When the kids and I road tripped to Washington DC nearly two years ago, as we were crossing into Delaware on the Delaware Memorial Bridge, I spied a giant statue of Mary on the side of the road. I didn’t know anything about it at the time, and we snapped the best picture we could from where we were.

When we were on our way to Baltimore two weeks ago, and I was going through the Roadside America app, the statue of Mary popped up as one of their roadside attractions along our route.

And this is when it came full circle.

And quickly got added to our list.

One, because it was pretty cool to check out, given how super-sized it is.

And two, because I knew our littlest road tripper would love it.

Case in point. When I told her last week that I had signed her up for a week of Bible Camp this summer, her response was “Oh that’s awesome! You know how I’m all about God!!”

And so it is.

Whether you’re religious or not, this statue of Mary is a pretty awesome sight. All around the statue are plaques with the stations of the cross.

Tucked in by Mary’s feet were some rosary beads that visitors had left, and a few notes asking for prayers. Although Catholics traditionally don’t offer up prayers directly to Mary, she is often seen as a go-between to her son.

The statue is made by sculptor Charles Parks, a Delaware native, who had made several others, including one that is just two feet smaller and currently in Santa Clara, California. While it looks like it might be solid stainless steel from a distance, it’s actually constructed from strips of stainless steel that are shaped and welded together, giving it an unusual but awesome textured appearance. It cost $500,000 to build and Parks and his assistant worked on it in various stages as the money was raised.

I think this picture is my favorite one.

It weighs 4.2 tons, and although we haven’t seen it at night ourselves, it’s said to be beautifully lit then as well.

 
With the kids in front of the statue, you can really appreciate just how massive Mary stands.

Holy Spirit Catholic Church
Halcyon Drive, New Castle, DE (New Castle exit)
302-658-1069

Tomorrow? A visit to a Delaware museum and the home of the world’s largest frying pan.
Wednesday? A new cookie recipe.
Thursday? Pre-School graduation!
Friday? Fifth grade graduation!

Coming next week? A full week of book reviews and summer reading program information!

So Friday night in my bed meant two dogs, two cats, and one horizontally sleeping five year old. Not to be outdone, Nick was on my floor. A third dog guarded the front door.

My youngest niece turned one last week.

The kids and I did our first transport this weekend. These two adorable pups made their way up from West Virginia (we took the last leg), and are now currently available for adoption and awaiting their furever home.

He is so good with his nieces, particularly the littlest ones. Sadie pretty much follows him around wherever he goes, and he spent a few hours playing peek-a-boo with Eloise, and trying to keep up with her. It’s so adorable to watch and totally warms my heart.

We have been waiting, waiting, waiting for our farmer’s market to open so we could stock up on full-sour pickles – today was the day!

The fresh garlic (on the right) smelled ah-mazing!

They spent pretty much all their time together giggling. Oh these two.

I can haz cupcake?

Took two of the dogs on a three mile run/walk with a friend this morning, great way to start the day and totally wore out the dogs for the rest of the afternoon.

Psst … just in case you missed it, I snuck in a Sunday afternoon post and it includes a giveaway for a $50 gift card to Wal-Mart – good luck!

Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned cooking with Country Crock? I finally did it. Broke down and used Country Crock for something besides spreading onto my warm toast (which it is still totally awesome for, btw).

I ended up going with a recipe straight from Country Crock themselves, namely their Cheddar Broccoli and Chicken Casserole. Broccoli is one of a handful of green vegetables that my kids clamor for. Nick will eat it raw with dip, and they both can’t get enough of it when it’s roasted. So when I saw this easy recipe combining broccoli with chicken and cheese (more kid-approved ingredients), I was in.

Especially since I happened to have all the ingredients on hand already.

And that it’s basically a two-pot dinner, thereby not destroying your kitchen terribly. And a casserole with cheese? Puh-leeze. It’s got my name written all over it. Comfort food, thy name is casserole.

So the verdict? Really good. Simple to make. And another great way to use Country Crock (which has a whopping 70% less saturated fat than butter!), thereby breaking me out of my just-spread-on-toast rut.

Thank you and amen.

The kind folks at Unilever would like to make it easy for YOU to try Country Crock and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter too! Comment below for your chance to win a $50 gift card to Wal-Mart!

