Plattsburgh Finds & Lunch at Applebee’s!

One of the best moments is being able to reconnect with good friends.  Its been a year or so that I haven’t spoken with one of my friends.  Sometimes, its just one of us taking the first step.  I guess thats a problem for me because I always assume everyone is busy with their own life and I don’t like to disturb them.  Long story short, one of my good friends who is also my best travel buddy is around again.

Our new plan from hanging out again was setting up our trip in advance.  We decided to do a short Plattsburgh food run.  The perks of living relatively near to the US border is that we can go and do food runs and explore all those options Americans get that we don’t in Canada. We were joking as we were looking at the different flavours that Canada gets on who  makes these decisions on what Canadians like rather all those other ones that’s there.  Seeing as it is across the border and one day, it all dials down to getting a whole lot of food…or when they asked our reason, Pop Tarts, Iced Tea, Oreos and Chips… What more can we say, right?

Our first stop was Champlain Centre for a Target run. Then across the street to Hannaford, lunch break at Applebee’s and finally, ending it off at Walmart.

Lunch at Applebee’s

This is the second time I’ve been here.  My stomach was a little wonky that morning so I tried to not eat too much.  We ended up sharing these samplers where you can choose 3 choices. Our choices were: Pork and Shrimp Dumplings, Honey BBQ Riblets and Sweet Potato Fries.

Applebee's

Applebee's

Applebee's

Let me tell you: these samplers are really good! I loved the riblets the best but they were all tasty and just enough to share for something light.  Its a pretty good idea to have this on the menu 🙂

Now that we have food out of the way, lets check out what I got.  Keep in mind that other than the movies and book, most of this stuff, I can’t get in Canada.

1. Sobe Life Water

Its like a vitamin water, I guess.  I’ve never seen it in Montreal but then I never try to seek it out either.  I figured it’d be something new to try when I don’t feel like drinking water or tea 😉 But I have tasted some of Sobe’s juices and they are pretty delish!

2. Movies: You’re Next (Blu-ray), Snitch (Blu-ray), Takers (DVD) & Land Before Time 8 & 9.

I’ve been collecting the Land Before Time series since I was a kid and they are still incredibly fun to watch.  Don’t judge…

3. Book: Paper Towns by John Green.

I saw the trailer for this movie and it reminded me a little of Eleven Reasons Why minus the manipulated feelings while I was reading that book so while I want to catch it in the theatres when its released, I also wanted to read it before.  Here’s where Target is fantastic because it has 20% off the regular price and that’s awesome.

4. Chips: Cape Cod Chipotle Barbecue, Lay’s Wasabi Ginger, Lay’s Mango Salsa, Lay’s Garlic Cheesy Bread, Frito’s Twisters.

Junk food galore right here and its just the start as you can see.  As of now, I’ve only tried the Wasabi Ginger and that tastes pretty good.  Usually these ones are pretty hit and miss but something about it tastes a little like ramen powder with gingery and mild wasabi hotness 😉 Garlic Cheesy Bread is my boyfriend’s since thats his favorite appetizer choice.

5. Cereal: Froot Loops with Marshmallows!

Excuse me, I love marshmallows and I love froot loops.  It was this one or the Fruity Pebbles with marshmallows, I think.  The cereal aisles in the US are just incredible!

6. Pop Tarts: Unfrosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon, Wild Berry Bloom (Limited Edition), Frosted Cinnamon Roll

I love these unfrosted Pop Tarts.  Mostly because its just the perfect sweetness.  When its fully frosted, it gets a little too much for me.

7. Slow Cooker Sauces: I don’t get why we don’t have these in Canada.  While I’m all about homemade food, this is really great backup dinner solutions.  All I need to do is buy meat the night before.

8. Iced Tea: So I’ve never seen this and it had some nice flavors.  I love hibiscus flavored stuff and I’m trying to find the one I had tasted on my travels a few years back, till today, still no luck.  I haven’t tried this one yet so who knows, right?

9. Lactose-free Ice Cream: The choices for gluten-free and lactose-free or anything allergen free in Montreal is miserable.  I mean, its limited choices and outrageous prices that I kind of want to forego eating these things so I got a nice little cooler bag and bought three tiny tubs of ice cream.  You see two up there, yeah, that’s because there’s also a raspberry sorbet in the freezer 😉

10. Fruit Roll-up (not shown here): Look, we only have Fruit by the Foot here.  While I enjoy that, there’s always 1 out of 3 trips to Plattsburgh that I pick up some Fruit Roll-Up.  I’d definitely think about getting Fruit Gushers eventually.  Its pretty tasty and for the most part, nostalgia wins over me 😉

I guess that’s all there is! Crossing the border, I could see the customs not really caring when they asked us what we went to buy.  Its probably one of the smoothest border crossings I’ve had, as in not a lot of questions and not even a lot of cars.  It was a quick food run but it was tons of fun just catching up and buying random stuff.  At least, I’m stocked up for snacks for a few months (or I hope I will).

Do you have travel buddies? Are you a fan of doing day trips? What are your favorite snacks?

My Weekly Adventures!

