Week 23: Mozzarella Cheese Sticks!

Why hello there, summer vacation!  I'm so glad you've finally arrived!  No more alarm clocks (my kids will be the replacement alarm clock), grading papers, frantic morning routines rushing to daycare, or sassy teenagers (just a sassy toddler instead)!  Bring it on!

I started my summer vacation off right.  A trip to the grocery store.  Yup, that's right.

And it was glorious.  I didn't have to take either of the boys.  There were hardly any other shoppers.  I could stroll down each isle and carefully choose each item.  It also helped that I had our AT&T rebate card to pay for the groceries.

I made sure to spend my time during finals carefully planning out next week's lunch and dinner menu at home full of yummy things I had pinned on Pinterest during the school year.  I can't wait to stock the freezer up with easy side dishes for Sean like his favorite broccoli patties I make and sweet potato fries!

My recipe this past week was a fail.  And I'm bummed.  It was a pin from Pinterest I've had for quite a while  and I had my hopes up that these would taste just as good as restaurant Mozzarella Cheese Sticks.  My first mistake.

It was supposed to be simple.

String cheese cut into thirds.
Milk.
Breadcrumbs.
Marinara Sauce.

The recipe claimed that you dip the cheese into milk and then coat with bread crumbs.

It looked promising.

Bake at 425 for 6-8 minutes.

Epic fail.

I'm not sure if they baked too long at too high of a temperature since the cheese completely melted.  Or, if the milk wasn't enough to keep the bread crumbs on.  I could also blame the fact I was hungover on this fail too (story to come).

Either way, they still tasted pretty good, but not what I had in mind.

Next time, I'll be trying them dipped in egg first, then with panko bread crumbs that have been toasted in a skillet, and then I'm only going to bake them for 3 minutes at that temp.

Good thing it was a quick recipe with minimal ingredients.

Anyway, these were the end to my weekend that started off pretty strong, so I can't complain too much.  Saturday morning we laid low at home since Evan was on an antibiotic for some chest congestion.  The mere threat of him needing to be hospitalized AGAIN for early pneumonia was enough for us to break our tradition of going out to eat and swimming at the Rec Center on Friday night and going to the Farmers Market on Saturday morning for muffins.

But, the consolation prize was pretty sweet.  Snuggles and play time in our jammies until we actually had to be somewhere.

Man, a whole summer of these guys.  I can't wait for it to be official tomorrow!

Sean and I left for Troy after his nap in the afternoon.  I had the New Kids On The Block concert with my friend, Kristen that evening and a play date with Sean Sunday morning at the zoo so it made sense that we stay in Troy for the night at my parents.

Kristen and I went out to dinner and headed over to the Palace for some tailgating in the parking lot while rocking out to some classic NKOTB songs.  We went to our seats and watched Boyz II Men warm up.  One of my other friends, Anna, texted me to tell me that she could get us in her company's suite on the 100 level, so we quickly rushed over there in time to see 98 degrees perform.

Open bar + full spread of delicious food + extremely close seats = me overdoing it on the drinks, but having the time of my life.  This includes an in-depth conversation with a pediatrician that I met in the suite, as well as, one of the crew members for NKOTB outside of the tour bus where I begged and pleaded he let me and my friend in to meet the band.  Let's just say I wasted 45 minutes of my life thinking I was smooth talking my way onto that bus...

Sunday morning started off a little rough, but my mom's pancakes and bacon did the trick.  Sean and I headed over to the zoo on a beautiful morning to meet a friend I've been talking to through thebump.com and now facebook since we were both pregnant with our first babies.  Her daughter Parker and Sean were born in October of 2010 and we both happened to have our second babies in September of 2012.  How crazy is that?!  Needless to say we have a lot in common and it was finally time we meet.  Sean and Parker were so cute together!

The polar bear was the best part at this zoo trip!

I'll be taking the boys to the zoo again on Friday to meet up with some friends from high school and their kids, so I'm hoping the animals are just as exciting to watch.  Not to mention it's Father's Day this upcoming weekend and I have some fun things planned for Scott (post to follow)!