Officially on Vacay

Bonjour!  Hope everyone is doing well!  It’s technically only been a day since my vacation started, but I’m already having a blast.  Yesterday we tackled more yard work in preparation for our ground level deck extension which we’ll be tackling next week.  I made myself a grand breakfast to carry me through a 1.5hr soccer practice and beyond:
I turned 2 English muffins into French toast and topped them with strawberries, walnuts and agave.  Mmm, Mmmm, GOOD!
I’ve been overrun with zucchini from the garden lately so I decided to make some muffins from ED&BV.  They came out fantastic!  My hubby ate 4 over the course of the day.
By the time these were in the oven it was just about lunch so I pulled my Hungry Girl cookbook and made some zucchini fries:
I served myself a heaping plateful with Dijonnaise for lunch.
This is the point where some serious sweat was shed in the yard.  The yards on my side of the street are pretty secluded and don’t get a whole lot of wind.  It gets hot back there!  By the time dinner rolled around I just wanted a huge ass salad.
All the veg you see came from my parents garden; the lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers.  There was also feta, leftover beer butt chicken and roasted red pepper dressing.  I ate a few cookies at Mom’s as usual for a Sunday night.  When we got back home we set up the cute little fire pit we bought at Walmart (also intended for said deck). See that concrete pad in the background?  That is the area we will be extending into a 12 x 16 deck.  Our raised deck is directly above that.  I can’t wait to have another liveable outdoor space!  The kids REALLY wanted to roast marshmallows…. 
And I set out the fixing for s’mores. 
I enjoyed 2 myself.  That was more than enough for me!!
Enter some TV, sleep and 8am wake up time to get breakfast and head off to Pilate’s.  I needed something quick and cereal was the way to go.  A bowl of Kirkland cinnamon pecan crunch to be exact!
My hubby and I cruised the net looking for a few things to do over the next few days that will entertain the kids.  At 11 &  8 we have to ditch some of the places we usually go because they’ve outgrown the attractions, rides, etc.  We managed to find a few areas of interest and printed off tickets and coupons.  Before I knew it lunch had arrived.  I made big salads for DD and I with greens from the ‘rents garden, feta, hemp seeds and cashews.  The dressing today was pear & blue cheese…
I also ate a muffin with some almond butter on top;
We spent the afternoon catching some rays at the “beach”.  It’s really the local conservation/campground park, but the kids love the beach area there!  They splashed around..
While I chilled on a towel with my hubby:
I coated us all with SPF 50 and was impressed that we were all OK after 3hrs of sitting out.  DD was tuckered out by the time it was time to jet home!
HA!  We stopped for Chinese take out on the way because neither my hubby or I felt like cooking anything.  I had some lemon chicken, low mein, beef & broccoli and fried rice.
This was good but made me very, very thirsty!  I have sucked back 2 bottles of water already!  Yikes!  Dessert was some pineapple coconut froyo.
As soon as the kids go to bed my hubby and I are gonna watch a movie or 2.  We have some plans set out tomorrow which will have us leaving the house by 10am.  Should be blasty!  See ya tomorrow!
Bye for now!!

