Rest of the Trip

     Hey! So, I had every good intention of writing every day while I was on vacation. I figured it would be a perfect time to get stuff done since I didn't have to worry about working or laundry, but there was just so much to do on vacation that it just didn't get done. So here is our trip. (:

Day Two was pretty boring. well boring meaning relaxing. We laid around the hotel room all morning. (Ate our free hot breakfast WAFFLES! at the hotel.) Then for lunch we headed over to Bob Evans Restaurant right by our hotel.  Zach and Nick were at the hotel at 5:30 with plans for supper and to show us the town.
    For supper we went to Hibachi Grill, which is really similar to Hu-Hot, but it has a buffet as well. I tried Sushi for the first time.. well.. a Nibbble.. Not really that great. Then we drove around and saw Cincinnati. We went to the mall and then came back to the hotel to sit around and talk. Nothing to exciting, but we did spend a good amount of time in the Jacuzzi in our room. (: I WANT ONE!d


DAY THREE!

    We ate our waffles and cereal and then laid around the hotel room. Then we went swimming in the hotel for a great workout and then I tried the fitness room. Hotel gyms are my least favorite place to work out. (EVER!)

    After a while we got out, and went to shower and get ready. We decided to go to the Newport Aquarium. It was totally worth the ticket price. It was filled with fish, jellyfish, sharks, otters, penguins, sting rays, crocodiles, alligators, frogs, birds, snakes, turtles, and crabs. It was very worth it.
There are plenty of pictures to share.

I shall call him squishy.

Sean and I with the Sharkies! (:

Sean TICKLING a shark!

I honestly don't know what it is, but it's cool.

Happy Feet! (:

The Sharks were my favorite.

Sean called this thing Fat. How Rude!

Holy Cow I'm Short.

Bottom of Frog

Sting Ray. 

It's SMILING (:

Sean had a staring contest with this one. 

Sea Turtle Sayin' Hi. 

Me with the Jelly Fish! (:

I remember when Beatrice had the
Candy Bin my mom and I would go
get these every once in a while.
So I had to get some (:

Soooo. After the aquarium we went around the corner to the candy store. 

LOOK AT THE CANDY!

This was the view from beside the aquarium. It was way more breathtaking in person than the picture.

But HOW COOL!
Why don't we have this in Beatrice!! *Pouting face here*

     Well, when we got back to the hotel we got ready and laid around for a little bit. Tonight is the whole reason I wanted to come out here. I was getting my tattoo. Sean was getting a tattoo. and my brothers were going with.
        If you are thinking about getting a foot tattoo.. think again. My entire leg was shaking uncontrollably the entire time he had the needle to my foot.

    Mine is to the left. Sean's is to the right. We both love our tattoos and they turned out really cool.


After getting our tattoos, we went to Quaker's Steak and Lube. I guess there are a few of them in the country, but we got all you can eat wings for $14.99. We got Ranch, Mild, BBQ, and Asian. They were soooo good!


After we ate we went back to the hotel and we slept. We were up and on the road by 8 am and finally got home at around 9:30 last night. We ate Walmart Subs and Wendy's on the way home.


On a twelve hour road trip, I experienced a lot of new things that I haven't had the opportunity to experience before. It was really cool to get to experience them.

Here they are:

Eating Sushi
Eating Jack In the Box
Eating Bob Evans
Seeing the Arch
12 Hour Road Trip
Being in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky
Touching a Crab
Getting a Tattoo
Sleeping in a King Sized Bed


We ended up spending 100 dollars less than what we budgeted.

Item                   Budgeted        Spent

Gas                         300             294
Hotel                      300             268
Food                       175             198
Misc.                      150               65

                               925               825  

We were over on food, but way under on misc. So I think we did really great on our spending. It was a really great trip and we had a ton of fun, but glad to be back in the house.

Ohio Trip, Day One.

     Now, Sean and I are on vacation.. But I thought I would tell you how everything is going. Day by Day I am going to try to fill in the details of my first vacation without my parents.. EEK!.
   
Day One.
   We were up at 2 am. We had a lot more to do than we thought we did before we left. This morning we had to finish packing up the car with our clothing and some of the other food. We finally were filling up on gas at 3 this morning and were on the road by 3:10.

   Once we hit the road, I was OUT! Sean was the best boyfriend ever because he drove almost the entire way today. I am so happy that I have him.
     We stopped at Iron Skillet in Oak Grove for breakfast at around 6:30 to stretch and drive. It wasn't great, but it wasn't awful. BACON! (can you believe I was a vegetarian for a year and a half! HOLY COW!)

