Apple Nachos- Sharing a recipe

I was just preparing a dish to take in to the girls' school for the teachers' since it's parent-teacher conferences, and realized it's one of our favorite easy treats.  I thought that maybe others might enjoy it, so I'd share it.  We eat it mostly in the fall because it's apple season and we've been to the apple orchard and have apples to use up.  When we make Apple Nachos we go through some apples!  

The first step is, of course, your apples.  I have to admit I'm an apple snob.  I do NOT like red delicious or golden delicious, or anything along those lines (I feel like they're mushy).  We buy a lot of pink lady, but I couldn't find any, these are honeycrisp, which are so expensive but I bought them bagged to save some cash.

I cut them all up and then dip them in pineapple juice to keep them from browning.  This is a huge tip!  Some stores (Meijer) you can find little six pack cans of juice, which is what I buy so you aren't wasting a big can of it.  Once you dip them in pineapple juice, they don't brown for days.  It's really great.  I even save some juice sometimes in a container in the fridge and cut slices up for the girls lunch boxes so they don't brown.

Okay, so after you have all your slices arranged on a plate or tray, you'll need your supplies:  Peanut butter, toffee bits, chocolate chips, maybe some sliced almonds (?).  You can get creative.

You now need to "melt" your peanut butter.  For the amount of apples I had, I used two large heaping spoonfuls of peanut  butter in that empty glass bowl (in the picture).  Then, microwave it on a low power until it gets "drippy."  You want it to drip easily from your spoon so you can drizzle it over the apples.  For mine I microwaved it for 45 seconds at a 50% power.  You don't want to burn it, so better to check a couple times, that go too long.

Then, drizzle away.  And sprinkle your toppers.  I used toffee bits and mini chocolate chips.  You can't really mess it up.  The first time I had it, friends (thank you Lacie and Lauren!) introduced it to me and they put sliced almonds on it. 

Depending on your taste, you'll either prefer the peanut butter pieces or fight over the pieces with the most candy on them.  :)  Enjoy!

Tidbits

The girls have been in school for five days now.  They are doing great.  I'm getting used to it.  I'm volunteering a couple times this week at lunch to help out as another set of hands in the cafeteria.  Life is starting to feel a little more normal than last week.

On a related note, I turned in paperwork to substitute teach at the girls' school.  For those of you who don't know, I taught elementary school for 8 years before I had Lily and I still have a valid teaching license (actually I just renewed it).  I'm already getting lots of questions about what I'm open to:  would I do maternity leaves, etc?  Whoa.  Lots to think about.

We hit the State Fair on Sunday, which is a favorite thing for us.  I grew up going to the Fair every year, so I have a love for it.  This day the weather was perfect so it was packed.  Unfortunately, I got sunburned.  No one else in our family did, but I got fried.   I went for a week in the Caribbean and didn't come home burned, but a couple hours at the Fair and I come home sunburned.  On the flip side, I'm glad the girls don't have my skin.

From the top of the Ferris Wheel, which is a "must ride" every year.  Can you ride it and NOT take pictures at the top?

 

The girls, sharing a snow cone/shaved ice (below).  They chose 2 flavors, one of which was Tiger's Blood, which just sounds disgusting but apparently its just strawberry and watermelon flavor mixed- according to Google.  We hit a lot of those necessary foods this visit.  Prior to this trip, for some reason the girls had never had a Fair Elephant Ear!  Check that one off the list.  Lily, pickiest eater ever, didn't want any, but Abby had some.  We also had a Lemon Shakeup, hit the Dairy Barn, bought some Salt Water Taffy, had fresh cut potato chips...

The girls and I have been watching So You Think You Can Dance this season and supporting a local dancer, Valerie Rockey.  She is from around us, and attended the same dance studio that Abby attended from age 3-6.  She has made the Top 10, and is really amazing.  All of our votes go to her and it has been fun to cheer her on.

crickets

It was crickets around here yesterday.  Except for an occasional sniff from me, which wasn't embarrassing because I was alone and no one knew (except now, because I'm outing myself).

I thought I was totally prepared to put my baby on the bus to kindergarten.  Until it was here.  And then?  Not so much.  I felt very sad, and very lonely and very alone.  And no one could really fix that for me.  I just have to deal.  And I am.  But for a day or two.... I'm sad and I miss her when she's at school.  

But Lily?  Sooooo NOT sad!  

This was during breakfast on the first day.

They were very excited!  Which DID make me happy.

I went to the grocery store this morning and was still kind of in a "zone" from my emotional bus stop time.  But, after lunch I zoned out to some TV shows that I can't watch with the girls, so there's a bonus for having them both at school.  I'm still working on how I'm going to fill my days in the future.

---

I was so excited to pick them up from the bus stop at the end of the day.  Abby was as patient as she could be while Lily shared her first day of school ever.  She was so wound up, we wondered when she would crash!  That girl was running on adrenaline, for sure.  Holy cow.  She had all good things to talk about, and she is going to sleep good tonight.  

