Foodie Fridays

I'm not a great cook but I'm not too horrible either.

When I have some extra time, I like to make an effort to better my skills in the kitchen. One of my favorite meals ever is the Churrasco with Arroz Blanco and Maduros at Bongos Cuban Cafe in Orlando and Lario's in South Beach. We don't have any super awesome Cuban places here in Vegas and the only one I really like is on the other side of town. We'd found some awesome cuts of skirt steak at the grocery store recently and decided to try our hand at making our own Cuban meal. Here are a couple recipes to replicate it yourselves!

Skirt Steak with Chimichurri

Arroz Blanco

Maduros

(I used bananas since they were easier to find and while they were delicious, they're not quite the same. Next time, we are using plantains!)

What's Up Wednesdays

Morning, Blog World!

Not a whole lot going on in my world. I recently decided to redo my room and since I'm on a pretty strict budget, I'm seeing what I can do with giftcards (from Swagbucks and MPlus) for WalMart and Ebay. So far, I've gotten some great finds for dirt cheap and it's amazing how much a new lamp or a new nightstand can change the perspective of your room. To be fair- the nightstand was an Ikea purchase from a trip to Los Angeles back in December... Corey and I got lazy after putting together the big Kullen and the nightstand just kind of hung around until a couple weeks ago. 

For me, the most difficult part of all this "re-doing" is getting rid of a lot of stuff. I have plastic bins around the room of clothes I always thought I would eventually wear that I really never did. Or just clothes from when I was seventeen that still fit but somehow don't look the same. Anyway, Goodwill is getting a lot of bags filled with clothes this year! 

One of the best parts of doing the "re-do" now is that it's back to school season! All the cute dorm stuff is out so organizers are all over the place. I got some really cute ones at Ross that were under $10 and found some matching Washi Tape at HomeGoods for like $3 for craft projects!

So far I am really loving this shoe organizer! I had to modify it to fit my shoes (it's more designed for Chucks or flats and not my crazy heels) but it's super cute and fits under the bed. I have a couple of my designer shoes thrown in as well but I have to preface- I got these both several years ago on Ebay for about $75 each! I usually live in my flats or my sneakers so having all my cute shoes in one place makes finding a pair for a night out just that much easier!

Now I just have to figure out how to store my boots well... To Pinterest!

Tuesday Travel Guide: Phoenix/Scottsdale

Hey blog world!

So I'm reformatting a lot of things on the blog. I decided to remove a lot of older posts and redo them in a more user friendly, easy to follow way.

That said, welcome to Tuesday Travel Guides! Each month I'm featuring a new destination that we I may or may not have posted about in the past. Rather than giving a big old cluster of whatever I did each day, I'm putting together an easy to follow guide for each location. 

This month we are heading to Phoenix & Scottsdale.

I have a habit of going to Arizona when it's pretty hot out. My first mini roadtrip to Scottsdale was in the dead of summer. People would ask us what we were doing there and we would just shrug and tell them we're from Vegas where it's maybe only a few degrees cooler. Frankly, when it's over 100 out, it all feels the same to me!

The best part about traveling to sweltering heat on a weekday is that the prices were really really awesome. We got a great deal on a nice room at a cute little boutique hotel and there were Groupons galore. We got some much needed pool time and everything was quiet and there were no crowds. If you don't mind the pretty basic not sure what I'm doing original post, feel free to check it out here!

My second visit was another quick overnighter with my cousin and since we're both foodies, it was really all about the food. We saw a couple of cool sights, met up with some great friends, and just wandered somewhat aimlessly for a couple days.

Each week will be a new post on great places to stay, play, or dine in each city so by the end of the month, you've got a full itinerary ready to go. Or at least some fun recommendations. If you have any you'd like to share, let me know in the comments!

Monday Must Haves

Happy Monday, everyone!

Mondays always suck. There's really no way around it. That goes for anyone really- even if your "Monday" is a Wednesday or Thursday. My Mondays used to be those days and they really weren't any better than actual Mondays. 

It's always great to have some must haves to really get you going in the morning and get you out of bed. I have a few things that I love that really motivate me to actually get on with my day instead of sitting around on my ass. 

I usually don't like to wash my hair every day because it strips the oils and all that. Unfortunately, in the summer when it's 110 and over, there's really no way around it. I have to wash my hair every single day no matter what. I recently cut off about half of it because the weight and the maintenance was driving me insane. I hate the extra time it takes to get my hair washed, dried, and styled so I usually don't do anything with it. Now that it's shorter and lighter, it's a lot easier. 

The one thing that makes all the extra shower time just so much more comfortable is Davines SU Hair & Body Wash. It's an all in one product that isn't really gross and soapy or waxy. It actually feels really nice on my skin and my hair and it's specially formulated for after sun use. Even better since the sun is basically unavoidable in Las Vegas. I used this in Bali and everywhere I've gone in the summer and it really doesn't get better than this. I especially love that it means a lot less packing on vacations as well. One bottle as opposed to three so I've got lots more room in my quart sized bag!

Layover Love

Unlike most people I know, I absolutely love layovers.

I don't mean the short, running between gates hoping not to miss your flight kinds. I mean a good long layover that gives you a chance to explore a place that you wouldn't likely have been going to otherwise. Even the shorter several hour layovers are nice because you get to eat some cool regional foods sometimes. 

On my (not so) recent trip to Bali, I arranged for two ridiculously long layovers in Singapore. One for the daytime and one for the evening which required a hotel room for a night. It was amazing. We got to see just about all of the attractions in Singapore and explore a city that we likely wouldn't have gone to otherwise. Singapore is beautiful and fun, has some delicious food, and was a really great place to revisit since I hadn't been back since I was three.

Layover Musings

1. A good long layover is cheaper than paying for additional flight legs to get you there. The cost of our 17 hour and 19 hour layovers was built into the cost of the flight. This amount of time enabled us to have breakfast with orangutans at the Singapore Zoo, visit the Singapore Flyer, and Gardens By the Bay. Oh, and eat lots and lots of chicken rice. 

2. A long layover is under 24 hours and because of that, if you are flying the same airline all the way through, you most likely won't have to recheck your bags. As long as you have checked them for the entire flight, you are set. So just keep some pajamas in your carry-on! 

3. I typically will get a hotel close to the airport if I have to catch an early flight the next morning so after I get off one flight, I check-in and leave my bags at the hotel to make things easier for later. The airport hotels are usually quite a bit cheaper than those downtown so it's a win win!

For an upcoming trip I'm planning, I have two long layovers in a nearby Asian country which will give me ample time to see a couple tourist attractions and catch a few night markets. I absolutely cannot wait!