Girl’s Weekend 2012

Another one in the books! The 15th Annual Girl’s Weekend in Minneapolis was a success like always.  It is honestly one of my favorite weekends of the entire year.  I didn’t get photos of all of my amazing food and drink, but here is a sampling…

Sushi from Crave (located in the Mall of America).  This is becoming a favorite stop for us!  I highly recommend the Mexican Roll, the Crunchy Roll, and the Sumo Roll.  Cocktails are also a must with lunch–just because we can.

Beef short ribs with a Yukon mash and some sauteed veggies.  This was my dinner theater selection and it did not disappoint!  Better than the food was the wine.  There was no shortage of red wine… If I could remember the name I would share, but unfortunately I was too wrapped up in the play to write it down… I’m sure Sue will remember, so I’ll have to ask!

Cereal!!! Ahh I never have cereal anymore.  It is such a nice treat to be a visitor.  I think there is Corn Pops, Kix and Granola in there somewhere.  My aunt has a flux of grandkids going in and out of her house, so she has all of the good stuff.   Along with some tasty fresh berries! She knows how to make me a happy shopper.

Last but not least… A made-to-order stir fry from a new place cleverly named “Stir Crazy“.  We really enjoyed this place.  Almost like a mongolian grill, but with a line of woks instead of one big flat top.  This is a mixture vegetables and coconut curry sauce (my fave!) and brown rice.  Enough for leftovers, but not conducive for a plane.

I was super sad to say goodbye to my family after such a short and wonderful visit.  I guess I just need to get planning on my next stop home.

In other updates, I got a fantastic 7-miler in early Saturday before shopping went full-force.  I cut my scheduled 10-miles down so I didn’t miss out on any socializing once everyone started waking up.  Worked out perfect because I’m just flip-flopping this weekend!

This week in training:

• Monday: 3 miles easy
• Tuesday: 5 miles tempo (800 repeats)
• Wednesday: easy short run + strength (60 degrees outside, had to!!)
• Thursday: 3 miles speed (400 repeats)
• Friday: OFF
• Saturday: 10 mile long run
• Sunday: Yoga (I missed it last week!) + strength

 

 

 

Tristan’s first birthday

My nephew/Godson Tristan turned 1 year old on May 13th! Since my brother and his wife had a party for him on Saturday, my Step-dad John had the fabulous idea to fly me home and surprise my entire family for the occasion.  I couldn’t have been happier to partake… we had been planning this for about a month!

Friday-Sunday was a quick, but incredible weekend.  There was lot’s of wedding talk (Eric and Julie will be getting married in October!), birthday celebrating, and tons of laughing involved.  Of course, good food was consumed.  Here’s a brief overview:

Heirloom tomato and asparagus salad

Cajun crab cakes + baby red potatoes

Fresh lemon poppyseed muffin

Party plate of cookout goodies

A very good beer.

Veggie Omelet, raisin toast

I didn’t have much control over the food I ate because as you can see pretty much everything was eaten outside of the house.  It was all delicious though!  For the most part, fairly healthy minus the alcohol-induced tortilla chips and salsa on Saturday night…whoops!

I was so happy to be able to go home and see everyone! What a fabulous and jam-packed couple of days.  When I landed in Denver on Sunday, I was sad to leave but excited to come home because I had visitors waiting for me! Yes, we are currently sleeping 6 in our 2-bedroom apartment.  But it’s pretty fun to always have someone around and we’ve been doing lot’s of fun things in our quest to show them around the state.

Friday I may be going White-water rafting!!!! Never done this before, but I have always wanted to.  What a great way to spend an afternoon.

Anyone have awesome summer plans? I’m looking forward to camping, hiking, baseball games, races and concerts.  Lot’s of special things planned!

How not to eat on a daily basis

Hmmm… went to Vegas for a few days and let’s just say my eating habits were sub-par.  But it’s okay because it was the most fabulous vacation ever and I’m actually still laughing out loud (by myself sometimes) thinking of all of the ridiculous fun I had!  Solid vacation indeed.

Exhibit A:

I love nachos–probably more than the average person, in fact–and these were nothing short of spectacular.  But having them numerous times in one day is probably not considered the best way to treat myself.

Exhibit B:

GELATO!!!!!! You know I can’t pass up this fine display.  Funny story, I went for a walk in the mall that our hotel was in (Planet Hollywood) so I could grab some lunch for Jess and I to split at the pool one day.  Came back 2 hours later because I get so darn distracted at places like this.  And I also may have gotten lost….

Regardless, I had some coffee and coconut gelato on my adventure and it was insanely good.  Check out that presentation!

Exhibit C:

Um yeah.  This would be Jessica’s free birthday dessert.  We weren’t about to turn this down.

