Yo what… YONANA

I wish I could say that I am getting paid some massive amount of money for this post but unfortunately I am getting paid nothing.

Well except getting paid in delicious love.

The latest and greatest new kitchen gadget in my life is called the YONANA. Never heard of the Yoanna? You are Yo-Nuts. But you can check out the website here for a video on what the Yonana is all about.

My review of the Yonana is pretty simple. It’s amazing. I will say that it is not AS easy at the video makes it seem on the website… I have to put some series pressure on that little thing to push the banana through the end of the tube but my muscles have no problem with this. If a little muscle produces a delicious and healthy treat at the end of the day I think that’s a big win.

Essentially all you do is freeze fruit. Yes, life can be that simple. They say for at least 24 hours and I think we have been able to refrain from pulling the bananas out early at this point and time but I would highly doubt that will last forever. So we take VERY ripe bananas (the riper the better- maybe the grocery store will give you a discount?), peel them, break in half and stick them in a freezer bag. Let them freeze and then pull them out and shove in the YONANA machine.

Then, like some serious Harry Potter magic this comes out.

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And if you are feeling adventurous and want to add a little chocolate in your fresh BANANA ONLY ice cream go right ahead.. the YONANA can handle it.

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Or you need a little more protein in your diet? Sure, add some peanut butter on top of that ice cream that is really just a frozen banana that came out of a magical machine.

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So thus far we have tried bananas (like a lot), strawberries, and mangos. My recommendation (and what they recommend on the instructions I hadn’t read prior to attempting this) is to leave the strawberries out for a few minutes before you put in YONANA otherwise they come out more like sorbet(ish) and less like ice cream. And although not ALL recipes call for bananas I think bananas really give it that creamy consistency that you see so while it’s not a hard rule I would try to use bananas as often as you can.

Definitely one of our favorite gifts from our wedding showers over the past weekend! Deliciously awesome.

Enjoy!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (and shop)!

Feels like this blog is becoming more about traveling than anything else? Well that’s my life right now so enjoy!

So as you know from last week I had a great stay at the Hilton in Lisle, IL. Well the good food and company stayed strong through the workday on Friday where I had another AWESOME sushi meal with Christine from work! Luckily I wasn’t the only one eating it this time, so it wasn’t assumed it was for 3 people but gosh we got A LOT of food!

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and yep, that boat is in the shape of a fish which I’m not certain whether it made me feel better or worse about what I was eating.  You were once a fantastic swimmer and now you are going into my belly. Poor fishies. In any case we were very hungry girls and dug right in!

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And as awesome as that looks that doesn’t even begin to describe the amazing weekend I had in Chicago! Since Dana and Tim were off at Josh’s bachelor party for the weekend Kara and I decided we needed a serious girls weekend! So Kara arrived in Chicago around 4ish on Friday afternoon and we got started right away! After making the journey from the airport to the hotel downtown by train which meant carrying our very very heavy luggage up and down some serious steps we checked out the map and headed to Millennium Park to check out THE BEAN!

I  have been to Chicago a dozen times and for whatever reason I had never checked out the bean. I have seen some pretty cool pictures of other people at the bean and I knew it was an experience I wanted to have.

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It was AWESOME!

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Yep, Kara instagrammed (is this a verb?) us at the bean! So cool! And on a complete side note we walked by literally the BIGGEST FREAKING WALGREENS IN THE WORLD (well there was no sign on the door that said that but I’m going with that being a true statement for now- until proven wrong). This “drug store” had a wine store inside, self serve frozen yogurt (could you just see me everyday.. “Tim, hunny I am headed to the drug store again” AKA I am about to go stuff my face with more fro-yo because I have an unhealthy obsession with it. It had a deli inside and pretty much anything you could imagine! It was literally insane. I can’t wait to go back.

So we made our way back from the bean and decided to just randomly pick a dinner place. Well thanks to Rich’s recommendation we went straight for some serious Chicago deep dish pizza. Kara and I are both pizza lovers so I had no doubt this was going to be one hell of a meal but it proved me wrong. This was THE BEST FREAKING PIZZA ever! STUFFED and I mean STUFFED with goodness this thing was well worth the 45 minutes wait we endured.