PRIZE: One $50 gift card to Wal-Mart
TO ENTER: Leave a comment and share your favorite summer recipe
FOR MORE ENTRIES: Tweet this post. Or Pin this post and comment that you’ve done so. Or follow me on Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram, if you don’t already (and come back and tell me you do).
GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:59 pm EST
WINNER ANNOUNCED: In an upcoming post and via Twitter. If winner doesn’t respond with address info within 48 hours, a second winner will be chosen.
NUMBER OF WINNERS: One
FINE PRINT: The winner will be selected using random.org.

Cheddar Broccoli & Chicken Casserole
Recipe courtesy of Country Crock

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups 2% milk
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 Tbsp. Country Crock® Spread, divided
• 2 cups cut-up cooked chicken breast
• 4 cups vegetablessuch as broccoli florets and red bell peppers
• 2 1/4 cups finely shredded low fat cheddar cheese, divided
• 1 Tbsp. onion powder
• 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425°. Melt 2 tablespoons Country Crock® Spread in large nonstick skillet and saute broccoli and red bell pepper until crisp tender. Whisk milk and flour in large bowl. Add chicken, cooked vegetables, 2 cups cheese, and onion powder; toss to mix. Pour into 8-in. baking dish.
• Combine panko crumbs, remaining 1 tablespoon Spread and remaining 1/4 cup cheese in small cup. Sprinkle over top of casserole.
• Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until crumbs are golden and mixture is bubbly around edges.

*Recipe and pictures are courtesy of Country Crock. They have tons of other recipes – go on and find the perfect one to fit YOUR needs.

Cooking your favorite recipes using Unilever buttery spreads is a deliciously smart move. With 0g trans fats per serving, less saturated fat and fewer calories than butter, cholesterol-free spreads are a better option.

Visit itisgoodtoknow.com for more information and recipe ideas now!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Unilever.

I have a love/hate relationship with vacuums. Mostly because while I don’t give them a lot of thought, I am pretty picky about the kind I want. Which means that I can’t find one that really fits the bill exactly. So when Bissell offered to send me their CleanView Deluxe vacuum to test it out, you know I had to say yes.

Would it measure up to my needs?

My first test was putting it together. I hate reading instruction manuals, and would rather put it together intuitively. Sometimes that doesn’t work, of course, but I lucked out here. Within moments of unpacking the box, the vacuum was all assembled. Under seven minutes! I could easily figure out which piece went where (ok, with the exception of one brush attachment that Nick took care of), and there were only two screws needed tending to.

So we’re off to a good start.

Now, truth be told, I don’t do the vacuuming in our house. I leave that to Nick. So being the generous Mom that I am, I let him try out the vacuum first. Both of us agreed rather quickly on one thing – the suction is amazeballs. Way better than our current vacuum. Whether it was a little bit of dog fur or errant Cheerios underneath the couch, it was all sucked up in the blink of an eye. No more going over and over and over the area. Because, really, who’s got time for that? Or as Sweet Brown famously said “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Every since bagless vacuums hit the marketplace, that is the only kind I buy. Because it means it’s one less supply I need to buy and stock, and it makes it easy to empty out the dirt cup without all that dust and dirt flying everywhere from a bag that is collapsing mid-empty. And this Bissell vacuum is bagless.

More bonus points.

It is also pretty lightweight, which means I can carry it upstairs and downstairs without grunting or groaning. And it also means that the kids can easily use it too. And I’m all for more kid involvement when it comes to housecleaning.

extra effort on your part.

Years ago, we had a canister style vacuum cleaner that cost nearly $300. The thing weighed a ton, had a short hose, and it had a bag, which I think, in my very unscientific opinion, is worse for allergies and such. And honestly, it wasn’t even that powerful a vacuum.

So the fact that this Bissell CleanView is under $100? Crazy town.

I would buy it for its suction power alone. Because with two kids, two cats, and a dog, goodness knows the more power, the better. And because it sucks everything up in one pass, it saves me time.

And that, my friends, is golden.

*The kind folks at Bissell sent me this vacuum to review, good, bad, or indifferent. All the above opinions are totally my own – I wouldn’t have it any other way.

~Beware~ Upcoming picture overload. Just can’t help it.

Sometime last year, I was searching for day trip ideas (and, namely, to find places that we could drive to that had dolphins), and I happened upon a site that mentioned that you could hand feed the giraffe at the Maryland Zoo.