Exhibit D:

Margaritas galore! I know it’s classic text book to avoid sugary drinks like this… but they’re just too good!  And how can you eat nachos without a good marg, right?  The one above was Cabo Wabo’s House marg–made with agave!

This is the Cactus Pear variety:

And this was a Raspberry one from the Mexican restaurant in our hotel.

yeah.  Believe me there were more, my camera just couldn’t keep up with them all!  I highly recommend Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville–specifically the Mango.

Last but not least…

Exhibit E:

Ah yes, the late night meal.  My eating schedule is so out of whack it’s crazy!  I mean eating at your first meal of the day at happy hour, and then again at 7:00am, I guess I can understand how that would happen.  This is stuffed french toast, by the way.  Yum.

I lived it up like no other during these 5 days and wouldn’t have changed a thing!!!!  That being said, it feels good to be back to normal eating/exercising and I’m planning on signing up for another 1/2 marathon pretty quick so no worries…. my evil twin has definitely NOT taken over my blog.  Normal food pictures resume tomorrow.

Vegas, I love you.

Milwaukee Weekend Recap

I’m alive! Barely… I had quite the weekend of shenanigans in Milwaukee, but it was a BLAST and I’m so glad I had the oppotunity to visit before the summer gets too crazy.

The picture above is (from L to R): Step-sister Jessie, Me, Cousin/God-mother Sue, my bro’s GF Julie, and my brother Eric!  The weekend ended with a Brewer‘s game on Sunday, but first…

I got into town on Friday around 4:00, and Eric, Julie and I promptly picked up some goodies for dinner.  They took me to a cute little neighborhood grocery store, which I loved, and we each got something to throw on the grill.  I went with a salmon burger… check this thing out!

This was the best burger I’ve ever had!  I topped it with grilled onions, mango habanero salsa, and chive cheese.  Julie bought some sprouted grain buns and we had grilled asparagus on the side.  It was a perfect meal.  Of course I had some cold beer on the side, no cookout would be complete without it:-)

After our dinner, we watched Dark Knight on Blue ray (amazing!) and hung out around the apartment.  Sue pulled in at around 10:00 and we got to catch up with her and watch some SNL skits for the next few hours until bed time.

Saturday morning started out with a wonderful little breakfast at a tiny little bakery nearby.  This place was so cute!

I ordered a spinach and feta quiche and it was served with a fruit cup and a homemade bran muffin.  So rich and delicious–I felt very European eating this!

I could not leave without buying one of the fabulous truffles from the display case.  They all looked amazing, but I went with the Coconut and it was SO good!  Nothing like dessert after breakfast!  Thanks for finding the psychedelic background, Sue! LOL

From Le Cakery, we literally sampled our way through lunch and it was super fun.  We went to a farmer’s market type store to pick up ingredients for the housewarming party later on (more on that in a bit!), and then back to the grocery store for smaller items.  I sampled:

• About 10 different cheeses
• Snap peas + peanut sauce (pictures further down!)
• Paella
• An array of fruit at the Farmer’s market
• 3 wines (one was chocolate!)
• A few mustards/sauces on crackers
• Chocolate honey Peanut Butter

That’s all I can remember right now, but I know there was more.  After putting together all of our dishes at Eric’s apartment, we dropped them off at the party house before heading over to the Miller Brewery for a tour before dinner.  It was so cool!

I couldn’t believe how much beer they turnover in this place every single day.  It was a fun last-minute idea to tour the place, and we had a huge group (probably about 10-12).  At the end of the tour, you get 3 samples so we left there feeling pretty good and were definitely ready to party!

Dinner was a Thanksgiving in May theme, so there was turkey, potatoes, corn, stuffing… I took a picture of the food table but it didn’t turn out that good.  Here’s the appetizers I snacked on:

The Best Guac Ever (courtesy of Sue!).  Keeping the pit in the dish prevents browning and makes for pretty presentation.

The Snap Peas with Peanut Sauce that I referred to earlier… This was such a unique appetizer and really yummy!

Tortilla Chips with homemade Salsa.  Very fresh-tasting!

And here’s my plate (I got teased by my brother’s friends for how little I took, but after beer and appetizers for a few hours, I wasn’t too hungry!).  Everything tasted fabulous, though.  The fruit salad was my contribution.

After we ate, we proceeded to play bean bags, beer pong and flip cup into the wee hours of the night.  I feel like I was laughing the entire time.  It was definitely a successful party!

When Sunday came, I was sad that the weekend was almost over, but we still had the Brewer’s game to look forward to and it was nice and sunny outside–perfect day for baseball.  I splurged on some stadium food to “get the full experience” a.k.a chow down some amazing nachos…

…and frozen custard, YUM! (No impressive pictures)

We had great seats right behind home plate!  Baseball games are one of the best parts of summer.

