Self Hosted

Hey friends!

Guess what!?

My blog is now self hosted... :)

I changed the name of my blog and the URL check it out!

http://myrunningthoughts.com/

You can now subscribe with your email address, so you will never miss a post again ;) haha

YAY!

Catch ya on the flip side!

Vancouver Part 4

I promise only one more Vancouver post after this one and I will get back to my usual posts :). But first a few eats from yesterday:

I bought some amazing blueberries from Trader Joe's and decided to bulk up my cereal a bit with blueberries AND a banana. yum yum yummy

Some grapes for my morning snack

a cucumber and mixed greens salad, with Fat free Balsamic Vinaigrette for lunch

 and some plain Greek Yogurt, blueberries, and Banana Nut Bare Naked Granola! This was my first time ever trying this stuff and I am hooked. I hope all of their flavors are this good.

 I think I need to add more granola next time:

Okay back to Vancouver we goooooo:

This was our trip up Grouse Mountain:

 Sorry the pictures aren't amazing, we were stuck in the very middle of the skylift.

I was a bit concerned about riding the ski lifts without all my snowboard gear.

"Wait you want me....

to go up there?

on this thing?"

haha yup, just don't look down:

Unless you want to see a bear:

 and more jagged rocks and tree limbs:

There were some amazing views from the top of the mountain, I bet it would be really amazing to ski here in the winter:

 We headed back down the mountain (on the ski lifts), and sat down to enjoy the Lumber Jack Show:

 These guys were pretty hilarious:

(My sister is holding these pictures hostage, so once I get them I will put them up here.)

We also went Zip Lining! If you know me at all, I am scared of almost everything, honestly, it sucks, but I did this and I am so glad I did.  We went through 5 different lines, reaching speeds of 50mph. AH it was exhilarating! I highly recommend trying it out!

(Again my sister has these pictures, I promise I will put them up once I get them.)

After a long day we headed home to rest up. 

On Friday, we headed to Victoria.  A bit of a disclaimer about these next photos, it may look like I don't wash my clothes, but I do.  I just really love this shirt and my mom had just done the laundry and it was on top of my pile. Plus I wanted to wear my patchwork skirt and this was the only shirt I had to match.  So stop judging me!

Have you ever had pop rocks? Well I love them....and we had some in the car while we waited for the Ferry to Victoria.  

 Ferries are pretty cool:

 Especially when you go with your family:

 Once we got to Victoria, we headed to Butchart Gardens:

 They have some of the most amazing flowers there.  We took a million pictures, but I will share a few of them with you:

 This was in the middle of the gardens, a beautiful fountain.

I love archways, and my sister

cool orb picture.

 and my hubby :)

 see my patchwork skirt... wouldn't have matched anything else.

 I really love my sister :)

 and archways.

Watch out tomorrow is the last day of our trip.. my cousin Niusha's wedding and a Bridal shower for another cousin.

Cheers!

Vancouver Part 3

Hello friends! 

You are probably bored with my Vancouver posts, but there are so many pictures I want to share, that I simply cannot put them all in one post. So please, stay with me, I am almost finished (not really).  Here are some of my delish eats from yesterday.  I went to the gym in the morning with my good friend Lejia, and did 3 miles on the elliptical.  It felt great. I was hoping to go back again this morning but I was super exhausted and I just could not get myself out of bed, that and Lejia stood me up too.

Well, because I went to the gym, I had zero time to fix my lunch, but luckily at work they had gotten bagels for breakfast, so I took one and saved it for my lunch.

 I couldn't wait for the day to end so I could go home and make dinner. I really love Trader Joe's.  I cooked up some Red Quinoa with veggies, while Erik grilled the Pesto Chicken Genovese. This. was. so. good.  Most def a do it again meal.

Okay back to Vancouver:

I honestly do not remember when we went to Gastown, but I have a feeling it should have been part of my last post, haha. We went to Gastown, in downtown Vancouver to see this famous steam clock, and to have dinner.