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And they didn’t just do pizza well, they did bruschetta well. Who knew that was even possible? Who knew that a pizza place was going for the record to have the highest bruschetta tower ever? Well I can tell you who knows now- Kara and I do!

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So where did this magic happen at you didn’t ask but I am telling you anyway ask? Giordano’s. Delicious “famous stuffed pizza”. The history of this delicious pizza dates back all the way to the 1960’s which you can read about on their website. The pizza was even good cold- which Kara and I found out the next day when we were starving after a long day of shopping. Everything about this experience was good including the beers we had! The service was great even though the placed was packed wall to wall with customers.

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We were exhausted from all of that travel so after stuffing our faces we headed back to the hotel to get some good sleep in before our day on Michigan Ave! We were fortunate enough that a few of my friends, Erin (who got engaged not too long ago) and Audrey meet up with us and they were fantastic shoppers and tour guides! We walked everywhere- up and down and all over and well… this goes without saying by looking at the photo below but I think it’s safe to say I didn’t do too bad.

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My trip ended up looking like this

  • 2 pairs of colored denim from Zara (mint color and coral)
  • 2 headbands from LuLuLemon (so cute!)
  • A pink/coral colored blazer from Nordstrom Rack
  • A floppy hat and belt from H&M
  • A honeymoon dress from Forever 21

Success at its finest!

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Yea pretty pump to display how these outfits look on after I figure out what the hell to wear with them haha! The floppy hat was a big win- Tim really thought so when he picked me up and I was wearing it!

So after the long day of shopping and the delicious cold pizza we had for a later lunch we made some reservations at Weber Grill for dinner. I’m really glad we made those reservations (thank you Open Table for making my life easier) because it was PACKED and people were waiting well over an hour to get a table. We waited about 10 minutes. People hated us. Next time they will make a reservation though.

The food smelled SO GOOD but before we could even think about food we needed some juice. So we got a pitcher of Sangria. For 2 people. An entire pitcher. And we drank it all.

No regrets here.

Kara got this delicious looking stake and mashed potatoes which I can say with certainty because I tasted them that they were SO GOOD!

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And she was certainly one hot date- so I was honored to be there with her!

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I had a delicious hamburger topped with onions and cheese and everything else that could possibly clog my insides up. Oh and French fries. Which rumor has it stay in your system for 30 days. If that is true- they still taste great to me!

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I also enjoyed the Sangria… all 4 glasses of it!

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And in case you are wondering or because you are reading and for some reason paying attention to what I write, I had Katniss hair that day. If you didn’t already know I LOVE the Hunger Games and I think Katniss has the prettiest hair ever. So Kara played with mine a bit to make me a very impressive braided bun… check out this hair. Truly a Hunger Games hair-do.

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After dinner we headed to the bar which was a ton of fun. Especially since we saw a TON of bachelor and bachelorette parties going on. There were some seriously large blow up items that were being carried around and poked into people. Eventually we realized that we were just too old for that late night craziness and got to bed before 1am!

The next morning we were determine to pack in fun before we had to head out to the airport! We decided that the Wendella River Boat Tour would be the best way to spend the very hot 90 degree morning in Chicago. It was awesome! For over an hour we got to be on the lake and learned about serious history about Chicago. The tour guide, a local girl trying to make it as an actress was AMAZING. She had every single thing memorized. I was so impressed. The funniest thing I remember was when she showed up where the big fire in Chicago started years ago and when she said “and Chicago has a sense of humor because that is where we train our firefighters”.

That’s some sense of humor alright Chicago.

There were some serious breath taking views that the captain of the boat lined us up for..

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And Kara and I were just relaxing and enjoy the ride!

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Although let’s be honest… we wanted a good seat on the boat so we ended up kicking a few people out of the front on “accident” by not leaving them enough space. Too bad… these Ohio girls know how to get what they want!

