Movember and a CSN Store Giveaway

I had to scrape the windows of the Jeep this morning!!!  With my library card no less!
Just thought I’d get that out there.  :)
How is everybody??  I’ve been pretty fantastic!  We had a smoking busy weekend at the Krista’s Kravings house.  Three hockey games (2 out of town) on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, a 1 hour soccer practice on Sunday, trick or treating Sunday night, Pilates last night.  Tonight was another hockey practice .  Tomorrow is FREE and Mom, DD and I are doing something fun on Friday night.  More deets on that later.  ;)
I actually took a half day vacation on Monday because the kids had a PD Day so weren’t at school.  DS was in a hockey camp all day and I didn’t want DD home by herself, for the first time, for a full day.  She asked if we could do lunch and I happily obliged.  We decided on William’s Pub because it’s been a long time since we ate there and we really do enjoy it.  I went with the half salad, half sandwich deal; Greek with the dressing on the side and a chicken pesto panini:
Our lunches came with a choice of chips, a cookie or an apple.  We went with cookies, obviously!  DD chose a PB one and I went with white chocolate macadamia nut.
I also enjoyed a pumpkin spice latte to go:
Love.
After a quick tour of the mall it was time to go back home and get a pasta dish in the oven so that I could get a decent meal into DS before we left for his game.  I found this “Take 5” recipe in my Rachael Ray magazine that I knew would be perfect.
It called for ravioli, sausage meat, a jar of tomato sauce, a head of escarole and mozzarella cheese.  I used tortellini because that’s what I had on hand and went with this Mexican Yves veggie ground round in place of the sausages:
My hubby totally thought he was eating taco seasoned beef!  Here’s the dish after layer #1:
The boys loved this (DD was at Mom’s for dinner because she had dance and wasn’t going out of town with us) although DS picked all the escarole out.  I knew that would happen, but he did give it a try.
Have you seen any men lately sporting some funny looking facial hair? Has anybody heard of Movember?  If not, the month of November is prostate cancer awareness month and men around the nation are growing funky moustaches to raise money for prostate cancer research.  My hubby included.  The deal is that they have to shave for the last time on Oct 31 and can’t shave the stash again until December 1.  They can grow a beard or goatee as well which can be shaved off at any time, but the moustache stays.  So here is my hubby Sunday night after a shave.  
I’ll post another photo of him mid month and again on Nov 30.  He plans on sporting a full goatee.  We shall see.  If you wish to make a donation to this worthy cause, go ahead and click here.
FOOD!!! 
The above is breakfast polenta.  I mixed 1 cup of unsweetened Almond Breeze with a 1/4 cup of polenta.  Right at the end I stirred in some sliced strawberries and dotted it with hazelnut mocha sprinkles.  YUM!  
Tonight’s meal ^^ was a quesadilla of sorts.  I sautéed red onion, red pepper, mushrooms and turkey breast with various spices and a wee bit of chicken stock.  This was placed on a tortilla that had been prepped with some mashed Romano beans then I topped it with a slice of cassata cheese.  Into the oven for 10 minutes at 350* and dinner was served….in the dark!  Haha!
Before I book outta here, I did a little shopping today…
Would YOU like $65.00 to shop here, too?  It could be yours!  CSN Stores has a huge range of great products to pick from.  There’s something for everyone for sure.  This is what you need to do to get your grimy little paws on this $65.00 gift certificate! (Canadian & US residents only, please)
1)  Browse around the CSN Stores site and leave me a comment letting me know what you would want most.
2)  “Like” me on Facebook.  Just click on my little FB Badge on the right of the blog.  Easy peasy and it gets you another entry.  Just remember to leave another comment telling me you did so.
3)  Check out the Thanks & Giving tab at the top of the blog and leave me a comment there letting me know what you think of my food drive.  Come back to this post and let me know you did that.
So there you have it; THREE chances to win!  I’ll pick a winner using the random number generator on November 17 and post the winner that same day.  Hey lurkers!  Now’s your chance to come out and say “hey”!  You don’t have to have a blog to enter so really, there’s no losing here.  :)  Have fun!
Bye for now!!