The clock was actually pretty cool.  It chimes every half hour and hour, like a grandfather clock, but instead of "chimes" it literally sounded like a steam engine of a train.

 We also got to see the site where they held the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, or well one of the sites of the Olympic games. The hotel that was attached to this site was where my cousin had her wedding, which I will recap in the next few days.

The following morning we headed out to Granville Public Market.  My aunt, Erik and I decided to walk across the bridge to get there, while the rest of my family drove (lazy.. haha jk).  We just didn't want to have to pay a bazillion dollars for parking.

When we got there, Erik and I stopped off at the Granville Brewery and had a little tasting.

Their limited reserve, was the best IPA I have had in a long time.  I am a sucker for IPA's right now, and have been since our trip to Boston.

We walked around the Granville most of the day, did some shopping

 see my new hat (I wanted to get those sunglasses too, but I didn't)

And took some pretty silly pictures

 On our walk back downtown we had a really nice view of the city, and managed to get some good shots.

By the end of the day, I semi regretted walking to Granville Market, it was great exercise but man we were pooped!

Tomorrow I will recap Grouse Mountain (ziplining.. whhhaaat), and our mini trip to Victoria! Stay tuned!

Vancouver Part 2

Before I get started with part 2 of Vancouver I want to take a minute to share a great website with you guys! Have you ever heard of The Clymb? This site has great outdoor gear for crazy good prices. You all know how much I love a good deal :) haha. If you sign up for their deals through this link you will receive a $10 credit, and who doesn't love free money :)

Also I would like to share some of yesterdays grub:

My super yummy and healthy lunch :)

All mixed up. I only used about half of the Coconut chili dressing because it was super spicy, but so yummy.

This is my first ever Mojo Bar and I loved it!  I went to Trader Joe's again last night and bought a few more.

And I thought this little birdy was super cute, I saw him on my drive home yesterday!

ok back to our regularly scheduled post:

Day 3 we headed out to Stanley Park, and took some really wonderful pictures.  The following pictures are all from Beaver Lake:

I had a nice standoff with a black squirrel.  He was actually really cute. I won, because after about a minute he ran away! haha, and I sat in the Tree chair.

After we walked around Beaver lake, we drove around Stanley Park and got out of the car when we were near the bay.

The weather was amazing and the clouds were even cooler!

After doodling around Stanley Park we headed back across the Lions Gate Bridge to have a picnic in the park.  My cousin was still a little tired from our crazy trip up to Vancouver,

but woke up promptly when the food was ready

I took some pictures while my sister took pictures of me haha. 

We all then took turns changing in our minivan to head over to my cousin, Niusha and Niaz's house. I hadn't seen my cousins in yearrrrrs, and it was so amazing to finally get to see them.  My cousin, Niusha (in the purple) was the one who's wedding we were there to attend!

                                         

We got to see some pretty amazing views from their 11th floor condo!

Day 4 was a rainy one, so we decided it was a great opportunity to do something indoors.  So we headed back to Stanley Park and went to the aquarium.  I really don't think I have ever been to an aquarium, but I could be wrong.  If I had, I was probably too young to actually appreciate the beauty.
My best friend Bethany can probably tell you the names, species and what all these animals like to do in their free time.

These little snakey worm things were awesome. They would come up from the sand when there was food approaching them.

I obviously had to take a picture of Nemo.

And a giant sea turtle

and some really cool jellyfish

In the aquarium they also had a rain forest section set up, it was really humid, but the animals were free to fly and move about as they pleased, it was really cool:.

We got to see an outdoor show of the baby beluga

and three active dolphins

along with this really awesome sea lion who was showing off for us in order to get some treats. There was a little girl sitting in front of the window with coffee and he kept putting his nose up to it and dancing around, hilarious!

Scuba Steve was also there:

and some really cool pics of plant life:

cute little poisonous tree frog, no big deal:

Creepy looking crocodile

along with many other unidentified animals:

haha, we had a great time!

Alright enough picture bombardment for one day! Have a great day!