Longest recap ever! LOL…Anyways, I’m SO thankful to have the wonderful relationship that I do with my family… I can’t wait to hang out with everyone again soon.

Now it’s back to the grind… Work, exercise, healthy eating.  I’m hoping to update more than I have been lately so stay tuned!  Hope everyone has a wonderful week:-)

Look what I found

Finally I’m moving to a city that’s more my style… I had the greatest salad of my life after I convinced John to eat lunch here!  There’s no way I can remember everything that was in it, but take a look:

Happiness:-)

Some other fun things we’ve seen/done since the last time I’ve posted include Fat Tire beer in Boulder, crazy college town!

Walked through and explored Red Rocks Ampitheatre–by far the thing I’m most excited about when I get back here in the fall.  The Killer’s are playing on September 9!

People were working out here like crazy! Running stairs, using them to do push-ups, you name it.  It would be such a nice change to workout with this great of scenery… It must be what everyone in town does because this place was packed with exercisers.  Look at how many steps there are to run though…

Yikes!  After touring around this place, we headed towards Vail.  The town was dead, which was to be expected off-season, but the scenery was fantastic on the way there!

We spent the night in Steamboat Springs which was much more community-like, and less of a resort-only town.  The hotel we stayed in had a fantastic restaurant attached!  Everything on the menu was all-natural and made from high quality ingredients.  I had the Tofu “Rad” Thai… Delish!

From here, we started making the trip back home. It was crazy because although the temperatures were near 75 in Fort Collins, by the time we started heading through the mountains we ran into a mini-snowstorm and slippery roads.  Yucky.

This is my bye-bye Colorado picture:-(

John wanted to make sure I saw the Black Hills in South Dakota, which were gorgeous and led right to a nice little surprise…

Mt. Rushmore! The winding road that we took to this view was amazing…  Tomorrow, we’re hitting the Badlands and the rest of the trip is up in the air.

I’m loving everything about this trip!

Weekend Highlights, pt. 2

Isn’t the baby shower invitation cute?!! That’s my brother on the left! LOL All of the decorations were so fun… The party really turned out great!  

Party favors:

My plate-o-food: Baked beans, broccoli slaw, taco lasagna (I made up that name for it ha ha).

Dessert, a.k.a. the best bar ever! Some kind of chocolate/caramel/struesal thing… I’m not a cake person, but this was perfect with a hot cup of coffee!

After the shower was over, a few of us ladies relaxed at my house before making the half hour trek to a beautiful restaurant that I’m going to be working at this summer!  The food was delicious ( I had salmon w/lemon dill sauce), but I didn’t want to take a picture because it’s a little fancy.

Sunday morning, my Mom and I made oats (she eats ‘em every morning!) for breakfast and I got school stuff taken care of for next year while chatting with everyone before they hit the road.  By the time I had all of my stuff packed up, my mom had made a yummy lunch!

Steak and Provolone sandwiches w/mushrooms and onions, fresh pineapple, carrots:

After this I did some NSCA studying, Wii dominating, and catching up with my step-dad who had been at our hunting camp all weekend because he had a “baby shower” for my brother so all of the guys would have something to do too! lol  This translates to drinking lot’s of beer and eating chicken wings while watching the basketball game… I thought this was such a fun idea though!

I had leftover veggie pizza from Friday and an apple for an early dinner before I got picked up to go back to school:

I had 3 of these pieces…The small size at the restaurant we always go to is perfect because I can eat half there and save the other for leftovers and it tastes great if you stick it in the oven for about 5 minutes to toast it back up.

That concludes my weekend of fun at home–hope you all had a wonderful couple of days as well.  I’m now stocked up on fresh groceries and ready to get back in the swing of things… See you tomorrow!

Weekend Highlights, Pt. 1

Hey everyone!!! I had a great weekend at home with the fam and got to enjoy some wonderful eats, attend my future sister-in-law’s baby shower, get my summer job set, take care of mail and Colorado business(!!!)… A very productive weekend overall!

Don’t think I haven’t been catching up on all of your wonderful blogs because I totally have!  I just don’t have the time to comment right now… Regular posting resumes now!  Here’s a quick recap of some of the things I managed to get photos of:

Friday morning breakfast: Berry oats w/AB and Optimum

Friday Lunch: Tuna salad (avocado, celery, carrot, curry powder), an apple, plus some trail mix.

Friday Dinner: Veggie Pizza, Cheese Ravioli, Gniocchi, Caesar salad (so bad, but SOOO good!), Reisling

Dessert: Peanut butter/flax cookie made by my brother’s GF Julie (Hey, Julie!).  She said she was inspired by the blog!

