Cincinnati

In between studying for my test on Thursday I'm going to update you on the eventful weekend I had...
My beau and I had been thinking about taking a trip to Cincinnati for a couple of months now and we finally were able to go! So..we made it a three day weekend, and stayed with my Aunt & Uncle who live in the country near Cincinnati.

Day 1: We visited the quaint and very hilly city of Mt. Adams on Friday afternoon. We'd already eaten lunch, so we just walked around the city and up the well-known stairs at Holy-Cross Immaculata Church. We walked down through the main part of this area where there was a strip of bars, restaurants and a coffee shop. We ended up in one of the them, playing a game of pool before we took off for dinner with my Aunt & Uncle.

Day 2: We made Saturday a big day..first stop was Belterra Casino. Neither one of us had ever been in a casino..we were amazed at the age group of basically all the gamblers. We were, by far, the youngest people in the place. It was sad to watch the gamblers at the machine..little old ladies, not even hesitating to press the button. We played at a couple of the machines just to see what it was like. Overall we lost (of course), but only a couple of dollars. We ate lunch in the casino at their buffet. It was amazing! It was a really nice restaurant, with a large variety of food: basic American fare, Asian, a special Oktoberfest (German) food area, salad bar and delicious fresh bakery dessert items! It was all a good meal but I was probably most excited about the dessert because they even had a case of about 10 flavors of gelato. Mmmmm....mmmm!!
After lunch, we went outside the casino to the horse racing. We enjoyed placing some small bets on a couple of the horse races and we won and lost some again. Now I want to go to Keenland sometime! We traveled downtown after this and checked out Oktoberfest. The crowds were so large, we couldn't enjoy it. People were really packed in like sardines. We did get a pretzel though and a drink, but then we got out of there. Lastly, since it was only about 6:30, and we didn't want to go back to the house yet, we drove to Kenwood Mall to walk around and shop. Overall, a fun and tiring day!

Day 3: On Sunday, after going to church with my aunt, we drove to Bass Pro Shops and Jungle Jim's and enjoyed some Mexican food for lunch. We had a fun afternoon, shopping and walking around and got some good deals.
We had a really great trip!

At Bass Pro Shops

On a separate note, I'd love to see my friends again soon!!
The Farmer's Daughter 

The Great Smoky Mountains

I took a lovely trip with the beau's family to Pigeon Forge this past weekend. We had such a good time! I thought I would share a couple of the highlights. Note: I know I share what I eat alot, but I find that food is something good to be shared. So let me start with some of our meals...

It's a tradition for his family to eat breakfast at a restaurant called The Log Cabin Pancake House. We ate there Sunday and Monday morning and it was delicious. And I love breakfast food in general, so I really enjoyed this restaurant.

Pancakes, bacon & eggs

On the way out we stopped at Bass Pro Shops which is one of Jason's favorite stores. If you've never been into Bass Pro Shops, it's a HUGE store. They have two floors, a restaurant and gigantic fish tanks with a large variety of exotic fish in them. They carry pretty much any hunting or fishing gear you could ever want as well as clothing and other things. I have to agree with the beau, it's a really cool store.
We ate lunch there and I got to try alligator! It also came with a 'gator sauce' (the green one pictured below) made from cream cheese, jalapeno jelly, and half & half. The whole lunch was yummy.

Chicken tenders, alligator tenders, slaw & sauces

The beau and I also went on a balloon ride. I'd never done this before and thought it was really neat! It didn't seem like it was going to be that high up at first, but once you got up there, it felt REALLY high. The view was really nice but we only got to stay at the very top for 3 minutes. So we snapped a few photos and enjoyed the view while we could!

Looking up at the balloon

View of Pigeon Forge at highest elevation of the balloon

Lastly, we went to some outlet stores while in Pigeon Forge. One of the items I got that I was particularly excited about and I think some of my friends already own, is a denim button-up shirt. I saw it at Old Navy and my beau treated me to it since I liked it so well. I'd already pinned some ideas on Pinterest of different ways to wear it and I thought I'd link it to you all too. Here is one link to another blog with several different ideas for a denim button-up and there are many more online. I'm ready to try some of them out!
What a great month June has been!

Until next time,
The Farmer's Daughter