Wholefood Store Experience

  When in the right spot at the right time we check out Wholefoods! Wholefoods is a not just a grocery store.  It's an experience.  Wholefoods offers a huge variety of food from organic fruits and vegetables to products without artificial dyes and preservatives but, it doesn't end there.  They have grass fed beef in the meat department.  Plus there's even a restaurant to grab a meal before or after your shop! The pizza looked amazing but so did the salad bar!  A beautiful bounty of fresh cakes, donuts, bagels and cookies got my son making birthday cake demands.

  When we walked in we came in by the product area and my son loved looking at the fruit and vegetables and telling me the prices (everyday is a learning experience).  There were a lot of things I have never cooked with but, have seen mentioned before.

The Jack fruit had our attention.  I had never seen this before.  A nice customer told us a bit about it.  She said you can use it as a meat substitute!!! We looked at a piece sliced open and I guess the store sells some BBQ that you wouldn't even know was made from this! 

Little man loves honey so he asked to make a bottle of honey!

He also likes peanut butter and thought we needed some fresh peanut butter!

I tried to deter him to some crunchy, healthy snacks. 

We stopped and checked out our senses on the soaps and scrubs! We agree that Orange Vanilla Scrub was the best!

Momma likes the smell of coffee even if it's not a hot cup of Joe!

To finish off our tour we ended with a treat!

This was our first introduction to these little ice cream balls!

There were a variety of flavors from traditional chocolate and strawberry to mango and pistachio.  At least 9 flavors to reach everyones taste buds.

We didn't know what we were getting into so we choose just 2! 

We choose chocolate (his) and I got the pistachio!

The outside has a soft dough consistency and then you have a ball of ice cream in the center.  The rice dough wrapper was a little chewy but it blended into the flavors nicely.

We had a nice time and I can't wait to explore Wholefoods again pickup some Jack fruit and see what else we can try!

Have you been to Wholefoods?  Have you heard of or ever eaten Jack fruit?

Healthy Strawberry Ice Cream

  I made a healthy ice cream to go with the cake I was presented with for Mother's Day!  Making your own healthy ice cream is really easy.  The one real ingredient you need for ice cream is frozen bananas.

  So with my base of just frozen bananas I added a few strawberries in the food processor and chopped them together a few mini chocolate chips and in was done!

  I scooped it onto the cake plates and everyone liked it.  (Except the boy who doesn't like strawberries)  You know what else drives me up the wall is the surprise that it's actually good.  I'm personally offended with, "wow this is good!"

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms! 

Cookie Time

  Everyone has a weakness.  Mine just happens to be all things dessert.  Dessert is the reason I work out (worked out still nursing that foot).  Dessert in my opinion is what makes the world go round.   What are two dessert that you can make together to make something even better?

  Ice cream and cookies! I made a delicious ice cream cookie and saved myself the cookie baking and took my ice cream to a higher level by making it healthy.

  I choose to make banana ice cream.  It's something I have done before and everyone here enjoys it.  This time we added peanut butter and vanilla.

  Throw your bananas into the food processor.

  Look what happens when you blend frozen bananas.  It turns into a delicious, creamy ice cream! 

Enter cookie to compliment the ice cream.  I choose a Biscoff cookie.  I received them in my #JingleVoxBox free from +Influenster 

These cookies came in a package as a pair.  That makes a great sandwich for my ice cream cookie.  They have a nice cinnamon flavor and nice crisp crunch to go with it.  The perfect combination of sweet and crunch.  Hmm, how convenient.

Don't mind that crack.  It's driving me up the wall but, I will tell you that it didn't compromise the taste at all.

This coffee biscuit has now just been promoted to a dessert with a healthy twist!

Recipe:

2 bananas frozen

Splash of vanilla extract

2 tablespoons peanut butter

2 Biscoff cookies

Put everything in a food processor and blend together.  Smear a nice dallop of ice cream onto one cookie.  Place the other cookie side on top of the icecream covered cookie and place in freezer.  Freeze until ice cream solidifies.  Enjoy!

  I was provided this product for free for testing and review purposes.  All opinions stated are solely my own.

Camping

  A few weeks ago my family went camping.  We choose a Jellystone theme camping resort.

 I had went to them as a child and we have previously took the kids to one before.  It's an all around good time for families.  The whole environment is centered around family and fun.

  For this camp ground we drove a few hours away.  To Natural Bridge area we went on the other side of Virginia. Nothing like getting the whole camping experience with a drive and nothing but mountains and wilderness around you.  I took note of how flat the area is that we come from and appreciated the views we saw on the way.

  We pitched our tent quickly as my husband had arranged a tube ride for a child and myself.  He thought I would do better with my youngest daughter so off we went.  On a 4 mile tube ride down the James River that took me 3 hours roped to my daughters tube.  On our adventure we had catergory 1 rapids (that was enough), turtles, birds, ducks, geese and bugs.  Those were what I was lucky enough to see.  Let's not discuss what was in the water unnoticeable.

I didn't take my phone for pictures for fear It would get dropped, lost or wet.  So the only pictures I have are of when my husband went the next day with the other girls.  I managed to stay dry and noone flipped but I did sustain an injury at the end of the ride when I was trying to get out.  This was not my favorite thing to do but can not mark it off my bucket list for sure.

  We spent our days being the classic camper.  We made a campfire.  Roasted  hamburgers and hotdogs.  Even made some popcorn.

 The kids jumped on the bouncing pillow,

swam in the pool.  They had crafts daily, and of course meet and greet with the infamous bears.

 The adults were not ignored this week we were provided with a bluegrass band, BBQ cookoff and an ice cream social along with the kids!

    Everyone had a great time and we actually can't wait to go again.  Nothing bad to say about this campground.  All the staff that we ran into over the weekend we're very friendly and helpful to us.  Speaking to us or the children.  Inquiring if we were enjoying ourselves and directing us to any upcoming activities.  What little areas of trouble we had were quickly fixed.

Thank you Yogi, Boo Boo, Cindy and staff we will see you guys again!  Thank you for helping us create some great memories.

Check out this campground here:http://www.campnbr.com/