Fairfax Fair- Third Eye Blind!

Hello again blog friends! My tired eyes and body are still recovering from the amazing concert last night, so I did not wake up and head to the gym this morning.  Like I said yesterday, perhaps this was not a good week to start my new workout plan, I will restart it again next week. 

Today has been super busy, so this is going to be quite a long post, I apologize in advance.  Erik took today off of work, YAY, so I got to have lunch with Erik and my mommy!  On our way to lunch my mom and I saw this car that had some body damage to the trunk:

I don’t think the trunk was usable, and yes that is a Band-Aid on the car! We both thought it was really cute, so we took a picture of it, although you can’t really see the Band-Aid too well.  We went to Cafesano for lunch.  Oh man this place is fantastic, we must go again.  We had the Dip Sampler, which had red pepper humus and babaganoosh, YUM.

My mom and I had the Pesto Chicken Panini, which was faaaabbbbbulous:

And Erik had the Falafel, which was also really delish:

Really if you live or work in Reston, you need to go to this place; I will most definitely be going there again.  After work we headed over to Hyojon’s house to have some dinner before heading to the Fairfax Fair! We had a really great time, Third Eye Blind was the headline performer and they were amazing, as usual.

After a wonderful concert we walked around the fair a bit and headed to the carnival, Diana had a great time:

I don’t like carnival rides, because they scare me to no end, so we just walked around and people watched. I heart people watching, and a carnival is one of the best places to do that, haha.   Right before we left the fair, my sister and her friend got up on the karaoke stage and sang, ahh they were so cute!

Well folks I am beat, I hope everyone had a great Friday!

Mumford & Sons Concert!

Hey guys! This week was not a good week to start my new workout plan.  When I decided I was going to do it, I thought ok I will only miss one day of working out because of the concert, but now I have missed two.  But you know what I am ok with it, I love hanging out with my friends and my hubby, and I won’t let working out run my life.

So on that note, I didn’t have time to go to the gym this morning because I had to take Ella to my mom’s house.  They watched her for the night while we were at the concert.  I swear having a dog must be similar to having a kid; it takes us so much longer to pack up her stuff and move her around.  We decided we need to get another crate and leave it at my mom’s house.  Poor baby Ella!

I forgot to mention yesterday that Katie is making a 101 in 1001 list too! Actually my other friend Erin, who will start her blog soon, has also made one! I love lists, and I think I convinced Erik to make his own 101 list! I encourage everyone to make one!  I did change a few things on mine, as I was listening to Katie’s list and reading Erin’s I realized there were a few other things I want on my list.  I got rid of a few things, which I thought were just fillers I had put on my list at the time, so check out my updated 101 in 1001.

Lunch today was the same Sammy as yesterday, but this time I managed to take a picture of the whole thing before I ate it:

I am disappointed to say that we couldn’t cook tonight and but we got Grilled Stuft Burritos at Taco bell before the concert which was awweeesome.

Lauren and I drove up to Rockville to meet up with Erik then we drove about 45 min to Columbia, MD to go to the MUMFORD & SON’s concert at Meriwether Post Pavilion!!!!  The concert was amazing; Patti, Kristy, Ramsey and their other roommate Katie were there too! Ahh it was so much fun!

We had a tiny blanket and all six of us were sitting on it, haha.  Before Mumford and Sons came on it starting to downpour, and when I say downpour, it came down for about 45 min with crazy scary lightening and we all just stood there out on the lawn and danced around.  Well technically we were playing in the rain, and I am totally counting this as # 87 because it was fantastic.  20 minutes into the thunderstorm, it started to hail!!!!! That was the most painful part, that and the temperature dropped about 20 degrees in 10 minutes.  This is what we looked like after the storm:

Haha, we look amazing! We has such a great time, and for standing out in the storm we each got a free beer:

WOOT!  It did eventually stop raining and we stood out and enjoyed a fantastic concert.  If you have a chance to go see Mumford & Sons in concert I HIGHLY recommend it!  The pictures I took were not that great but here they are anyway, enjoy! I hope everyone had a safe and dry night!

Dinner Guests!

Greetings blog friends! Hahah I am lame.

