Private Selection Frozen Foods Review

I've mentioned before that I'm a BzzAgent. As a result, I often get to try new products and review them. This time I was asked to try Private Selection Frozen Foods. I was sent coupons for free products to try in exchange for Bzz.

One of the coupons was for a Private Selection frozen pizza. We take our pizza pretty seriously around here, so I was excited about this one. Our local Kroger only had 3 different varieties of Private Selection pizzas. We selected the pepperoni and roasted garlic variety.

A few days later, we decided to try the pizza. I was a bit disappointed when I opened the box because the pizza was rather small. It was more of a meal for one or an appetizer for two. The pepperoni looked great. It was large and there was plenty for the small size. However, the cheese was a little sparse and there were some bare spots, so I tried to spread the cheese out more before I put it in the oven.

Like most frozen pizzas, this one was easy and quick to make. It smelled pretty good when I took it out of the oven. We cut it up and tentatively tried it. I thought the sauce was good. Sauce really makes a pizza and this one was tasty. I also really liked the crispy thin crust. The roasted garlic was in chunks on the pizza. I took mine off because I just can't stand chunks of garlic, but my husband ate his. He didn't care for the texture of it, but thought it tasted fine.

Would we buy this pizza again? Probably not. It cost over $5 and for that price I can get a bigger pizza from a national brand.

We also got to try a frozen dessert. Our local Kroger had quite a few varieties and I had a hard time deciding which one to try. After eying the chocolate croissants and the apple crisp, I finally decided on the Belgian chocolate lava cakes. I always see them in restaurant and they look so yummy.

A few days ago, I was craving something chocolate and decided to try one. There are four individual sized cakes in the box. They are really easy to make in the microwave and it smelled great. I had a hard time waiting for it to cool enough to eat.

Once I tried it, I was impressed. The cake was moist and chocolaty and the molten chocolate was rich. I definitely needed a glass of milk to go with it and I really wished we had had some vanilla ice cream to pair with it. I'll be sure to pick some up before I eat the others. Private Selection also makes ice cream and we enjoy their chocolate, so I'm sure their vanilla is good too.

Would we buy these again? Maybe if I had a coupon or they were on sale. They were tasty and a nice treat.

Private Selection frozen foods are available at the Kroger family of stores. They range in price from $3 to $7




As a BzzAgent, I was given free products to try. All opinions are my own.

Honeymoon Day 1

With my Wedding Wednesday recaps done, it's time to move on to our honeymoon!

When it came time to plan our honeymoon, we knew we needed somewhere that could be budget friendly and that meant staying in the country. And since Hawaii is not very budget friendly, that left only one place to consider in my opinion.

Walt Disney World!

It is my favorite place in the world (although Paris is a close second.) And my husband had only ever been there once when he was a baby. That was unacceptable to me. I'd go to Walt Disney World all the time if I could.

I began planning our trip very soon after we got engaged. I'm a hardcore Disney planner. I get tips from various websites and message boards, I read the guides, and I come up with a fun filled itinerary. It was so fun filled, it was going to be 10 days. Hey, it's our Honeymoon!

And because it was our honeymoon, I really wanted to splurge and stay at a Deluxe Disney Resort. Staying on property is a must for me. We decided that we really wanted to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge, but only if we could get a deal. So, I booked our room knowing that I could change or cancel it up to 2 weeks before our trip. And then I crossed my fingers.

Fortunately, I was the lucky recipient of a PIN code. We ended up getting 40% off our room, so we kept our Animal Kingdom Lodge room. Otherwise, we would have changed to the moderate resort, Caribbean Beach.

We left for our honeymoon the Tuesday after our wedding. This was a great idea because it gave us time to relax and recharge after the wedding. Plus, we didn't have to worry about packing and getting somewhere on time. Also, we got M moved into our house.

We flew Delta through Cincinnati to Orlando. It was rather uneventful other than we had to circle Cincinnati for a bit before we were allowed to land. I thought it seemed like we should be landing already when our pilot let us know what was happening. I never did find out why we had to circle. I meant to ask my air traffic controller brother about that, but I forgot.

We arrived in Orlando and picked up our rental car. I got a good deal through Alamo and I love that you get to pick your car. Because I was the driver, I picked out a Ford Focus since I figured it would be similar to my Ford Fusion. And then we were off to Walt Disney World!

We arrived at the resort and checked in. I had noted on our reservation that it was our honeymoon, so they gave us Just Married buttons to wear. Our room was ready, so we headed to it.

After a quick, excited look over the room, I headed for what I was dying to see. Our view! We had splurged for a savanna view room and I was hoping we had a good one.



That's not your typical hotel room view! Thanks to the Florida June humidity, it even felt like we might be in Africa.