Saturday breakfast: Steel cut oats w/walnuts and pumpkin butter. (Aren’t my mom’s apple dishes so cute??!!)

Baby shower highlights coming later on today!!!

I’m Alive!!!!

Hey everyone! After a long week of fun and vacation, I’m happy to report that I’m alive and kicking.  My body clock is still a little messed up so I’m super tired, but here’s some highlights from beautiful Las Vegas!

Although I didn’t get a ton of good meal shots, I ate at the following restaurants, all of which were amazing! It’s a great place for foodies FOR SURE…

• Social House (in Treasure Island)
• Margaritaville (Jimmy Buffet’s restaurant)
• MESA Grill (Bobby Flay, anyone?)
• Kahunaville

The rest of the things we ate were good as well, but more snacky.  There’s so much going on all of the time, we sometimes forgot to eat! Here we go…

Sushi @ the Social House. AMAZING!

Margaritaville.  The food was good, but the Margaritas were YUM.

MESA. We each ordered an appetizer because the entrees were pretty pricey for college girls, but everything was delicious.  This is the goat queso with blue chips.

Wild Mushroom Quesadilla with hummus:

SQUID!

Sorry for the brightness of the pictures, the lighting was dim and it was hard to get a good shot, but the presentation was really beautiful.

We also met Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond!!! He was eating at the table next to us and we got a picture with him and everything.  Unfortunately it isn’t on my camera, but he was SO funny… just like he is on the show! I’m really glad we ate there.

I absolutely loved everything about this trip!  Vegas is over-the-top fun and I can’t wait to go back.  We also saw the water show at the Bellagio, a Cirque du Soleil performance (Mystere), and did lot’s of pool lounging, shopping, gambling and partying!  One more fun picture just because:

Now I’m going to try to catch up with blog land and try to get my google reader under 200… Yikes! See you tomorrow with regular posting.

Vegas, Baby.

Snackies for the trip…

• bars
• oatmeal and cinn. puffins
• dried fruit, walnuts, almond butter
• apples, oranges, bananas
• tea!

I know, I know, I’m only going for like 4 days, but we’re trying to keep this semi-budgeted since we’re all college students… Plus, I want to have some healthy options for breakfast/snacks… you know the drill!

I’m thinking we will have a few  splurge meals because there will be some great restaurants! Don’t worry, I’ll be a good blogger and take lot’s of pics.

See you Sunday!!! Have a wonderful week:-)

Weekend Recap:Part 2

I’m back after a loooooong morning of playing catch-up at school.  As much fun as it is to go on vacation, I always hate the feeling I have on my first day back (so not in the mood to study!).  But my week is also shorter, so that I am thankful for!!

Picking up where I left off this morning, the next two days of my trip were just as nice as the first day.  I actually slept in a little later on Sunday and our hostess (my cuz) made us scrambled eggs w/ham and cheese, toast and fruit for shopping fuel!  It worked like a charm as we didn’t actually sit down for lunch until around 3 I think??  When we did, we were ready to feast!

After browsing the restaurant selection in the mall, we decided to go with the Napa Valley Grill which was exactly what it sounds like… classy, with white table cloths, a huge wine selection, and great eats!

I went with a roasted vegetable sandwich and field greens salad on the side.

The salad on the side was SO good.  It had roasted butternut squash, walnuts, goat cheese and a brown sugar vinagrette.  I almost wish that I would have had that as my entree, but the sandwich was good too, just a little buttery.

We also split a couple of Mimosas, just because:)

After finishing, we shopped for the rest of the day until 9:00pm!! We’re pretty hard-core ha ha… One of our last stops of the day was Trader Joe’s which I LOVE and don’t get to go to very often, so I was super excited.  Here’s the loot I picked up there:

Love that store!! I also bought my first Fage and I ate it for breakfast the next day.  It was pretty much amazing, and now I’m sad that I can’t have it all the time because it doesn’t exactly fit into my budget!! ha ha oh well, I’ll probably still get it on occasion…

Our last photo-worthy event of the weekend was Monday’s lunch at Hell’s Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis.  This is where I ordered THE BEST BURGER I  HAVE EVER HAD! Not even kidding, just look at this:

It was a Jamaican Jerk Burger which was made from Bison and served with:

• Pepper jack cheese
• Grilled pineapple
• Lettuce, tomato, pickle, red onion
• Homemade wild rice bun

I ordered the fresh fruit side which was also great.  Here’s a shot of my whole plate:

The food here was so fresh tasting… Apparently everything is house-made including the ketchup and peanut butter (their specialty!).

One more picture!

Talk about a long post! See you all later, it’s homework time!