Seriously though I recommend this tour to ANYONE. Even if you have lived in Chicago for a while trust me- there is more to learn! It was the perfect start to our day!

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Those are some mad instagram skills brought to you by Kara!

And before we headed ot the airport (and made a very quick stop at Navy Pier) we did what every girl should do…

WE HAD FROZEN YOGURT! UGH I love Fro-Yo

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I got some pistachio (my new favorite) and some key lime! I topped mine with some cheesecake bites, a few yogurt covered raisons, and some heath bar! Kara got some pistachio too but got a lot more chocolate goodness and fudge than I did! It was delicious- I had a taste!

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After sweating in the sun, but loving it, we hauled our very heavy suitcases up some stairs and over some bridges until we finally made it to the airport!

It was a FABULOUS trip!

I can’t wait to see where our next girls weekend will take us!

 

Lyrics to my soul and food in my belly

Or at least to my vocal cords.

I am a H.U.G.E. fan of singing in the car. I do it on the way to work, on the way home from work, on the way to the grocery store that is 2 minutes away. I am always a huge fan of eating something I just purchased on the car ride home from the grocery store (another one of Tim’s pet peeves- that’s two in a row). Usually it is something like a container of blueberries- sometimes those poor things never even make it into the house but other times I’ll get myself a treat like some animal cookies crackers. In any case I sing in the car. I eat too. The point here is that I sing.

Right now, I am OBSESSED with the song “What makes you beautiful” by One Direction. First off, there is a great message to the song that is really all about confidence but not being full of yourself and how sometimes the girl that doesn’t always try to stand out is the most beautiful one in the room. While I have come to love the lyrics it was really the sick beat that that made my feet wanna move that captured my love. Yep. I said “sick” beat and I’m not even ashamed.

I was a little ashamed when I played this song for my mom’s friend and client Kim who then told me it was her girl’s favorite song at that moment as well. They are significantly younger than I am- like elementary school and middle school but honestly I think it just goes to show how cool those kids are- not how weird I am.

So here is my current play-list to sing to in the car (not all work-out appropriate, most of the songs I mentioned last time we talked music still apply with some additions)

  1. What Makes you Beautiful- One Direction
  2. Drive By- Train
  3. TTYLXOX- Bella Thorn (yes from Disney channel- download it now you won’t be sorry)
  4. Words- Train
  5. Save Me, San Francisco- Train (so I have a new thing for Train I see)

And now I just realized for the first time that I sing 5 songs in the car on repeat for 30 minutes on my way to work. That’s only a few of them repeating – that’s not too bad right?

Well I may be a little pathetic but that is no reason to let you all down so I just found out that Fitness Magazine has a pretty extensive play list on their website with the 100 best workout songs. But then I read the reviews and well they sucked so it seemed like a waste of time to go through them all- feel free though haha! So I still go back to my running list quite frequently but my car list seems to vary. My car list has songs that have some potential of me sounding less like a dead bird and more like a beautiful hummingbird (or a MOCKINGJAY if you are a Hunger Games fan) while my running list doesn’t not ever need to be sung because I am usually far too out of breath to mumble anything.

As I mentioned a few post ago my food has been well less than impressive. To someone that loves sugar and doesn’t mind gaining an extra few pounds it has been fabulous. But for someone that is getting married in a little over 4 months, would like to lose a little bit, and start running more, well it was depressing. BUT I am getting back on track and trying to make some healthier but satisfying choices (which is so freaking hard sometimes)!

But my sister is great about finding recipes that are healthier versions of food you would love to eat and she passed along this recipe for a hamburger quesadilla similar to the one that Applebees serves. Well I couldn’t really make it to the recipe because apparently it is extremely difficult to find pico de gallo in anything that resembles a grocery store so I justh made up my own version.

Pretty simply. We grilled 2 fairly large burgers and while those were cookies we put one large tortillas in a pan with oil to warm it up. Then I put the cheese, onions, and peppers on the tortilla (just half of it) and melted it all together. I slapped the burgers on top the cheesy goodness and folded the tortilla over. Cooked it on each side for a few minutes and VOILA. Delicious. Served with corn and rice on the side.

