OC Fair Family Ticket Giveaway

16 Thursday Jun 2016

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The winner of our OC Fair Giveaway was Kelly G! She had a wonderful time with her family at the fair. 🙂 Thanks for entering, everyone!

Hello everyone!

Anyone who knows us, knows how much our family loves the OC Fair. It’s a family tradition for us to enjoy a vegan hot dog from Pink’s and a lovely bowl of fresh fruit from Terri’s Berries.

So when the OC Fair contacted me about hosting a giveaway, I jumped at the chance.

This week I will be giving away an OC Fair Family Packet, which includes:

4 General Admission Tickets
2 Carnival Ride Cards (3 Free Rides Per Card)

Here are some additional details:

The OC Fair will provide the prize packet directly to the winner.
Parking is $10 (cash only) and is not included with the giveaway.
Each carnival ride card is valid for three rides or games in either the Main or Kiddie Carnivals. Ride Cards are not valid for food or drinks.
Admission and/or ride cards do not have to be used on the same day. Prize must be redeemed during the 2016 OC Fair.

And Some additional OC Fair Information:

Dates: July 15-August 14, 2016
Public Hours: Wednesday-Friday Noon-Midnight, Saturday-Sunday 10 a.m.-Midnight, Monday-Tuesday Closed
Theme: “Get Your Fair Face On!”
Website: www.ocfair.com
Admission: General $10, Senior (6+) $7, Youth (6-12) $7, Children 5 & younger are free every day
Parking: $10
Special Days: Kids Days (Thursdays, 12 & younger are free all day). Visit www.ocfair.com/promotions for more ways to save.

To Enter:

Comment on this post with your name and favorite thing to do at the fair.
Or comment on my Facebook Post with your favorite thing to do at the fair.
The winner will be drawn by Little T on Monday June 20th
I will contact the winner directly and gather their information to email to the OC fair

And just for fun, here are some new food additions to the fair this year, for all you foodies out there (I’m looking at you, Jenny and Anthony). 😉

Chicken in a Waffle On a Stick: Chicken Charlie’s making the popular chicken-and-waffles combo portable by cooking fried chicken tenders in a waffle and serving it all on a stick, with a side of maple syrup.
French Toast Bacon Bombs: Bacon A-Fair’s new breakfast-inspired offering will make French toast desirable any time of the day as sweet dough stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon is deep-fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar.
S’moreo Texas Donut: Bigger is better when it’s a soft, Texas-sized doughnut topped with chocolate drizzle, Oreo cookie crumble, graham cracker crumbs and marshmallow cream.
Bacon Nutella Pickle: Pickle O’ Pete’s takes the popular hazelnut cocoa spread Nutella and fills a dill pickle that gets wrapped in bacon, dipped in a funnel cake batter and deep fried.
Pork Belly Bacon Dog: At Biggy’s, two feet of bacon are wrapped around a slow-smoked pork belly that is dipped into a corn dog batter and deep fried.
Deep-Fried Pizza Log: Mozzarella cheese and pepperoni are wrapped inside of thin pizza dough which is deep fried until crispy and flaky. Served with marinara sauce on the side from the Apple Fries booth.
Diabilito Sundae: Fruit Caboose is going loco and adding to their creamy ice cream the Latin-inspired flavor of tangy Tamarindo and hot chili chamoy sauce.
Kool-Aid Hot Wings: Chicken Charlie’s taking his breaded wings and tossing them up with his new, slightly-spicy Kool-Aid sauce. He will serve the orange flavor exclusively at the OC Fair.
Dole Whip: Fairgoers can cool down with this refreshing, pineapple-flavored soft serve dessert available for the first time inside the OC Fair at Crutchee’s Ice Cream.
Bacon-Wrapped Baked Potato: At Bacon A-Fair, a giant one-pound potato is wrapped in a half pound of bacon and slow cooked in a wood-fired smoker oven. Served with butter, the Bacon A-Fair signature bacon-infused sour cream, grilled veggies, blue cheese and choice of hot buffalo sauce or nacho cheese and jalapenos.
Bacon Cheddar Brat Burger: Grant’s Tasti Burger is taking burgers and brats to the next level with this massive burger that combines a bratwurst and an Angus beef patty with cheddar, chopped candied pecans, Applewood smoked bacon, Sriracha Bourbon and chipotle sauces, lettuce and tomatoes and served inside a pretzel bun.
Pink’s Hollywood-Inspired Dogs: The Daenerys Mother of Doggies pays homage to the Game of Thrones’ queen of the dragons with a spicy Polish dog topped with sour cream, sauerkraut, onions, radish sprouts and Sriracha sauce. The Lord of the Rings Dog highlights the mystical movie with an all-beef hot dog encircled by fried onion rings and topped with barbecue sauce.
Juicys: New this year, OC Fair mainstay Juicys is serving up organic meat and nitrate-free hot dogs and sausages.
More Offerings: All American Reuben Burger (Grant’s Tasti Burger), Pickle Fries and Pickled Cheese on a Stick (Pickle O’ Pete’s), Shrimp Fried Rice on a Stick (Chicken Charlie’s), Som-Mor-Bacon (Fruit Caboose), Bison Burger (Juicy’s), Lasagna Sandwich (Pignotti’s Pasta), Oreo Churro (Dutchmen’s Funnel Cake).