And I quickly made a note of that. (I have a note on my phone saved with “kids activities,” so I always have a running list of adventures we can partake in)

I loved the idea of hand feeding the giraffe, because that’s something that we can’t do at any of the zoos we’ve visited so far.

And then I found out you could also ride camels while there.

And groom the goats.

It was a veritable gold mine of bucket list items!

And then, a few months back, there was a Groupon for a Baltimore hotel.

And that’s when it all fell into place.

{more on the hotel coming later}

The zoo was our main purpose for visiting Baltimore.

That and the fact that none of us had ever been, making it a fun little weekend jaunt that wouldn’t break the bank.

The zoo is open from 10 to 4, and we pulled into the parking lot at 9:45 am, snagging a parking space in the very first row. The grounds are beautifully maintained, right down to the parking lot.

I do believe this is the second least expensive zoo we have visited to far, costing under $40 for the three of us to visit (no AAA discounts, by the way, but they do give military discounts).

There are two major sections to explore at the zoo, but we made a beeline for the giraffe area first, to make sure we didn’t run out of time. There is a free tram that will take you from the main gate to the African Journey section where the giraffes are.

The giraffes aren’t, of course, the only animals in that section, and once the tram dropped us off, we passed by vultures, a leopard, a cheetah, a warthog and more. At the giraffe feeding station, you can buy browse for $2 a piece to hand feed them. Because the zoo had just opened, there was no one in line, and it was perfect timing. And it also meant I could juggle two iPhones and a camera to capture the perfect pictures. I will tell you, though, that the giraffes eat the browse in the blink of an eye, so make sure you’re ready to take the picture. There were two giraffes there, both girls, one was in her mid-teens and the other was two years old.

Adorable.

Memorable.

Pure awesomeness, and definitely worth it.

If you look carefully, you can see its tongue outstretched all the way to the piece of browse that Nick is holding. Crazylong tongue.

Bucket list item: check.

Once we were done there, we checked out the rest of the animals in that section, and started slowly making our way over to the Wilderness section. Along the way, we stopped for the carousel ride and face painting.

Once in the Wilderness section, there were more animals to see, including bats, snakes, and turtles, but I was focused on one thing: getting to the zoo’s farmland area. Because there, we could groom goats.

And, you know, it’s not every day you get to groom goats.

A staff member lets you into the large pen where there are about 10 goats of varying colors and ages wandering around. There is a bucket filled with brushes and you can go to town. This was the kids’ second favorite part of the zoo, and they loved the direct access they had with the goats. Gorgeous coloring on so many of them.

Goat grooming: check.

I could spend all day taking pictures of the goats. It probably sounds weird, but their coloring, right up to their eyeballs, is just beautiful.

I think I’m going to blow one of those pictures up for Madeline’s room.

Camel ride: check.

There is also this huge aviary that you can walk through, where all the birds are roaming free. Or, well, as free as they can go up to the high netting.

Throughout the zoo, there are staff members (“Ambassadors”) with animals, waiting to tell visitors all about them. We got up close and personal with a California King Snake (which eats rattlesnakes, by the way), a Lion Head Rabbit, and a Chinchilla. Every staff member we encountered was friendly, knowledgeable, and went out of their way to tell us everything they knew. Which was awesome. You could tell they definitely loved their jobs.

There are many food stands and picnic areas throughout the zoo, and many shaded areas to keep you out of direct sun on a hot day. The habitats for the animals are really well done, and remind me a lot of the Philadelphia Zoo. There were caves to explore (complete with snake exhibits and stalactites), and even a giant slide in a tree. The grounds are just gorgeous and the varying types of exhibits provides a lot of different types of interaction and activities for the kids.

We ended up doing the zoo in about four hours, which was perfect, with, of course, a stop at the gift shop on the way out.

Because one can apparently never have too many stuffed animals or snow globes.

We definitely recommend a trip to visit the zoo, with the highlights, of course, being feeding the giraffes, brushing the goats, and riding the camels. It was such a treat to see how much fun the kids were having, and it was truly a perfect Sunday afternoon.

The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore
1876 Mansion House Drive
Baltimore, MD 21217
Main Phone: 443-552-5245
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Hungry for more zoo visits?
The Philadelphia Zoo was a highlight last year, and worth a visit.
The Cape May County Park & Zoo is a favorite when we head down the shore (and free!).
The Turtle Back Zoo is local and one we visit annually.