The Market, Canada’s Wonderland and Catching Up

Hi everyone!  It just started pouring out so I figured it was a good time to get down to business and write a post for you.  I haven’t been on the computer much the past few days.  I’ve been spending time outside, with the fam and reading.  It’s been marvellous!  I promise to keep the past few days short and sweet for you..
THURSDAY
I started the day out with some English muffin French toast: This is 2 English muffins soaked in USAB, egg whites, vanilla, chia flour and cinnamon.  I put some honey pecan butter, agave and fresh bloobs on top for some pizzazz! The kids hung out with the neighbour for a few hours while my hubby and I went to St. Jacob’s market.  It was a gorgeous day and the market was jam packed.  I got some peaches, nectarines, bell peppers, cherries, eggs, raw honey and granola:
We stopped at Williams Pub on the way home for some lunch.  I went with a grilled veggie and goat cheese panini with a side of Greek salad.
I had a choice between chips, a cookie or an apple with my combo an seeing as I went healthy with an apple at Panera, I got a pecan chocolate chip cookie this time!
I know it looks like I took a bite, but I actually broke a piece off because they served it on the same plate as my lunch and some salad dressing got on it.  Ewww!  Yes, I’m picky that way!  HA
I can’t really remember what I did all afternoon.  Probably reading!  My hubby bought some really nice steaks at the market so for dinner I made a huge salad and topped it off with some sliced steak:
I don’t normally eat beef as I’ve never, ever been a fan but I do appreciate a nice steak every now and again.  And this was a GOOD steak!!  I’m sure I snacked after dinner, but there’s no pictures so I can’t remember what it was!  Hehe!  I do remember that we went to DS’s soccer game.  I can’t believe they only have 3 left.  Time fly’s, my friends!
FRIDAY
This was a FUN day because we went to Canada’s Wonderland!  I love this place and have ever since I was a kid.  Rides, games, shows, water park; this place has it ALL!  I made a filling bowl of oats before we left:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup Quaker oats
• cinnamon
• blueberries
• apple honey

Whenever we go to a big “park” where you can’t really bring food in unless you sneak it we time it so that we arrive around lunch so that we can eat a picnic style lunch in the parking lot.  I had a simple mortadella, mozzarella cheese sandwich: And we were off! The “Mountain”.  We watched some dudes dive off this thing! DD (in)patiently waiting for us to get a move on!  :)  She’s a ride freak, this girl!  We did a few roller coasters: She went on a few spinning things that make me positively nauseous to even watch! She also went on a contraption called “The Drop Zone”.  Check out how high this baby goes!
 
You can just barely see the cars at the top.  She made the funniest face by the time they reached the bottom (which is a free fall). 
It’s kinda tough to see, but she’s on the far left.  We cracked up when we saw her!  She told us she was never going on it again because it scared the crap out of her.  She shook for a good 10 minutes afterwards, but couldn’t stop laughing.  What a nut bar!!  We enjoyed soft serve cones again… Then the kids enjoyed some time at the water park! They’ve got some pretty decent water slides and a huge wave pool.  A kids dream come true!!  We finally left about 6pm and some caffeine was desperately needed!  When I was a teenager we’d spend a good 12hrs at the park hitting every ride and attraction available.  Now, 3 roller coasters, one “wet” ride and the water park are enough to turn me into a zombie!  LOL  Dinner was fast and easy….egg whites scrambled with a LC cheese wedge, a toasted Ezekiel muffin and some fruit:  I’m sure I ate a bowl of homemade pineapple coconut froyo, but I musta forgot a photo.  I blame it on exhaustion!  I spent the evening chatting with my neighbours and watching some Criminal Minds.  Perfectly relaxing!
SATURDAY
I slept until almost 9am!!!  WOW…I must of really been tired!  It’s been overcast all day with heavy air and for the first time since I’ve been on vacay, this asthma business of mine is acting up.  Irritating to say the least, but it kinda forces me to sit back and catch up on everything I’ve let slide the past few days.  Blog reading included!  Damn, you guys have been up to some GREAT stuff! 
Breakfast was a 1/2 cup of granola from the market with blueberries and USAB:
Aside from doing some laundry I pretty much camped out with the computer all morning.   Lunch was light today.  I toasted an English muffin and topped it with mortadella, LC cheese, lettuce and mango mustard.  There were also some sweet cherries on the side:
I also downed half a peach because it was starting to go bad…
We ran some errands in the afternoon for supplies to get us started on our deck tomorrow.  We got home just in time to unload and get the sheets off the clothesline before it started to pour buckets! 
Dinner was also simple and a lot more “healthy” than what we’ve been eating all week.  Turkey sausage, corn on the cob and green beans!
My parents will be here shortly for a visit and them I’m sure more TV will be watched.  I have a feeling that I’ll be good and fresh for deck building activities tomorrow!!  :)
Bye for now!!