I am glad to say that I am surprisingly not sore from yesterday’s double workout, yay.  This morning I work up and headed to the gym, and did 3 miles on the elliptical.  I had planned on doing the shoulders & arms routine but I couldn’t today because we had dinner guests tonight *happyface*, but I will tell you about that in a bit.

Lunch today was a super yummy turkey sandwich:

I was so hungry I started eating it without thinking to take a picture, and when I remembered I had eaten most of it, so what you see is what I had left three seconds into opening my lunch, haha. It was very tasty.

Later I had a new version of my Cho-nola, I had bought a new granola, Quaker Natural Granola, and I wanted to test it out. 

It was just alright, well ok I take that back, the granola itself was super yummy, but when I mixed it in with the Chobani the raisins were too much. 

They were hard and difficult to chew, so next time I will take out all the raisins and eat them separately. But overall it was still pretty good.  Now for the main event: DINNER! Oh man I love to cook.  Our friend Luke called me today and said that he was going to be in town until Saturday, and wanted to get Pho for dinner.  Well, as Erik pointed out to me, it’s over 100 degrees outside today with a million percent humidity, so we passed on the Pho.  But we did invite him and our other friend Katie over for dinner. 

I made a Better Homes and Garden’s recipe, Turkey burgers with Peaches and blueberries.  Sounds weird right? Well it was so amazing!  It was the lightest tasting burger I have ever had. The natural sugars of the peaches and blueberries were the perfect touch.

It would have been a healthy meal, but Luke made some super amazing buttery potatoes. Oh well they were good and it was great to hang out with our friends!

Here is the recipe:

Turkey Burger with Peaches and Blueberries

Start to Finish: 30 minutes

ingredients

4         small peaches

1         lb. ground turkey

4         slices Monterey Jack cheese

½       cup blueberries

¼       tsp. chili powder

4        thick slices roasted garlic country bread or garlic bread, toasted if desired

         Fresh mint (optional)

directions

1.Finely chop one of the peaches; add ground turkey, salt and pepper. Shape into four 1/2-inch thick patties (if necessary, dampen hands first). Grill directly over medium-high heat for 4 to 5 minutes per side or until no pink remains (165°F). Add cheese; cover and cook 1 minute more.

2.Meanwhile coarsely chop remaining peaches; combine in a large skillet with blueberries and 1/4 teaspoon chili powder. Cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat for 5 to 6 minutes or until heated through and beginning to have juices form.

3.Top each piece of garlic bread with one patty and some of the peach mixture. Add mint and additional chili powder. Makes 4 servings.

nutrition facts

·         Calories464 

·         Total Fat (g)25 

·         Saturated Fat (g)10,

·         Monounsaturated Fat (g)6, 

·         Polyunsaturated Fat (g)3,

·         Cholesterol (mg)114, 

·         Sodium (mg)614, 

·         Carbohydrate (g)28,

·         Total Sugar (g)11, 

·         Fiber (g)3, 

·         Protein (g)31, 

·         Vitamin C (DV%)14, 

·         Calcium (DV%)23, 

·         Iron (DV%)11, 

·         Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Alright folks, I am off to bed! I hope everyone had a great day!

New Workout Plan = great success!

Hello blog friends! How is everyone today!?

My day started off with a wonderful morning workout! It was hard to get out of bed again this morning but I knew that I had to do it, and I am so glad I did. It wasn’t a long cardio workout this morning but I did 2.3 miles on the elliptical and 15 minutes of abs.  For my ab workout I did most of the moves that is featured on P90x Ab Ripper X.  I think I left a few of them out but it’s okay.

Breakfast this morning was a cup of multigrain cheerios, and a banana, I like the multigrain cheerios but I can’t wait to finish the next box, because I need my honey nut cheerios badly!

For lunch today I had the leftovers from last night’s beef and veggie Kabobs.  Our office has a toaster oven, yippie, so I reheated my lunch in there, which was far better than putting it in the microwave.

Someone in my office, cake fairy, brought this fabulous morsel of deliciousness and set it out on the table for everyone to have:

I obviously could not resist, so I had a tiiiiny piece of it. See look:

There were 6 servings in the whole cake, I didn’t even have one serving, and thank goodness too because one serving is 13 WW points, OMG, that is like eating an entire chipotle burrito. Clearly I have no self control, ugh, I should have looked at the nutrition facts before I inhaled it.

