never thought i'd give it a try...

yesterday, doug and i snuck away for a while and headed to the Ohio State Fair, sans kids. after being there just about 30 minutes, i remembered why i haven't been to the fair since i was a teenager. ewwwwwwwww.


the smell. the heat. the mobs of people. the overwhelming auditory processing necessary to hear the person next to you talking. seeing rude at a whole new level. gahhhhh! needless to say we didn't stay long.

even though it wasn't completely enjoyable, it was still fun to be away from the kids for a while with my husband. his presence makes it fun. :)

we did enjoy perusing through the Youth Center where we found a really cool Lego train display. i can't even imagine how many hours it took to construct something like this.


after leaving the Youth Center we got trapped in the midst of a parade going through the fair. so bizarre. as if the maze of people wasn't enough to dart through.
we found a gap in the parade and darted through to head to the Creative Arts Center where i oogled over all the fine art entries, scrapbooking entries and cakes. i was just gobsmacked at this cake. every single thing you see on there is edible. unbelievable! i could have stared at it and soaked in the details for hours.

after leaving there, i thought about getting my favorite....

but the flies.........oh my heck, the flies! the apples weren't wrapped up, just out in the open and the thought just grossed me out, so i passed.

then we headed back to the indoor Marketplace building where we found chocolate covered bacon. but even my bacon loving man couldn't stomach the thought of it. seriously? do people really love this stuff? we never did find the deep fried butter.


i was enamored with the colorful candies. i took this picture for Spidergirl. her and i had just watched an episode of Unwrapped where they visited the WhirlyPop factory and taught viewers how they were made.

after the Marketplace we walked the midway a little further and then decided to get the heck out of there.

on the way out we sprung for a lemonade refill and then decided to be adventurous and see what all the hype is about deep-fried candy bars. they've been around long enough and neither of us had ever tried one.

but what really intrigued us was the thought of eating a deep-fried buckeye. never heard of it before and it actually sounded kinda tasty.


for my friends not familiar, a buckeye is a tree nut, but also a very popular candy made to resemble them with a peanut butter confection center, dipped in chocolate. they taste somewhat like a reese's peanut butter cup, just heavier on the peanut butter filling and much more creamy. and they look like this....


but at the fair, they batter-dip them, then deep fry them and serve them up with a drizzle of Hershey's syrup and a shake of confectioners sugar. sounds tasty, in theory.

but.........while standing in line to order, and going back and forth a half dozen times over what to try, we settled on trying the deep fried Milky Way bar. other options were a deep-fried Twinkie, Snicker's bar, PB & J sandwich, Oreos and more.


the verdict?


GROSS, gross, GROSS, gross, GROSS!!!!!! ewwwwwww. just thinking about it now makes me want to wretch. ick!

we were expecting the fried outer layer to be crispy, especially after waiting 10 minutes for the thing to fry. it was nothing of the sort. instead it was just a soft, gooey, disgusting mess. SO gross.

have any of you ever tried a deep-fried candy bar? did you like it? it's okay if you do, we can still be friends. :)

we ended our date night on a yummy note with Chipotle! yummmmmo.

hot diggity!

i got the news yesterday that tonight, it's just me and this guy. :)

livin' it up while the girlies are having a sleepover! we have the entire night to do whatever we want.

noooo flippin' way! really? yes, way!!! you have no idea how rare of an occasion this is. so rare, in fact, that the options for what to do are endless.


suggestions have been....
A. get take out chinese and watch a movies at home.
B. go to a karaoke bar.
C. have dinner at a restaurant we don't get to often.
D. grill out steaks at home.
E. catch a flick at the theater.
F. visit Hayden Falls
G. go to Homestead Park

what to do......what to do. hmmmmm.

option A sounds fabulous because i can get chinese without having to pick out all my baby corn and share it with the girls AND we can watch two movies in the time it normally takes to watch one. trying to watch a movie with two needy children in the house is like trying to pull a lions teeth, ya know.

option B sounds adventurous only because 1. i've never been to a karaoke bar 2. i don't sing 3. bars in columbus are smoke-free 4. i'm all for adventure and doug isn't afraid to sing.

option C. that restaurant would be Carraba's.......or Don Pablos. oh yum, delicious. my mouth is watering already thinking about it. but we're on a small budget and we want to take the kids to an amusement park soon. this probably really isn't an option.

