The most fun weekend ever!

So as most of you may know I won a cooking contest! Yay me! The contest was for the awesome recipe site called www.Justapinch.com. I have 9 blue ribbons with this site. They have contest quarterly and this one was a breakfast challenge. I almost didn't enter but I decided to find and come up with about 4 recipes to enter and my Bacon and Green Onion  Breakfast Tart won! woot woot! When I got the call that I had won I was having such a bad day but that one call turned that frown upside down. The first weekend in June was the showcase in Nashville. Just a pinch flew me and my friend Debbie to Nashville, picked us up in a limo, and  paid for our hotel and airfare. We even got to eat at a fancy shamncy restaurant called THE PALM with Janet Tharpe the food editor of Just a Pinch. It  had incredible food! I got the surf and turf (9oz filet with half a 3lb lobster) and creme brulee for dessert. YUMMO!  After dinner we were driven around to see all the cool hot spots in Nashville.

The next morning  I stood in front of an audience and taught everyone how to make the tart. It was so much fun. There were so many pictures being taken the whole time that I didn't take too many my self but my friend Debbie (who I met on Just a pinch)  did.  So I will be posting some of those. They also had to do 2 video interviews with me and that was what made me the most nervous. Once I started cooking though my nerves subsided and I felt more comfortable.  After the showcase was over more pictures were taken and I got to go on my $1000 shopping spree! THAT was sooooo COOL! It was so nice to just walk through the Viking store and pick out what I wanted. They mailed me my new stuff so that way I didn't have to take it back on the plane with me. I don't think that my new knives and torch would have gone over well with the TSA. After the shopping spree Debbie, Kim and I did some more shopping around town and then that night Debbie and I went to the Grand Ole Opry to watch Rascal Flatts play. Before the concert we ate at an Italian restaurant in the Opryland Hotel. That had to be one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever been in. They even had a beautiful waterfall and what seemed like a rainforest when you walked around the place. After dinner we atteneded the concert. That was a neat experience. I guess I never realized that the Grand Ole Opry  was a live radio show. They kept doing commercials. Rascal Flatts were awesome. The lead singer has an incredible voice.
Early Sunday morning I flew home. When Josh and the kids picked me up from the airport, I stood at the curb waiting for them. I then saw Josh drive up with both Jada and Ammon hanging their heads out the window yelling mommy and holding a sign up saying welcome home! Too cute! (Now people don't fret. Josh had pulled up earlier and had let the kids out of their cars seats just when he was pulling up curb side. Josh is a wonderful daddy that always buckles his kids in.) 

That was a whirl wind of a weekend for me. Josh, the kids and I even took a day trip to the beach on Monday, since he was off work. So needless to say, Tuesday morning I was sunburned and tired. But this  definitely was the MOST fun weekend ever!

Our First Stop was Gigi's cupcakes. It was right across the street from our hotel! They were amazing! I got the banana split cupcake, Debbie got the salted caramel and chocolate overload.

Janet Tharpe (food editor on just a pinch), me and Susan Feliciano (a fellow just a pinch member)

Debbie Wright, me and my sista Kim Dowdle

The kitchen crew and Missy the winner of the holiday tradition contest. She MCd the showcase. I will be MCing the next one in August.

They convinced me to put the silly hat on.

Janet and I talking before the showcase began. She is such a sweet person!

Doing my cooking thang!

The Tart

Going out to the Grand Ole Opry

At the Opryland Hotel

Glass art at the hotel

Rascal Flats doing their Thang... they were awesome!

My loot! I know it doesn't look like much but the place was so expensive! Here is what I got: A viking  9 speed hand held mixer (that thing is powerful!), professional knife sharpener, Viking saute pan, pasta maker, electric candy themometer, cast iron 2 sided griddle, pineapple cutter, 2 knife guards, lemon juicer, adjustable table spoon, melon baller, mandoline, strawberry huller, sifter, grill basket, 2 new ceramic knives, spatula, creme brulee torch, 2 miniture wisk, zester, and a maganetic knife holder.