A few bonus photos…

We totally scored in our pressed penny collecting this weekend. I think we ended up getting five or six total from all our different stops.

Recycling containers were all over the zoo. Love that.

There are fun hand washing stations everywhere, which was awesome. Especially after feeding giraffes and brushing goats.

I stopped eating carbs sometime in April. Not a forever thing, but a for now thing.

Rice was easy to give up. Pasta a little harder. And pizza? Perhaps harder still.

I haven’t had immense cravings for pizza, but every once in awhile…

And so I had to have a back-up plan.

Something to take the edge off.

And when I was strolling through the produce department recently, and spied these giant portobello mushroom caps, inspiration struck.

And by strolling, I really mean concentrating on my list and refereeing bickering kids in an effort to get in and out as quickly as possible.

I’m not going to give you so much a recipe for this, as I’m going to give you a general guideline.

Because it’s that kind of recipe. Super simple, completely forgiving, and the easiest thing in the world to individualize to your own taste buds … or what you’re trying to use up in the refrigerator.

Gently rinse the caps off and remove the stem. Put the caps on a baking sheet, into a 350 oven, for about ten minutes, until they are warmed through and start to soften a bit.

Meanwhile, heat up some tomato sauce and caramelize some onions. Once that’s ready, spread the tomato sauce gently over the inside of the mushroom caps, top with the caramelized onions, and a bit of shredded cheese. Sprinkled with a bit of dried oregano. Pop it back into the oven, just long enough for the cheese to melt.

Remove and devour.

Now, make no mistake, this is, of course, not going to replace pizza. But with the sauce and the cheese, well it’s as close as we’re going to get by skipping the dough.

And that is a-ok by me.

*Because these are more of a personal size, they are perfect to top off with your family’s favorite things. Sliced black olives? Pepperoni? Little bits of sausage or bacon? In one of my versions, I also included some sauteed mushrooms with the onions, so it was a mushroom topped mushroom pizza. I know! I also used mozzarella cheese, with a little bit of bleu cheese thrown in for good measure. Go crazy, you can’t screw this one up.

Tomorrow? The Baltimore Zoo!

When I was planning our recent road trip to Baltimore, I wanted to break up the road trip a bit. Both to make it more fun and interesting along the way, and to give me a chance to get out of the car to stretch my legs a bit.

I heart road trips because it gives you a chance to really see the areas you’re going through, and unless you have a tight schedule, you have the freedom and control to stop whenever you want to. Many of my fondest memories from back in the day are from road trips with friends, even The Ex (our honeymoon was a road trip to Florida), and now that the kids and I road trip together, it’s even better.

So I googled around to find some good web sites that would show me some quirky and fun stops we could do along the way to Baltimore this weekend, and I hit pay dirt when I happened upon Roadside America’s web site. You can search by state (and drill down by city), and find a plethora of places that are off-the-beaten path type kitschy things to do along the way (including specific directions, tips, and whether or not others deemed it worth a stop). It also has a route planner so you can map out your journey. I put our home address in for the start and finish of the trip, and plugged in all the stops I wanted to do along the way, to give me an itemized turn-by-turn itinerary, which I printed out and brought with me. By using Roadside America’s itinerary, I was able to have the most efficient way to visit all the stops, but then I also plugged each address into the GPS, so I wouldn’t have to refer to the paper while we were en route.

Me <<<< safe driver!

On the web site, you can save the sights to your profile, add tips, and read reader’s reviews. The site also is updated pretty well to include updated information on sites that are no longer there, moved, what have you. When you’re searching, be sure to look beyond the ones the site lists. If you look on the bottom and left of your search results, you’ll see more links for nearby places to stop and check out.

And then it gets better. They have an app! The app is $2.99 and with that, you can select one region (i.e., Northeast US) as your “home region.” For $5.99 extra, you can have the whole country. Totally worth it. I can keep track of places that we want to visit, or places that we did visit while we’re on the go. And also, wherever you are, you can find nearby places … like in your home town! Or neighboring towns. Which makes it even more fun. It’s not just for vacations. It’s perfect for a staycation. Or if you just want to find some undiscovered treasures right in your neighborhood or neighboring towns.

Coming this week … A Bissell vacuum review, a Success Rice post, a review on the Baltimore Zoo, and tomorrow … a recipe for Roasted Portobello Pizzas.