Wait, what's that? Is that what I think it is? A giraffe! We have giraffes outside our room. I was positively giddy.



This is what the balconies look like. I loved all the color.

 We had missed lunch, so we decided to find something off property and then hit up the grocery store. We ended up finding a Chick-fil-a very close to the resort and then we went to Publix. We got stuff for breakfast, bottled water, and some pop for the fridge in our room. This ended up saving us a lot of money.

When we got back to the room, more giraffes had appeared! I spent some time out here just watching them. We also explored the resort a bit.



As much as I wanted to stay on the balcony and watch the animals all evening, we were hungry again, so it was time to find some food. That meant we needed to take a trip to Downtown Disney.

And I knew exactly where I wanted to go.

Source

I really like the sandwiches here and they have so few locations that I only get to go to Earl of Sandwich when I'm at Disney.

(And yes, I really am going to show you pictures of what we ate throughout our trip.)



I got the Original 1792 - roast beef and sharp cheddar. I omitted the horseradish sauce.



M got the Chicken Caesar Salad. This will become a theme for him.

After we ate, we walked around looking at the stores.

And some of us tried on silly hats.

Then it was back to the room to relax and get some good sleep for our first day at Walt Disney World.

Washington DC Vacation Recap Day 6

On our last day in Washington DC, we woke up to a gray, drizzly day. It wasn't raining, but it was definitely a bit misty.

We took the Metro towards Arlington this time and got off at the Arlington National Cemetery stop. It was a quick walk to the visitors center, so no need to drive if you don't want to.

At the visitors center, we bought tickets to the Tourmobile tour of the cemetery. Admission to the cemetery is free and the Tourmobile tour costs $8.50/adult. Of course, you can also choose to just walk around the cemetery, but the tour is an easier way to get to the popular spots and it was one of the few things we paid for in DC.



Our first tour stop was the Kennedy gravesites.



We also saw the grave sites of Robert Kennedy and Edward Kennedy nearby. This area also provides a nice view of Washington DC. The nice thing about the tour is that they would drop you off and you could take as much time as you wanted at the stop. More trams would be by regularly and you were free to get on and off of them as you liked.

Also, the driver provided history and information about the cemetery as we were driving from one stop to the next. Our second stop was the Tomb of the Unknowns.



The tour is scheduled so that you arrive a few minutes before the changing of the guard. We watched the ceremony, but I didn't take any pictures. I wish I had though because I swear the relief commander looked like Dule Hill.

After the ceremony, we walked around to see some things that our tour driver had pointed out on our way to the Tomb. One of the things we looked at was the grave of Charles Frank Burlingame III. He was the pilot of the jet that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11.



Our driver had also pointed out the grave of Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of WWII.


Also in the same area is the memorial for the USS Maine, a battleship that was sunk in Cuba in 1898, an event that led to the Spanish-American War.



There are also memorials to both space shuttle explosions in this area.

Our last tour stop was Arlington House, which was once the home of General Robert E. Lee. During the Civil War, the Union army began to use the grounds of the house as a cemetery to ensure that General Lee did not return to his house. It is now a memorial to him and you can walk through it. When we visited, it was being restored so the furnishings were not in it, but it was still interesting.

Since the house is on top of a hill, it gives great views of DC.



And you can see the Pentagon from here.



This is the side that was hit by the plane on 9/11.

On the way back to the visitors center, we drove by this grave.



That's the grave of President Taft.

After the tour, we took the Metro back to DC to check out a few things we hadn't seen yet.



Like this house. In front of that door in the middle, there were a bunch of people in suits, but they were too far away to tell if there was anybody important.



We walked up closer to get a better look.



We then walked over the White House visitors center and wandered through their exhibit on the history of the White House.

We did some more walking and just looking at things before taking one last ride on the Metro and head back to our hotel.



After dinner, we packed up and rested for our big day of driving back home. But first, we have a stop to make.

Weekend Wrap Up

Happy New Year!

Did you do anything exciting to celebrate? We sure didn't.

I'm working at the store while school is out, so I had to work Saturday. Luckily I had an early shift so I was done at 4. We headed to church and celebrated Mass on Saturday night since we knew we wouldn't want to get up early the next day.

Then we pretty much had a typical Saturday night. I made buffalo wings for dinner and we watched movies. We were both pretty tired, so staying up until midnight was actually kind of hard. We didn't see the ball drop, but a bunch of our neighbors set off fireworks so we knew when it was midnight.

On New Year's Day we worked again, this time at night. Then, I got to see the one thing I was excited about this weekend. The new Sherlock episode! I managed to find a download of it and we stayed up way too late watching it, but it was worth it. It was an awesome episode and I can't wait to see what happens next.

And now that it's the new year, it's time to start thinking about the next big event, my birthday!