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What I was most surprised by was how well this heated up for lunch the next day! The tortilla wasn’t crunchy but it was really tasty still!

My breakfast I have been either drinking a smoothie with strawberries, almond coconut milk, bananas, and fat free yogurt or just throwing a bunch of berries in a to-go container and eating it when I get to the office! I may very well get all of my fruit servings in one sitting. A spoonful of natural peanut butter makes the medicine go down (you heard that here first so if it becomes famous- I’ll find you)

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I also made artichokes for the first time! Maybe I should embarrassed to say this but I had to call my sister to find out how the heck to cook these things! Turns out that she is an artichoke genius AND that they are easy if you have a steamer! I chopped off the nasty part of the and and put them in the steamer for about 20 minutes since they were baby ones. After I got them cooked I wondered how to eat them but I remembered seeing my sister eat them once and she just pretty much took all the tastyness off the leaf with her teeth and swallowed. So I followed that method and I REALLY enjoyed them! I’ll be making them again soon (because I enjoy them and because I have more in the fridge). I served them with some carrot, rice, and peas steam bag and some tilapia!

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We also made one killer breakfast this weekend since Rose was there visiting! Usually we end up having cinnamon rolls but since I knew our dear friends would be getting in late and chances weren’t great we would have had too much um milk to drink and be feeling sick the next morning we went for the ultimate breakfast! French toast topped with berries and whipped cream. Oh and an egg on the side for added protein. Oh and the bacon. Yea we had bacon too. Waffle House and Ihop don’t even compare to the Laney/Stiller household breakfast!

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But no food post would be complete without some mention of SUSHI! My favorite food of course! So last week I took a quick trip to Cincinatti with 2 co-workers and when we got in we just wanted to find a casual but delicious Sushi place and Ross (who loves Sushi like I do) had done his HW and had the name of a place not too far from our hotel. It was called Budina Pan Asian. It was more like a Panera where you order your food at the counter and then go take your seat. It looked a little sketchy not gonna lie but I’ll tell you what… hands down (and Allison agreed) the best Won Ton Soup I have never had! And I eat sushi a lot which means I eat that soup a lot. It was just normal soup but the flavor in that little cup was really impressive. I actually wish I would have had more!

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We certainly didn’t hesitate to order a variety of items! The rolls ranged from the normal Rainbow roll to the spicy rolls to some we had never heard of but sounded delicious! And since we all agreed that the best part of PF Changs is the lettuce wraps we decided to try an order of those too!

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The wraps were pretty much no where near comparison to PF Changs but it is hard to replicate pure perfection. It was really good though- no complaints from me!

I need a recipe for lettuce wraps.. ANYONE?!

Then after Sushi (my favorite food) we drove 10 minutes to find my favorite dessert… ladies and gentleman that’s right.. FRO-YO!

As I’m sure I have mentioned before I typically feel like I am cheating on Menchies when I hit up a few Fro-Yo place but there was no Menchies in site so we tried Orange Leaf and well I loved it!

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First off, their décor was really cute! They had these orange swivel chairs that you could tell the kids loved. They had a bunch of flavors and toppings and had a squeeze bottle of marshmallow topping which I happily used. Honestly, I wish I could even remember what I got right now haha. I believe it was peanut butter, cookies and cream, and twist. With ; my usual candy toppings!

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I was in L.O.V.E.

Additionally, sometimes I like to take advantage of the fact that I write a blog and even though I don’t have thousands of followers it makes me feel better to announce fun and happy news that happens to my friends. So special shout out to Erin and Mike who recently got engaged! This is now the second set of amazing friends that got engaged- special congrats to Jency and Mike (not the same Mike in case you were wondering) and we just couldn’t be happier for our friends! They are all seriously amazing people who I am so grateful for! They deserve the best and they all deserve each other because well… they are the best! So to my newly engaged friends… CONGRATULATIONS on the internet. I think it’s a big deal!

