Apple Crisp

I've got a sweet tooth like no other. And finding a recipe that is easy peasy to make delights my sweet tooth. I've made this apple crisp recipe several times and it really IS easy to make! The hardest part is peeling and slicing the apples.

I used 4 medium sized granny smith apples

Once all the apples are sliced I'm very generous with the cinammon and add more than the 1 tsp. the recipe calls for. The apples are covered with water.

I modify the crumble recipe and used 1/2 white sugar and 1/2 brown sugar.

Once the crumble is on sprinkled on top, it cooks in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

And voila!

No whipped cream or ice cream necessary. This recipe is delicious straight out of the oven!

Wax On

Last Sunday the hub and I ventured out to Hollywood to check out Madame Tussaud's. And like Legally Blonde, we got discount tickets from Goldstar. Half off! Woo hoo! We had a blast checking out the wax figures. It wasn't too busy so we had lots of opportunities to take fun and silly pictures with the celebrities. The hub especially enjoyed himself. :-) Check out our photos:

It was fun playing tourist for a day!

LA County Fair

On Labor Day, the hub and I decided to venture out to the LA county fair. We usually don't go opening weekend because of the crowds but with the entire weekend being $1 admission before 1 pm we couldn't resist. The fair is the fair. It's pretty much the same stuff every year but a must for us every summer, well usually me 'cuz I love the fair and the hub is great at indulging me. :-) And the best part of the fair is FAIR FOOD! We mostly looked though as opposed to ate. After our lunch we weren't really hungry anymore.

One of our traditions is to ride on one of the gondolas that takes you from one end of the fair to another. The hub is usually scared sh!itless every year and I am too but this is one of our must do's every year.


So much food at the fair. Some of the fair food that was being offered was deep fried white castle burgers, deep fried s'mores, deep fried frog legs, and zuchini weenis.


Chocolate covered bacon is supposed to be one of the newer fair foods. I wanted to give it a try but the hub convinced me not to.


We are pretty tame with our fair food choices and opted for some good 'ol barbecue. And as usual at the fair pretty pricey. All this cost us $26!



We also caught a few shows from the Peking Acrobats...


To the extreme canines stunt show....


And Splash Dogs!

I also love walking around the shopping place, to cool off after walking around in the heat, but to see the new products out there. And we've been going to the fair for so long we're starting to recognize the same demonstrators year after year. All in all, a fun day and we'll be there again next year!

A Musical Saturday

Last Saturday we had the opportunity to enjoy two musical events. Up first was Legally Blonde. I'd been wanting to see this show ever since I found out it was coming to The Pantages Theater. But with tickets costing nearly $100 a piece I wasn't sure I wanted to shell out that much dough for tickets both for the hub and I. But thanks to discount tickets from Goldstar we were able to purchase 2 tickets for nearly the price of one. And to top it off we were given pretty decent seats. Orchestra right of center row U. Not too shabby for discount tickets. Thanks Goldstar! The staff at the Pantages are on top of it when it comes to the no photography rule. But we were able to sneak in a few pics, as crappy as they are.


I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Is it sad that I know the movie so well I picked up on all the slight differences between the movie and the musical? I wish I had purchased the CD when I was there but will definitely have to pick it up later. "omigod omigod you guys...."

The second part of our musical day was attending a live show with Lindsey Harper performing at the Red, White, and Bluezz Jazz Club in Pasadena. But the primary reason for us attending this show was the hub taking photos of Lindsey's performance. We decided to make a night of it. Enjoy some dinner, some wine, listen to some good music, all while the hub took photos. Lindsey has a beautiful soulful voice and we enjoyed her performance. So much we purchased her album and I've been listening to her music ever since. You can listen to some of her music here.

Here are some of the photos the hub took of her performance


It was a great Saturday and a great start to the 3-day weekend!

Labor Day Weekend

It was WONDERFUL having 3 days off this weekend. We were originally planning on going out of town but decided to stay in-town instead. Nonetheless we had a great weekend and got do to several fun things. Still uploading pictures but hope to share soon!

School on my mind

Since high school I've known exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I am practicing in that profession currently. How I decided on my profession is a whole other blog post. With my chosen profession I knew that my education would require more than an undergraduate degree. I was fortunate to get accepted into graduate school right after college and obtained my master's degree 2 1/2 years later. I was happy to get all my schooling done with as I knew that if I ended up working after college it would be hard to find the motivation to return to graduate school later on. So doing what I've been doing for 8 years now it's been on my mind to possibly go back to school to get my doctorate. Since I already have my master's in my field, I could easily enroll in a doctorate program that is mostly done on-line with a few class meetings on campus. I could still work full-time but would need to find the motivation to get back into "school mode". Getting a doctorate degree wouldn't give me any more money but would definitely enhance my clinical knowledge in areas that weren't covered in my post-graduate program. And with more and more new graduates entering my field with doctorates it wold be nice to be on the same level playing field (at least in terms of degree). Plus having a doctorate helps my field in getting the increased autonomy it needs.

But going back to school would be at least a 1 1/2 year - 2 year commitment (one class taken at a time). With the hubby and I planning on try to have a kid in the near future, I can't imagine being pregnant and having a baby and working and trying to accomplish school at once. And being the age that I am I don't want to postpone kids until after school. I am definitely getting up there in age and starting to rot (is what my mother would tell you).

For now, it's a continued dilemma...