December has been hard to get anything up.  Its really funny because I’m not particularly busy or going out but rather I’m just sitting around binging on series and movies and kind of getting life back to a healthy routine.  Trust me, that takes up a lot of time and then blogging falls behind. I try everyday to get something up and for the most part, its working out. I just wish I could compile these Weekly Adventures because seriously, I’ve had a few interesting things to talk about. I just get tired and lazy…when in doubt, blame the weather so I’m going to do that 😉

Anyways, I haven’t completely been blog-less, I think about stuff for here all the time.

1) TV Binge!

witches of east end

So, I’m done all of the two seasons of Witches of East End and of course, this show is recently announced to be cancelled by Lifetime which really sucks because they ended the second season so strong and at such a good place for this to just kick ass. Maybe it’ll get picked up by another network? I just regret that I didn’t find it earlier. It does get a little frustrating in the second season and plus, there just wasn’t enough of the handsome Killian (played by Daniel diTomasso).

witches of east end

My boyfriend is rolling his eyes as I talk about this…again! Daniel diTomasso gets extra points other than being brooding and handsome for being from Montreal and loving the Habs 🙂 Although Eric Winters is not quite the same, he is quite good-looking as well but in this unknown evil sort of way.

life unexpected

Since I finished this now, I have a bunch of series ending in January on Netflix. I chose the easiest one to finish with only 2 seasons: Life Unexpected. I’m almost done Season 1.  I really love Britt Robertson and wish she would have more stuff.  This show is really fun to watch with lots of funny moments mixed with some drama.

What shows are you watching right now?

2) Black Friday shopping!

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I haven’t really gone Black Friday shopping like physically at a store and last year was just stupid deals all over the place.  This year, its a completely different story.  There were some good buys.  Now, for physical purchases, I got these movies.  Along with some Yurbuds earbuds for women which are fantastic because they actually don’t fall out even when I run for the bus.

Aside from that, I ordered Sharknado, A Good Day to Die Hard and Fast and Furious 6 for a pretty awesome price on Amazon.  On Cyber Monday week, there was a one day deal for the complete series (5 seasons) of Flashpoint for $29.99 and that was THE BEST DEAL! 🙂 My boyfriend’s still not in the Sharknado thing but I say he should because its just epically bad but awesome at the same time.  Haha!

Did you do any Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping?

3) Salon des Metiers d’Art du Quebec (aka arts and crafts fair in Quebec)

I’ve been going to this show for many years. Its a great place for unique gift ideas and as I got older, its a great place to try out new ice ciders/ice wines/food, etc.  We went last weekend to check that out.  Its gotten a lot smaller throughout the years but the food/wine area was still great.

I figured now that a bunch of family is on Facebook, I won’t post up the pictures because then everyone will know their own gifts if they land on my post and that kind of ruins the surprise. But, some very nice finds includes:

I’ve linked up some of the ice wines so you could check it out if you’d like 🙂

4) Day Trip to Plattsburgh!

Last weekend was all about shopping and getting all those gifts covered. After a little bit of discussion, my girl friends and I decided to head to Plattsburgh last Sunday. I didn’t really spend a lot since my day before at Salons des Metiers d’arts was pretty intense totalling at about $200. I ended up spending mostly on groceries and got myself some knee wraps for workout. Target had these awesome Slow Cooker Sauces which I’ve never seen in Canada. Plus, I bought two candles at Bath and Body Works and some car freshener at Yankee Candles.

My goal was to scout to see if Chromecast was cheaper but with the exchange rate, it actually wasn’t. Plus, Canada has a $20 Google Play credit in addition for the same price so I’d say that pretty much seals the deal 😉

Still, I tried out Applebee’s for lunch and that was pretty alright. Here’s what I had:

Applebee

Boneless Chicken Wings

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Double Crunch Shrimp

Applebee’s has a pretty nice atmosphere to it. You know, nice cozy family joint.  Me and one of the girls took the 2 for $25 meal which includes an appetizer to share and each of us a meal.  The Double Crunch Shrimp was a bit oily and heavy but I guess thats to be expected, right? I ended up getting a cup of tea at Starbucks and it helped settle my stomach a little 😉

5) Christmas wreath! 🙂

wreathGenerally, its the same wreath as last year.  I added a few more ornaments to spice it up a little. I’m still figuring out how to use my ribbons to tie a nice bow to finish it up. My girl friends just give me a really good tip on how to do it so I just have to go get some nice ribbons and then it’ll be all good to go 🙂

6) A few blog recaps (in case you missed it)

  • Advanced Screening of Serena (review HERE)
  • 007 Blogathon entries for MovieRob HERE and HERE (click on MovieRob to go to his site and check out other entries)

To wrap it up, lets end with a quote that is absolutely awesome.

tact

I need some of that, well, more of that, to be so masterful.  🙂

This week has been exceptionally long and I actually think weekly adventures will change to biweekly adventures soon. I think I have next year pretty much set with a few projects so expect something going up soon.  Every year I wait till the last 2 weeks and then its all Christmas and New Year’s celebrations so not so much feedback.  I’ll try it earlier this year and hope for more feedback ;).

Happy Thursday, my lovelies!

Its Friday tomorrow! YAY!