      Then, after the GPS completely messed up the route we planned to take, we ended up in St. Louis. We decided that we would stop to see the Arch and even go to the top.

    To the left is a picture of the pods that you take up to the top. Can you believe that FIVE people
fit in that pod! UGH!
       It was so cool. There was someone who had written "Marry Me?" in the snow and took their other half up to the top to see it. That was pretty cool. It was GORGEOUS and so worth the detour.

      Here are some awesome pictures from the top! I love the picture of the lake. The shadow of the arch is visible in the picture. As a wanna be photographer, I thought it was awesome.


<<< Picture number one together! (: at 630 feet above ground!



      As we were walking away from the arch there was a statue standing there with a Christian flag. I kept looking at it, but I couldn't quite figure it out because he just looked odd. Finally. Sean said  "If he waves back, I would crap my pants." and waved at it and as Sean was turning around, I was like, "Baby.. It waved..." I was so freaked out. I didn't know what to do or say. I just started giggling like a little girl because I was so freaked out.

The roads leading up to the arch looked soo cool. They were brick, but Sean thought that they were granite carved out into bricks because they were too hard to be brick.

   We ended up going to Jack in the Box for lunch in a small town right by the arch because we were hungry and we had never eaten there. It wasn't great, but we were full and back on the road. After that the only stops were for gas, water, and potty breaks. We arrived at the hotel at 8 pm because of the detours.  We didn't end up going to Lincoln's tomb or the Indianapolis Speedway, because of the detour.
     When we got there we ordered pizza to our room and unloaded our stuff from the car. We spent some time relaxing in the Jacuzzi (in our room!) and then we crashed! We were both out so fast. It was a long day, but it was so worth it. I am excited for the days in the trip ahead..

Going on a Road Trip

    So we are packing up the car on Saturday and leaving sunday, at "Zero Dark Thirty" as most of my military cadre would say. We are leaving before the sun so we can get on the road and get to our lovely destination. Cincinnati, Ohio.

     It seems the worst part about leaving is getting everything organized. We already booked our hotel and that stuff. But packing clothes, food, electronics, and all of that stuff just seems to be the biggest pain of going on vacation. I will admit tho. We are doing it smart and we are packing food and drinks so we don't have to stop at a gas station for snackage. (Gas stations are often 2x the price that you will find at walmart)
      The week before I will spend time trying to find car games, entertainment for the  hour car 11 ride, food ideas, and packing lists so we can easily get out of here and not drive each other crazy. 11 hours is LONG time to spend in a car, but it is about 500 dollars cheaper than flying.


Snacks! I EAT in the car, mostly because I am bored, but road trips make me hungry.

This is my plan for food. I want to try to stay on the healthier side of things. I don't want a TON of calories added because I get bored in the car.






Snacks:

Cereal Trail Mix (Fruit Loops, Cheerios, M&Ms, Pretzel Sticks, , and butterscotch chips)
Nuts [Which were bought and cracked ourselves]
Dried Fruit (Bought Produce, Dried myself.)
Raisins
Shelled Peanuts (For when we have a salty craving)
String Cheese
Cracker and easy cheese
Beef Jerky (Splurge)
Chocolate Donuts (For in the morning, on the road)


I will probably end up throwing what is left of our apples, oranges, and bananas from last weeks grocery shopping in the cooler so they don't go bad while we are gone.

Meals:
I am going to pack a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a thing of lunch meat to go with us on our trip. Although we do plan to stop somewhere for breakfast so we can stretch since nothing will be open other than food that early in the morning.

Drinks:
    Sean WILL not and CAN not go without his diet coke, but gas station pop is SOO expensive. I plan to buy a 2 liter of pop and stick it in the cooler. We are gonna buy two little water bottles that will fit into the cup holders. That way he can refill without having to stop. Me, I'll probably just fill my water bottle up at a water fountain when we do stop. I'm not really a pop drinker.


Entertainment:
   Now, we have downloaded music for the car ride and I have made the playlist. Talking in the car is fine, but you can only say so much between Beatrice and Cincinnati. Now, a lot of these are little kid games, but adults can have fun with them too.

Licenses Plate Game- Try to find a plate from each state. Print out a US map and color each state as you find it. Then write where you are when you see it.

Who Can find It?- Someone says something totally random, nothing in site (ie a yellow jeep, a red ford truck) Then you look for it. The person to find that item it "it" and they name something else.


