervous!

So he hid inside for the rest of the show :)

This is the only picture that I snagged of E the whole day, she isn't so much into crabs.