;

What foods are you obsessed with?

What is your favorite flavor of Fro-Yo… I promise to try it!

;

Disney has a serious competitor

Sometimes I forget the definition on busy until it literally attacks me and bites me in the neck to suck out all of my blood (yea so what I have a think for vampires!). Anyway that is exactly what this Saturday did. I woke up early on Saturday to get ready to head out to co-host my friend Kara’s wedding shower. Up at 8am to pack up the car and make sure the check list I had made the night before got completed…

  • Pack buffalo chicken dip
  • Get sherbet out of freezer
  • Pack make-up
  • Pack outfit
  • Fill out card/gift card for gift
  • Pack curling iron

Luckily that was about the end of my list because I had done so much the night before. I was out the door at 9 with wet hair and comfy clothes to go set up for the special parrrtay. When I got the Kara’s mom’s house there wasn’t too much to be done. The girls are awesome and had been working hard the night before so it was really more cleaning up and getting things out and less of oh my gosh what the hell do we still need kind of set up. The party was a ton of fun and it was so nice to see Kara get all of those cool presents the couple gets at a shower and see how excited she was to  have so many friends and family there to celebrate in her happiness. Kara is this amazing person who has this unique way of truly showing you how much she appreciates having you in her life. It is unique because she doesn’t have to send cards or hug you 100 times but the look in her eyes when she just says “thank you- you made this special for me” truly let’s you know that she means it. I really enjoy doing things for her because her friendship means so much to me so hopefully this shower was just a small way of me saying “I love you and appreciate you right back!”

Me and my bestest at her shower!

We had a variety of foods to eat the shower and I did some picking throughout the party. My favorite items were

  • My own buffalo chicken dip of course
  • Meatballs
  • Stuffed mushrooms
  • Veggies
  • Mini Cheesecakes

Those were probably the items I had trouble staying out of but I tried my best not to go too crazy! We played some fun games at the shower including a quiz about Kara and Dana which her friend Robin from college won! I was in charge of the prizes for games so as you can imagine they were pretty sweet options haha. They included bottles of wine, candles, and gift certificates to Starbucks. I think the wine disappeared the fastest! The other game we played was that famous make a wedding dress out of toilet paper game and it was so fun! I was helping organize so I got to just walk around and check out all of the dresses and I was honestly so amazed at how awesome they all were. Some of them were like legit wedding dresses… maybe I should recruit those girls to make a dress for me! In the end Kara and Dana decided on the winner and Kara’s grandma and her team came out on top!

Kara and Dana enjoying some gifts!

So overall it was just such a fun time to be with Kara, her family, her friends, and the rest of the girls in the wedding party! Now, I am just really looking forward to the actual wedding day!

Saturday Afternoon/Evening

Our dates for the evening!

After the shower I came home and passed out (no, not from the vampire sucking out all of the blood) but from pure exhaustion. Tim was nice enough to wake me up a half hour later to tell me to get ready for our night out with Casey and Mark. We were headed intoAkronfor the Hamburger Fest going on. I am not really sure how to describe this event other than to day Holy Hamburger. It was pretty much a blocked off street that had an enormous amount of vendors set up to feed the very hungry and interested people ofAkron. There were SOO many choices very similar to the Feast of the Assumption we just went to a few weekends ago except this was HAMBURGERS which happens to be one of my favorite things to eat! So anyway we went to the burger fest and did some walking around before we decided on what we wanted.