After I got home, I played with Ella outside for a bit, then popped in the Core Synergistics P90x video, and started my first day of my new workout plan. It is a bit crazy I know, but what I am doing now hasn’t really been giving me the results I want, so I need to change it up a bit. It was a great workout!

Tomorrow afternoon I have shoulders and Arms, plus Ab Ripper, woot! I really hope I can keep this up because it really felt good to get in two workouts. It was a good thing I did because we went over to Sunny and Diana’s house for some yummy Korean BBQ.

Oh man, Honey Pig watch out!! If you don’t know what Honey Pig is, then you don’t live in Northern Virginia, haha, it is a 24 hour Korean BBQ restaurant. Ya that’s right 24 hours, because who doesn’t want some Bulgogi and Galbi at 2 am, ok I actually haven’t been there that late but maybe that should have been one of the things on my list of 101 in 1001, darn. Oh well. 

Man I am stuffed, and it’s time for bed! I hope everyone had a great day!

My body hates me!

I woke up this morning and my entire body was sore… I don’t get it. I guess it had something to do with playing football and softball for the first time in a month, but seriously? Needless to say I did not go to the gym this morning, and I am kicking myself for it.  I really just couldn’t get up and moving in time.  I did however we took Ella for a 35 minute walk after work. I suppose it’s better than nothing.

Dinner tonight was super yummy, beef and vegetable Kabobs:

We put the veggies and beef on separate skewers.

And here is Erik grilling the veggies. We didn’t have any A1 sauce so Erik made his own sauce which was oh so fabulous!

I had 2 veggie skewers and half of a beef one, surprisingly it was very filling.  We decided that we need to eat more fruits and veggies. After dinner we took Ella for a walk then came back and popped in ER season 13 disc 1 and watched 3 episodes while we had our dessert:

I am going to take credit for this one; it was a very sweet and juicy cantaloupe.  We almost ate the whole thing, haha.

I don’t know how many times I am going to change my mind about my workouts but I think I might have made a decision.  I don’t think I am building any fat burning muscle just by running every morning, so I have decided to work out twice a day.  In the mornings I will do my cardio, (running, elliptical, etc.), and after work I will go through the P90x workouts.  I am going to do it, I just have to be more disciplined.  I will start this plan tomorrow!

Alright folks that is all for today! I hope everyone had a great Monday.

Softball saves the sports weekend!

Hello blog friends! We had two softball games today, and we won both of them!! Erik had some sweet hits and ran around the bases like a gazelle! My sister even got a hit! I also got to hit, our friend Kave wrapped my hand up so that I could hit, it still probably wasn’t a good idea but I wanted/needed to play so I sucked it up.  I will probably pay for it tomorrow, but hey I love softball.

I got some sweet deals at Rite Aid today!  I got some John Frieda Root awakening stuff that I gave to my mom, and made $5 off of it, aka it was $5 and I used a $5 off coupon and at the end of the month I will get a $5 single check rebate from Rite Aid! Woot!  I also got some Blink Eye drops for free, same deal with the single check rebate, and 3 4-packs of high protein Ensure (Erik likes to drink those instead of yucky protein shakes) for $3.99 each. It was a pretty sweet deal considering they are originally $10 each 4-pack! I will hit up CVS sometime later this week, just to get some cheapo body wash again. There weren’t that many great deals this week, in my opinion, but I might have to look over them again just to make sure.

Before softball Erik and I went to the gym! I was watching the NCAA softball world series while I was on the elliptical for 3.31 miles, and on the treadmill for a mile. Not too shabby.  I did a few abs then we headed to Giant to get some shopping done for the week. We have some pretty yummy meals planned for this week; Erik helped me plan our meals this week.  I think that is going to turn into a regular thing, because he really picks some yummy things.

Dinner tonight was a Hodgepodge of things.  Erik had a Trader Joe’s Chicken Chow Mein, my sister (who came over to hang out and play softball with us) had chicken nuggets, and I had a Mango Chobani with some granola! This was my first Chobani in weeks, and it was oh so good!

Alright folks I am off to bed! I hope everyone had a great weekend!

More Football injuries, ugh!