Best of luck to you all, and I hope to see you at the fair! 🙂

San Francisco Trip

24 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by Momma J in The Family, The Travels, vegan

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family, infant traveling, san francisco, traveling, vegan, vegan dining, vegan restaurants

I love San Francisco. I love the history, the weather, the culture, and the food. I lovveeeeeee the food. Before I start posting about the food we ate, I should clear something up. The person I was staying with asked me how on earth I eat so much without gaining a ton of weight. I wish I could say I’m one of those people who can eat whatever they want and not suffer the consequences, but that’s simply not the case! When I’m home, I follow a low-fat strict vegetarian diet with no dairy. When I go on vacation, I splurge. When we travel I try to stay in places with a kitchen so I don’t go too crazy (because I always feel gross when I verge too far from my routine), but occasionally on vacations or special dinners, I eat.

A lot.

This was one of those trips.

Okay, so back to SF. Big T told me we were going to have to take public transportation to save some taxi $$$. I panicked as I imagined hauling Little T, the car seat, the stroller, and our luggage around. After a good hour of mulling it over, I decided we could pack everything we needed in two backpacks so we’d only be carrying the car seat and the stroller. To tell you the truth, it was kind of a fun challenge!

We’d planned an evening plane ride so Little T would sleep, but he was really excited when we got to the airport and didn’t sleep until the plane was in the air. Once we were in the air, we were both happy to get snuggle time and Little T fell asleep.

He's such a little snuggle-bug.

On the airport, we utilized our electronic gadgets to get us through the short trip. Oh technology, how I do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

1. Watching an episode of “Modern Family on our iphone.

2. Reading “The Help” on my kindle.

3. Knowing exactly when our bus was coming.

4. Landing and being able to search for coffee.

The next night, Big T and I had a date at Millennium. It’s our favorite vegan restaurant because it serves unapologetic vegan food. By that I mean, there isn’t “fake meat” in sight. It’s pricey, so this was only our second visit and the third probably wont come for a while, but it’s always worth it!

We ordered a White Russian to drink.

For an appetizer we had fried oyster mushrooms with a carrot salad and a lemon dressing.

Fried Oyster Mushrooms

For my entree, I had this pastry that had a savory flavor and was filled with potatoes:

Big T had a grilled portabella mushroom with risotto, and for dessert I had chocolate lava cake and he had a berry cobbler.

The next day, I managed to convince Big T to travel out to Berkeley. The reason? I wanted Cinnamon Rolls, and I wanted them bad! We went to Cinnaholic, a vegan cinnamon roll shop. This is the way it works over there. First, you get a gourmet cinnamon rolls. Next, you pick a flavor of frosting. They have about 20 different flavors and we were feeling so overwhelmed! After you decide on the frosting, they let you pick a topping. I decided on the plain frosting with cookie dough. Big T had mint with oreos, and the helpful lady at the counter (who was so friendly, we could have stayed and talked with her for an hour), said her favorite was lemon frosting and raspberry. I’m going to have to try that next time.

Cinnamon roll from Cinnaholic Bakery

We took the BART over to Mission. Little T had a great time sitting with us and taking the BART and the bus and shouted gleefully at people entering and exiting. I think he was saying hello and goodbye in baby babble.

Little T is a subway pro.

Mission is bright and colorful, with amazing murals all over the place. Here was my favorite building:

A Building in Mission

We went to a Mexican food restaurant that has a lot of vegan options. Amazingly, we found room to eat, even after the cinnamon rolls.

Ordering lunch in Mission

On the way home, we stopped at the Stern Grove Music Festival. The concert was beautiful. We made our way to the side area so Little T could run around without being disruptive. It was a nice end to a fun day.

Stern Grove

Practicing Walking at Stern Grove

We were sad when our trip came to an end, but we were also glad to have a few weekends at home. Our yard is getting a bit overgrown and we have animals to snuggle with. I also have a few projects at home that I’m looking forward to getting started on.