YAY for Burger Fest

First, we decided on wine. Well Casey and I decided on wine and the boys decided on beer. So I got a Moscato and Casey got a Pinot Grigio. Usually I am a red wine drinker but it was pretty warm outside so I had no interest in drinking a room temperature beverage.  The Moscato really hit the spot and was just what a needed for a refreshing sweet treat. Casey said it tasted too much like juice and not enough like wine but I thought it was pretty perfect for the mood I was in! After scoping out all of our options Tim and Mark both decided on a deep fried burger from Metro Burger and Casey and I got a giant burger from Menches Brothers. They use this “special sauce” that I was forced to try but guaranteed from the man at the grill that I would love it or he would give me my money back. So, since I had his promise, I went for the sauce and LOVED IT. It didn’t add quite the flavor I thought it might however I LOVE pickles and put a serious mound of them on my burger so I was glad to not have that flavor over powered by a sauce. It’s a good thing I am an honest perfect but I half considered eating the thing and going back to say nope didn’t like it to get another free one. But.. that would have made me dishonest and probably made me look like a fat kid so I decided against it. As if this picture doesn’t make me look like a fat kid right?

BIG Burger!

Our Matching Burgers!

After the burgers we agreed that the 4 of us would be crazy not to split a funnel cake so that is exactly what we did. Casey and I sent the boys to the dessert line and we went back for a few more cocktails =) The boys decided on a Reese Peanut Butter and Chocolate funnel cake with powdered sugar… sounds delicious right? Well take a look!

Try not to be jealous!

Yes- that thing was just as tasty as it looks. Since we all shared it we agreed it wasn’t that bad for us (we can pretty much always come up with a reason something is healthy for us). I am not sure how or why I have never had this wonderful masterpiece before but I haven’t. I was truly a virgin to the Reese funnel cake… but not anymore haha.

Needless to say it was really good

After the funnel cake Casey and I decided to get our photo taken with the Eat n Park man. I think he enjoyed having some adults like him because I had only seen little kids messing with him earlier in the night.

Smile Cookie Man

Then we made our way back to the wine haha to get our picture taken with the big Barefoot Wine Foot. I think this is my new favorite picture of us actually.

We Love Wine!

We ended the evening with a group picture so that we could remember what a great tasty evening it had been! Paul, Amanda, and a few of their friends came and sat with us for a bit to listen to the band play as well so it was fun to be with lots of friends! Plus, the band was a Jimmy Buffet tribute band and I don’t know if I have mentioned this or not before but Tim is OBSESSED with Jimmy Buffett. So this was like the highlight of the night for him… well besides the funnel cake.

Our Group Picture

The Jimmy Buffett Band that Tim loved!

Oh wait- I’m sorry- did you think that was the end of our evening. NOPE… the best part happened next. The 4 of us (Casey, Mark, Tim and I) decided to check out a new FROZEN YOGURT place near us. For those of you that follow you know I have been waiting for Menchies to open… waiting so much that I already signed up online for their rewards program. So we walked into Menchies and then the magic happened….

FRO-YO everywhere. We walked in and the girl that works there (the manager maybe) was SO friendly and gave us the run down of how everything works. You pick the type of frozen yogurt you want (sample whatever you like first) and there were probably like 20 flavors. You can add whatever flavors into the cup and then go to the topping bar. They have everything from fresh fruit cut up to cheesecake bites to gummy bears. I went with the Kiwi Strawberry Sorbet mixed with a little Mango Sorbet with kiwi chunks, strawberries, and raspberries and a few gummy bears for good luck. O M G. I think I will be going back to Menchies A LOT. Casey and I couldn’t get out of the store without taking a picture….

We love Fro-Yo

My Fro-Yo Cup

And even though it doesn’t look like it- Mark loved his Menchies.

Yummy!

Tim did too

Tim wants to go back... I hope!

Heck- even the spoon was adorable!

But the best picture of the evening and the one that sums out how wonderfully terrific Menchies really is (drum roll please)…

Yes so I don’t know how many of you live near a Menchies but find one on their site and then go there! SOOO delicious. I’m sure you will be hearing about a lot of Menchies trips on future posts. I can’t always see into the future but this time I know that will be happening!

Oh and one more thing… when you go to check out at Menchies or go to leave the store this is what the employees say to you “HAVE A SMILEY NIGHT”. If that doesn’t make you smile something is definitely wrong with you! So needless to say, for 25 years I have believed that Disney was the happiest place on earth… turns out I have a serious competitor right down the street from my house.