Well let’s first start with this lovely breakfast Erik and I put together this morning!

close-up in case you wanted to see it closer haha.

2 hardboiled eggs, one English muffin with cheese for my egg sandwich, coffee and ½ of a grapefruit.

It was a perfect meal, the grapefruit really lighten the meal.  While I was cleaning up from breakfast, Ella was laying in her favorite spot, in the sun, watching people outside.

After breakfast, we headed over to Erik’s parent’s house to help his younger sister Lauren move into her own apartment! YAY.  I am so happy for her! She is joining us in the real world, I will just warn you Splory, its tough out here!

I didn’t take a picture of her new place yet, for 2 reasons, #1 its not fully decorated yet, and #2 we were super late to our football game so we had to hurry out the door. 

Football gets more and more frustrating every week.  We lost again this week, and I well take most of the blame for this one.  I dropped a lot of balls that should have been caught, some in the end zone.  But in my defense, I hadn’t played in a football game for a month.  I will have to practice with Erik in our backyard before next week’s game.  The only problem is that after the second play to me I jammed my thumb really bad, which might be part of the reason why I dropped a lot of passes.  I didn’t take a picture of my thumb because I don’t think you can really tell it’s swollen from the pictures. Also some guy on the opposing team decided we were playing tackle football and basically tackled Erik to the ground! It took a lot of self control for all of us not to explode on the guy, he was a jerk!

After the football game we headed over to Hyojon’s house for Kylie’s birthday party.  There was a giant princess castle moon bounce, and yes I did play in it.  When the kiddos went to bed we had a backstreet boys dance party, crazy raging party I know! It was a blasty blast!

Well I am exhausted, and I am off to bed.  I hope everyone had a great Saturday.

Lunch with mommies are the BEST!

I went to lunch with my mommy again today :) We went to a place called Mama Wok, and it was super yummy. I got this fortune in my cookie today,

Which I think is quite fitting, since I started a new job that is going to be a great challenge. My mom’s fortune said, “You look happy and proud.” Hehe we both thought it was cute.

I got to head out of work early because there was no one in the office, and I knew I would be doing some work over the weekend. So my boss said I could go home and enjoy the weather! Yippie! I had to go to Costco to get a few things, and I won’t even talk about the crazy membership fiasco I had to deal with. Let’s just say it wasn’t the way I wanted to start the weekend, but it is a beautiful day and its FRIDAY!

After I got home I took Ella for a mile run. I don’t know what it is about running outside that makes me more tired than running on the treadmill. Perhaps it could be that I run faster outside? Next time I will time myself to see how long it takes me to run a mile outside, and compare it.

Later, Erik and I headed to Sunny and Diana’s house to pick them up and head to Z burger for dinner, super YUM! It was our last Z burger living social coupon *sad face*, but that means that there are plenty of yummy pictures. Erik had to remind me to take the pictures, but I took them anyway!

Erik’s burger

My burger

Shared Fries

Mmmm, are you hungry yet?

Well folks that is all for tonight, I hope everyone had a great Friday!

New Hair cut!

Hello blog friends!  It’s been a looong day, one that has led me to conclude that I suck at being a girl. Haha. But I am getting ahead of myself.

This morning I woke up and my knee really hurt, but I decided to go to the gym anyway, YAY ME, and I am really glad I did.  I logged 3 miles on the elliptical and stretched a lot.  It felt really good, I decided it would be a better idea not to run on the treadmill. YAY for working out 4 days this week! I will most likely be taking tomorrow off from the gym, because I will be driving Erik to the metro.  He has been borrowing Diana’s car this week in order to get his car fixed. But it is ready and he can pick it up tomorrow!

Today I had lunch with my beautiful mommy! We got to sit outside and enjoy the wonderful weather!  We plan on having lunch again tomorrow! YAY!

After work I went to the salon to get a new haircut and some highlights.  So I mentioned before that I suck at being a girl, well here is why, #1 I never go get my hair done, ever! So when I called I told them I wanted a haircut and highlights and they set me up with an appointment.  Little did I know when you call to make the appointment you have to specify if you want partial highlights or full highlights, needless to say to my surprise I got full highlights.  And because I never go, I didn’t know any better until she was too far into highlighting my hair that I couldn’t tell her to stop.  It took about 2 hours to highlight my hair and cut it, but I think it was worth it. 