Big T with all of our things at the bus stop.

Vegan Traveling

27 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by Momma J in The Travels, vegan

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food, traveling, vegan

Vegan travel isn’t nearly as complicated as it used to be. I remember 10 years ago, when I had to walk in the snow 12 miles to get to school, I’d always have to bring my own vegan food when I traveled. Now it’s easy to find a Chipotle or Panera, or even an all vegan restaurant that was referred from awesome websites like www.thehappycow.net, but what do you do when you’re in an area where you can’t *gasp* utilize your smart phone?!?

This happens to us every once in a while. We’ll sneak off to a place where there aren’t a lot of restaurants or grocery stores to fall back on. Those places are nice, because who wants to see the same old restaurants and grocery stores everywhere? But they do require extra planning. For our vacation to Cherry Valley and Oak Glen, we knew it was going to be a challenging trip. Fortunately, years of experience made it pretty snag-less (go us!) Here’s what we did to make sure we ate well, because it is a vacation, after all!

We started out in Cherry Valley for a Lavender Festival at the Highland Springs Resort. It used to be called “The Last Resort”, and was a vegetarian wellness center that Albert Einstein used to frequent (no joke!) We technically could have ventured into town and eaten at Subway or something, but who wants to leave a place that looks like this:

Do you see what I mean?

It was kind of like that poppy field in “The Wizard of Oz”…….poppies…………..*suddenly in a daze with silly grin on face*

So this is what we did:

1. We researched the few restaurants we could find on location ahead of time and called to make reservations and ensure they could make us a vegan meal.

2. We requested an *empty* mini-fridge for our room. They said it wouldn’t be a problem, but we discovered they’d forgotten once we were there. They were nice enough to let us store our perishables in their main fridge until they could get the mini-fridge in our room. They didn’t have a microwave in the room so we had to use things that didn’t need to be heated.

Next we went to stay at a B&B in Oak Glen. This was a little more challenging, because there weren’t any restaurants around.

3. We called the B&B ahead of time to make sure they knew we were vegan. We gave them a few simple ideas for our breakfast, and they said it would be no problem. They gave us an amazing breakfast, and asked if we had any tips for the next time they run into vegan travelers.

4. We brought sandwich items like avocado, pickles, and hummus. When we were out for the day, it was easy to find a restaurant that served sandwiches. We asked them to put as much produce as they had on the sandwiches, and made then added some yummy extras.

Adding avocado and other fixings to our sandwich...

5. We brought some of our favorite snacks, but they only lasted about five minutes. That’s always the problem with good snacks, isn’t it?

6. We lugged everything around in a cooler until we got to our destinations. We’d asked the B&B if we could use their fridge, and they didn’t mind a bit. It was a bit of a pain, but worth it.

If you have any other vegan traveling tips, let me know. I’m always glad to hear new ideas.

Serendipity Ranch Bed and Breakfast

27 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by Momma J in The Travels

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b&b, bed and breakfast, photography, traveling

If you want a nice getaway during Apple Season, make reservations at the Serendipity Bed and Breakfast. You have to do it fast though, because they fill up like crazy. My Mom and I stayed for a night during the Lavender Festival. One night really wasn’t enough though to enjoy all of the charm at the Serendipity Ranch. Next time we’ll have to plan a longer visit.

Serendipity Ranch Bed and Breakfast

There were so many little places to explore here, but our favorite place by far was sitting on the swing on the front porch and looking over the lake at night while the frogs talked back and forth to each other. It’s so weird, the frogs will be so noisy and then stop talking all at once.

In the morning, Nina (the b&b owner) put birdseed out because I really wanted to snap some pictures. I got a lot of great pics, but I had to get the okay from this chipmunk first:

Chipmunk Standoff

Birds!

Little T’s favorite part of the ranch were the llamas. Nope, they didn’t spit at us, but I’m sure he would have thought it was funny if they did.

The coffee machine was pretty snazzy. They even had blueberry coffee, my all time coffee favorite!

They even made us a delicious breakfast to accommodate our vegan diet. They were such friendly people and we can’t wait to visit again. It was incredibly charming way to spend the weekend.

I don’t remember this being so intense….

27 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by Momma J in Quick Snippets, The Family

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family, park, traveling

Lavender Festival Part 2

27 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by Momma J in The Travels

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traveling

My mom and I had an amazing time. They had so many relaxing and enjoyable activities at the Highland Resort’s Lavender Festival.

Our Cabin

They had a craft table where you could work on different projects with the lavender. Our favorite was making the lavender wands because there was nothing more relaxing than having the smell of lavender fill your nostrils as you weave the ribbon in and out.