People with Kids:
If you are crossing multiple state lines (or multiple hours), have little bags ready, each containing a small snack, a book,  and a new toy. At the stateline, or hour mark, the kid gets a new bag. This keeps them from burning out on what they brought in the first hours of the trip.

Use Tackle boxes to pack serving size snacks, but tell them that this is all they get for the car ride, so they better make it last. This helps kids not over eat and parents see what they like. It can contain anything from chocolate chips, dried fruit, a cookie (oreos), animal crackers, fruit snacks or string cheese.)

Tourists:
  I personally love being a tourist because I LOVE my camera. I can honestly say that is where my creativity started. Either way, I hope to take many pictures. I would LOVE to take some pictures with Sean, because I'm pretty sure we have two pictures of us together. So that is my goal for the trip. I plan to bring my tripod and lots of batteries/ memory card! I am looking forward to this.

Planned stops:
I am a planning freak. So I want to know where we are stopping and what will be there. I have spent time planning to stop about every 2 hours. Kind of having an idea if there are any cool tourist stuff around there, and as much as I don't like it. A lot of it will probably be Oh! look at that sign. Let's go. I don't want to spend a ton of time out of the car, but 11 hours is a long way to just drive.
So we shall take turns picking a couple places, since we will be going near Indianapolis, Sean wants to stop by the race track for pictures. I can't wait to create my scrap book for this trip!

Touristing:
Lincoln's Tomb?  15 Minutes out of the way
Indianapolis Speedway
Local Resturants in these places.

All of these ideas were gathered from pinterest and other blogs or from what my parents used to do when we went on the road. These are our plans for our road trip, (even though by the time I post this I am already in our hotel room.)

Workout From Home

      There are definitely days that I just don't want to get all the way dressed just to go to the gym. Some days I would rather just stay in my shorts and workout from my bedroom/living room. Especially on the days like this week with snow on the ground and it being so cold outside.
     Because I am in the military, I attempt to do SOMETHING physical everyday. Plus I would really love to get to my goal weight! I'm pretty close, but not quite there.

     These are some of my favorite online workouts that I have found through pinterest mostly. A lot of them are quick and easy target workouts and most take no more than 10 minutes.

    This is my rating scale for workouts: 

• 1- It was easy, fast, and I kind of felt it, 
• 2- It was fast, but I was feeling it where I should, and felt it the next day.
• 3- It took a little more time, but it was worth it!
• 4- It was a full work out, but not the most challenging thing I've done
• 5- It was a full work out and it was worth every second.

Legs:

This is such a great leg/butt workout. I have done it a few times and you can really feel it half way thru it. I would recommend doing this as a warm up before a run or some cardio even. I would up the reps or do the entire workout 2x a day (morning and night) to see results. It is good because it works every muscle in your legs with 5 or 6 quick exercises.
I would rate this a 1. I felt it in my legs, but it didn't leave me sore or stiff.
http://backonpointe.tumblr.com/post/24907237515


Abs:
This workout is intense. Even one round of this would be a good start to getting your abs back to where you want them to be after a huge meal. I like this because it keeps it varied. There are no boring crunches and you aren't just laying on the floor. I hate floor workouts because it is so easy to just lay down and stop for a while instead of keeping the intensity up.
I would rate this a 1 if you are only doing one round, but a 3 if you are doing 3 or 4 rounds like the video suggests.
http://blondeponytail.com/2012/07/gnc-summer-series-ab-attack/

This is a standing ab workout. I haven't actually done this one yet, but it is 10 minutes and it looks really good. It is multiple exercises and the video talks you thru it.
I would rate this a 3 based on watching just the video. It is a little longer, but it is worth the time because it is multiple exercises and the best part. NO CRUNCHES! and NO FLOOR WORKOUTS!
/http://toriteachesfitness.com/2012/06/03/standing-abs/



Full Body Workout:
This 4 minute workout is suppose to burn as many calories as a 40-60 minute run. While I personally have doubts that it is THAT great. The workout is good for 4 minutes. It left me winded, but not sore and tired. I would probably do it a couple times a day to burn a sufficient amount of calories. It does get your heart rate up and it is good for the days when you don't have a ton of time to workout but you still want to get your heart rate up..
I would rate this a 2. It was super short, but I was actually feeling it the next day.
http://eatright-staybright.tumblr.com/post/7188718242/worlds-fastest-workout-burns-as-many



      I also enjoy my wii fit or rough housing with my dog for just something. There are also really great zumba videos on youtube that are good for a quick workout. While this is all said, I still LOVE going to the gym. I am a big fan of the Y to go swimming. Just the other day Sean and I swam back and forth in the pool for an hour and fifteen minutes! Crazy! But I also love racquetball and shooting hoops with the occasional weight session! But I am going stir crazy to just get outside and run. These are just a few things that are worth checking out. Good Luck and Have Fun!