which leads us to option D. just the mention of steak makes his mouth water. nothing beats a nice thick juicy steak in his book. me? meh. i had my fill of steak as a kid. another story. another day. but this is the front runner at the moment. maybe mixed with a movie at home.

option E is quite feasible. Date Night is what he'd like us to see.

option F & G...the weather has kinda squelched those options.

i honestly don't care what we do, as long as it doesn't involve fish. i'm easy like that. :)

adios, don pablos.

it's a sad, sad day in the willis household. so very sad.

last night, together--the 4 of us, had our very last meal at don pablos. *sniff, sniff*. the rumor had it for some time....starting clear back to august....that the ownership would be changing very soon. well very soon stretched into 5 months. then suddenly without warning, our favorite family- date-night-place-to-eat-out had an empty parking lot and a sign on it's doors "closed indefinitely due to economic crisis."

we were devestated.

for all we knew that was the last known establishment by it's name in our area, as the one downtown had already changed ownership and the others we were told also closed for business. even a phone call to the only one we thought was open ended up ringing to a residence. anywho. finally, last night, we found one location.............the one that's 30 miles from us, was in fact still open. and seeing how i had a gift card from Christmas we didn't think twice about going.

it was a party in my tummy! mmmmmmmmmm.

i practically lived off of chips & salsa and praire fire bean dip when i was pregnant with ashlyn. working just a few miles from one of their locations was dangerous to my pocketbook. i still swear they sprinkle some magic seasoning on everything that just makes you thirst for more. it was that good people.


we used to have a weekly date there, every wednesday. why wednesday? well, wednesday was 1/2 price fajita day. and when eating out barely fits in the budget, 1/2 price is good! so there we went on wednesdays. always ordering drinks and 2 child's quesos, 1 order of chicken fajitas, with double-rice instead of refried beans, and lately adding in an ala carte beef enchildada for doug.

the weekly dates to don pablos became more like monthly dates when i went back to working outside the home last year. sometimes even longer than that.


the kids had the games on the menu's memorized, but they were always just as thrilled as the last time to have something to occupy their time until the food arrived. often they would get a dough ball from the tortilla station to play with much like playdoh. other times they'd just make silly masks from the tortillas themselves.


ashlyn came up with her own concotions of a "hita", first dabbing some special sauce (sour cream) on her tortilla, then adding rice, queso, pieces of chicken and crunched up chips. emma, she pretty much just eats cheese. lots and lots of cheese.


it's hard to keep that girl in her seat long enough to finish her meal before she gets all antsy to throw fistfuls of pennies in the fountain, squeezing her eyes tight, saying "i wish, i wish....(pause)". i don't even know what she wishes for actually.


have i mentioned that we've been going to don pablos since before ashlyn was born? lots and lots and lots of memories were made at this place. lots of baskets of chips devoured. and even more bowls of salsa polished off.


and the brandy butter sauce on the sopapillas............mmmmmmmmmmmm. my thighs thank you don pablos. but you'll surely be missed.

may you always hold a special place in our hearts.

Cirque du Soleil

Corteo, which means "cortege" in Italian, is a joyous procession, a festive parade imagined by a clown. The show brings together the passion of the actor with the grace and power of the acrobat to plunge the audience into a theatrical world of fun, comedy and spontaneity situated in a mysterious space between heaven and earth.

The clown pictures his own funeral taking place in a carnival atmosphere, watched over by quietly caring angels. Juxtaposing the large with the small, the ridiculous with the tragic and the magic of perfection with the charm of imperfection, the show highlights the strength and fragility of the clown, as well as his wisdom and kindness, to illustrate the portion of humanity that is within each of us. The music, by turns lyrical and playful, carries Corteo through a timeless celebration in which illusion teases reality.

earlier this year doug suprised me with tickets to a Cirque du Soleil show, Corteo!
and we went last night---on a date, with no children! (thanks miss suzi!)

for as long as i can remember i've been fascinated by the whole theatrical acrobatics of these shows. i've watched many of the behind the scenes clips on tv over the past 10 years----never in a million years did i think i'd be sitting just 4 rows from center stage, perfect distance, to watch the most spectacular show i've ever seen in my life. every bit of it was amazing. i think i sat there almost the entire time with my jaw dropped, mouth wide-open in totaly awe of what i was seeing take place in front of me.

totally magical.
every second of it.

if you ever have the chance to go to a show, definitely do NOT pass it by.