You can’t really see the highlights in my hair but you can see the cut.  I will try and get a better picture this weekend to post.  I love the length of it, my head feels 100 lbs lighter now *happy face*.

I got home and Erik had made a yummy Mushroom ravioli dinner…. Mmmm mmm mmm J He is the best! Well folks that is all for today, we are going to watch our recorded “The Voice” episodes!

I like this new schedule!

Hello blog friends!  Today was my second day at my new job and I really love my new schedule.  I have time to go to the gym in the mornings before work, and I get home earlier than I did when I worked in Frederick (duh).  I just feel like I have more of a life outside of work now.  Now that we have a gym membership Erik goes to the gym after work and still ends up getting home at the same time he did before, weird how that works, but it is better for him to drive without a million hours of traffic, we all know how I feel about traffic.

For this morning’s workout, I got to the gym a bit earlier than I did yesterday, but still not early enough.  I ended up doing 2.2 miles on the elliptical and ran 1 mile afterwards.  I still managed to have time for abs, but not as much time as I would have liked.

When I got back, I had a bowl of cereal, and I looked over to the front door and look at what I saw:

How super cute is she? Haha. She loooooves the sun. 

Midday at work I was feeling super tired, I don’t know why, so I went to the kitchen area where they have an awesome coffee machine and I made myself a latte/cappuccino swirl.



Yum! I don’t think I will be making lattes too often, but I needed a little pick me up.  Tomorrow perhaps I will bring an energy bar.

On the menu tonight was another clean eating recipe¸ Mediterranean Calzones, and they were pretty good.  I think it needed a bit more of something, which we later discovered was spices haha. But it was pretty good, and very clean.



Here is the recipe:

Mediterranean Calzone

These clean calzones, or pizza pockets, are full of Mediterranean flavor - plus a whopping 19 grams of fiber!

Serves: 4  Hands-on time: 20 minutes. Total time: 45 minutes.

INDREDIENTS:

·         8 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast

·         3 cups baby spinach

·         2 cloves garlic, diced

·         1/4 cup whole-wheat flour

·         1 16-oz pkg whole-wheat pizza dough

·         1/2 cup low-fat ricotta cheese

·         1/2 cup onion, chopped

·         4 artichoke hearts, chopped

·         1/4 cup roasted red peppers, rinsed and chopped

·         1 small Roma tomato, seeded, cored and diced

·         1/2 cup reduced-fat feta cheese

·         2 tsp olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.    Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake chicken breast for 15 to 20 minutes, until fully cooked. Meanwhile, steam spinach, garlic and 1 tsp water in a bowl for 2 minutes on high in microwave. When cool, drain excess liquid.

2.    Cover a flat surface and rolling pin with flour. Divide pizza dough into 4 sections by cutting with a knife. Roll out each section into a circle. Place each section on a baking sheet.

3.    Mix ricotta cheese and onion together with spinach-garlic mixture.

4.    To assemble each calzone: Layer 1/4 of ricotta mixture, 1 artichoke heart, 1 tbsp red pepper and 2 oz chicken breast on 1 half of each dough section. Next sprinkle 1 tbsp tomato and 3 tbsp feta. Be sure to leave 1/4 inch around perimeter of dough. Fold in half to make a half-moon shape, pinch sides together with water to stick. Brush exterior of dough, on both sides, with oil, gently flipping over calzone to avoid contents ripping through. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until dough is golden and feels crusty to the touch. Let cool for 5 minutes.

Nutrients per calzone: Calories: 580, Total Fat: 11 g, Sat. Fat: 3 g, Carbs: 81 g, Fiber: 19 g, Sugars: 5 g, Protein: 42 g, Sodium: 670 mg, Cholesterol: 60 mg

After dinner, we decided to have some of Erik’s birthday cake; I forgot to post the picture of the cake this past weekend.  I will update the post from the party tomorrow.



The cake wasn’t as good as it was on Sunday so I didn’t eat more than two bites of it before I threw it out… me throwing out cake, weird I know.  But I decided I didn’t want to waste the calories on something I wasn’t super in love with. 

Well folks that is all for today, we are going to watch the Biggest Loser Finale we recorded from last week!