QC&H #1: Hamburger Casserole

   Okay, so weekends are always a little crazy, but this one has definitely been up there with the craziest! Last night Sean and I got home and we were STARVING! We had been at work all day and went to his brother's gonna be house. (Long story) Anyway. I was helping Josh fix and clean up until around 8 and Sean was easily there until almost 9. Well when I got home I was definitely not in the mood to cook, and knowing that drill is two weeks away and I need to start watching weight to get to were I needed to be, I was not set out on eating out again.
       I went into our kitchen and tried to come up with something. I decided to make the low carb version of our Hamburger Casserole that Sean and I have made a couple times. We try to rotate our recipes pretty frequently and we are always looking for more, but this is a go to recipe when we are out of ideas.

     It's pretty good and it was about 220 calories per serving. I ate an apple and an orange with it. so my supper calories were right at about 300 last night (Which is typically what a meal should be and not a whole lot more.

      Sorry, I was so tired last night that I forgot to take pictures of each step. I thought I had taken a lot more pictures than I did until I went to upload them and realized I had taken the uploaded one and one of a tomato. I failed on that. Sorry!!
Here is the greatness:


Ingredients:
1 lb of hamburger
1 whole pickle (I think I only used 3/4)
1 whole tomato
Diced onion
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tbsp mustard
6 slices of cheese

First brown the hamburger. Drain. 

While you are doing this you should dice up the tomato, pickle, and onion into small bits. There is about the sizes I used, but that is up to the cook.

When the hamburger is browned add the pickle, tomato and onion to the hamburger and let it mix together in the pan. I usually stir it around for about 5 minutes..

Then I add the mixture into a casserole dish. I add the ketchup and mustard into the dish and stir it well, trying to evenly coat it the hamburger. (Last night was the first time I did it this way and it turned our really good)

Then smooth it out and add the cheese slices to the top of it. Bake it at 350 degrees for 5 minutes to melt the cheese. 

Simple meal in about 20 minutes. 

You can also add crescent rolls to the top of the casserole and make it even more like a cheeseburger, but that adds up the calories and the carbs. (But it is still very good)

I know one of my friends is always looking for recipes that are quick, easy, cheap, and good for a person who can burn macaroni. (: That's my goal is to find recipes that don't cost too much, are still healthy, and don't take a million hours and a lot of know how to make them.

Here is recipe number one of a series of Quick, Cheap and Healthy!    

Here is the cost of this meal:

1 lb Hamburger:
 (We buy in rolls of ten @ 2.49/lb.)      

 = 2.49

Jar of pickles:
     Kept in the fridge for a low cal snack(Probably cost around
        2 Bucks a jar for 6(about) pickles)

  =.33

Tomato:
   I believe they were priced matched this time around

=.99

Ketchup and mustard were kept in the fridge. 

       For what you use ( Just a guess on it.)

=.25

Kraft singles

   @1.99 for 16

     For 6 of them

=.75

4.81 For the entire dish and it serves 6. That makes it at just about .80 per serving. Now. I know that you may not have everything in the house (pickles, ketchup, mustard) so it will be a little more than that. 4.81 is a heck of a lot less than eating fast food. 

Lets use McDonald's (Just because I know the prices and I want to prove my point about fast food.) 

The price of our lowest meal, the number 6, is 3.84 after tax. That is 7.68 for both of you.

(assuming you are feeding you and one other person like I am.) But it is hardly ever ordered. 

Our highest priced meal, Angus meals, is 6.20 after tax. That would be 12.20 for two.

That averages at 9.94 (7.68+12.20 /2) 

So even if you did have to by pickles at 2 bucks and I know you can get a bottle of ketchup for 1 dollar.

That still only puts you at 7.81 for this entire meal. You will save $2.13 and you will have leftovers unless you are feeding more than 2. 

So there you go. This is why eating at home saves money. Thanks for reading through all of the math (which is probably over doing it and for the rest of the series I will just post the prices of each item and the total meal and per serving) I just wanted to show how it worked.