Abby also had a good day.  It was so nice to have her talk about playing with lots of friends at recess, and "normal" things, instead of worrying about starting at a new school like last year.  It felt wonderful.  

It feels like it's going to be a really great year.  Really.  I'm excited.

Our Disney Cruise Day 7

For Day 6, click here.

Day 7, Castaway Cay

This was an exciting day!  Today was the day we arrived at Castaway Cay (pronounced "key"), which is Disney's private island in the Bahamas.  That means that most everything on the island is included   (food, beach chairs, etc.) already in the cost of the cruise, and everything is "Disneyfied" and nice.  It is basically a beach day.

The back of the ship... Dumbo!

This was a huge fruit bar at lunch.  Lunch was a barbecue.  Hamburgers, hotdogs, ribs, potato salad, couscous, fruit, chips, etc.  They still had a self serve ice cream machine station, even at Castaway Cay!

Mount Rustmore

Paradise

Olaf at the Post Office.  I've heard you can actually  mail stuff there, but we didn't try.

This is called Pelican Plunge, but the girls aren't super into water slides and I heard it was super fast. Looks fun, though!

We had tons of fun, and stayed at the beach longer than we thought.  Our friends snorkeled and rented floats to just hang out in the water.  Our girls just wanted to play in the sand and water.  It was a great last day to our cruise.

All we had left was dinner and breakfast before we disembarked and headed home.  

That makes this the last post!  I hope you enjoyed the recap.  The girls are already asking when we are going on our next cruise, though they also just want a regular beach vacation too.

If you're interested in a Disney Cruise, we used a Travel Agent to book our cruise, let me know if you need a referral, or have any questions. :)

Our Disney Cruise Day 6

For Day 5, click here.

Day 6:  At Sea

This was our door.  It's a "thing" to decorate your door with magnets on the cruise.  I joined a group on Facebook called "Disney Cruising" that has been a wealth of information.  They referred me to a group that makes the images (with personalization) for the magnets for free, and then I just printed them on Avery magnet paper and cut them out.  They turned out really cute.   It also makes your door really easy to identify when you are walking down long hallways of doors.

 This was our last day "At Sea" so we hit the pool and just took it easy today.  :)

The grownups had reservations for brunch at Palo.  Palo is reservation only, with a dress code, and it costs extra.  Brunch is only served on At Sea days, but they also serve dinner.  It was awesome.  Delicious and fancy.  My favorite dishes were probably the sticky buns and the lasagna.  But, everything I ate was good.  We all left very, very full.

The kids at dinner...

Every night at bedtime (and between things like when we were changing clothes), we took advantage of the On Demand movies that were provided in the stateroom televisions.  They had TONS of Disney movies available:  classics, new ones, live action, animated, Pixar, adult, etc.  It was awesome.  I wish I could have it at home!  It also saved our place if we didn't finish a movie, so we could come back to it.  Some we watched included Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the Emperors New Groove, Swiss Family Robinson, Lady and the Tramp, and Chicken Little.  Movies you don't watch everyday.  It was great.

Our Disney Cruise Day 5

For Day 4, click here.

Day 5:  St. Thomas

On Day 5, we arrived at the island of St. Thomas, which is one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and you could tell.  It was a little more developed than St. Maartin.  We were already in port, when we woke up.

This was a day where we had a scheduled Port Adventure through Disney, and we did something different than our friends.  We chose a Land and Sea Package with Coral World.   After a short ride across the island to the park, we got about an hour to explore on our own Coral World, which is basically an aquarium with mostly outdoor areas.  Then, we boarded a special boat with underwater viewing area and had about an hour tour (including a feeding time).

Here are the pics...

When we got back to the ship, the girls finally got to do the Midship Detective Game (The Muppets Version).  It was really cool.  You get a personalized ID card, and it sends you to "enchanted" paintings.  When you wave your ID in front of the painting, the painting comes to life and gives you clues to solve the mystery.  It sends you all over the ship.  If you saw it in a previous post, the ship is 12 floors and HUGE.  This game was really popular.  Sometimes there was a line at the paintings.  There were 3 different versions of the game to choose from, so if you loved it, you could play again.

Pepe the Prawn's door.  If you are into the Muppets, you might know who this is.  It was a major clue in the mystery.

We ate at Animator's Palate again that night.  This night we all became animators!  We all drew people on our placemats (within specific parameters) and they collected them.  Then we started eating and watching the show on the screens....

Then, our drawings came to life!  The danced and marched to music!!!  It was awesome.  They even worked them into Disney animation, but I don't have pictures of that.  Some danced with the Aladdin genie, or Snow White, for example.  It was amazing, and I don't know how they do it.  So fun.

Abby got a special picture for this, because she spent more time decorating her cupcakes than eating them.  We were all done eating our dessert and she was still decorating.  She was very proud.

Another good day!