Time for a Holiday

Hi everybody!   Hope your weekend is going well!  I’ve got 3 days of eats to cover so I think I’ll just get to it….
Thursday
I had a dentist appointment first thing (ugh) so I had a quick bowl of cereal before giving my teeth some extra attention. This is the Kirkland cinnamon pecan cereal: Very good indeed!  I snacked on the last Kardea bar before going to the gym: Thursday was 30 Day Shred day at the gym and 4 of us sweat and grunted through it.  :)  Later on in the day I ordered the Jillian Michaels “No Trouble Zones” DVD.  I’ve seen it around blog land and heard good reviews so I’m eager to try it out!
Thursday and Friday were still clean-out-the fridge-and-pantry days so my lunch morphed into a salad of sorts. Corn, edamame, cucumber, feta and white balsamic vinegar.  Turned out pretty decent!  I really didn’t get hungry for an afternoon snack, but whipped up an amazing little dinner for myself.  WW pita, lettuce, mayo, dijon and falafels.  Yummy!  I munched on  blueberries, too; Thursday night was soccer night and SYTYCD night.  I was pretty tuckered out so a night in front of the tube was needed.   This asthma business of mine seems to be taking a lot out of me and I don’t like it.  *sigh*
Friday
It was a rainy morning and I just wanted some comfort food.  Enter my dark chocolate cherry mocha oats: Doesn’t that just look divine?  This is probably my favourite bowl of oats ever.  Thank you Starbucks for the inspiration!!  :)
Morning snack looked like this: I’m still not over the moon about these bars.   Have any of you tried them??
I hoped on the treadmill for a sweaty incline walk on the treadmill.  I set the incline to 7.5% and the speed to 4.2.  Thirty five minutes later saw me pretty red in the face!  LOL
I was getting pretty desperate when it came time to pack my lunch and ended up with goat’s milk yogurt, blueberries and Bear Naked granola.  There was also pear ginger jam mixed into the yogurt: Aside from eggs, yogurt and granola is a go-to meal for me.  Tell me your favourite go-to meal, K?  A co worker brought in some carrot cake after lunch and I took a small piece.  Mmmm…not so good.  For some reason it tasted like there were grains of sand in it.  I ate it to be polite….I’m not feelings hurter!  How’s that for improper grammar??  LOL
My hubby finally broke and bought oven ready pizza for supper.  The one he picked for me was a thin crust with spinach, feta, mozzarella and edam:
I enjoyed this so much I had a third piece!  The crust was light and crispy and reminded me of a croissant.   After dinner I finally went to do groceries.  I was a little scared that I would have to spend a fortune, but the bill wasn’t much more than what I usually spend.   Once again I was exhausted by 9pm and just got comfy on the couch with a book.  T’was nice!
Today
After a glorious 10hr sleep I awoke fresh and ready to tackle the day.  I was quite hungry so another bowl of cereal was definitely the way to go This is a fave of mine; Wildroots.  YUM!  We spent a good chunk of the day pulling weeds.  They’re much easier to get out when the ground is wet.  We’re planning on extending our walkout deck so my hubby took all the measurements needed for the job.  After showers and a quick lunch of salad and the last piece of pizza… We went to Home Depot to price out the wood and somehow ended up at Walmart.  Backing up to my salad a minute….I used the last 3 falafels and dressed it with some Renee’s pear & blue cheese dressing;  

At Walmart I came across a very appealing sounding Hershey’s chocolate bar that HAD to come home with me!
BOOYA!!!  For dinner we did a beer butt chicken, quinoa and corn: Dessert was some homemade pineapple coconut froyo.   Oh, yes I did!!!  More on that to come very soon. 
So I’m very excited because we start 2 weeks of vacay on Monday!  YIPEE!!  I plan on kicking back and having a great time while off… And maybe getting a bit goofy, too.
Should be a riot!!
Bye for now!!

Summer Temps Have Arrived!

Ola! How’s everyone doing? The weather has been gorgeous today so I decided to haul the laptop outside to blog. This is something I wait all winter to be able to do!

As I was preparing lunches the other day I noticed that my jar of almond butter was almost empty. This called for OIAJ for breakfast yesterday!

• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup Quaker oats
• cinnamon
• almond butter
• Dorset cereal

Taw's marvellous! I prepared and photographed by morning snack at home because I wasn’t sure how it would hold up in the container.

This is a piece of whole grain bread with some raw chocolate coconut spread and it was delicious! Although the bread is very good savoury, I think I prefer it done sweet. Here’s the spread…

I actually hide this on myself because it is super addicting. It’s like a chocolate macaroon in a jar. Great product!

I wasn’t planning on running in the gym today, but there’s a new pup (he’s probably saying “there’s this cougar….here) that started at the office a few weeks ago and he hopped on the treadmill beside me and we started to chat. I was walking on at 4mph with a 7% incline but started feeling a little self conscious so I decided to pick up the pace and ran at 6mph for about 20 minutes before I had to start walking again. This cougar can not talk and run at the same time!! LOL!!

• Time: 45 minutes
• Avg Hr: 166
• Max Hr: 185
• Calories Torched: 501
• Distance: 3.6 miles

Lunch was a mish mosh of leftovers. Aztec blend, pork tenderloin, cherry tomatoes and wasabi ginger dressing. I ate this cold…

We had a big meeting in the office this morning where I snagged a juicy plate of fruit.

So, now that the summer has turned more summer like I’ve been craving hotdogs in a MAJOR way. Because of this I ate another 2 Yves veggies dogs with a great big salad:

And dessert, after Pilates, was a bowl of mouth watering coconut pineapple ice cream.

I had to take DD back to the doctor today for a follow up appointment and I’m happy to say that the pneumonia is gone and her lungs were clear. YAY! Before heading out I made myself a decadent breakfast.

• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup Quaker oats
• cinnamon
• strawberries
• coconut butter
• dark chocolate chips

This was AWESOME! My morning snack was yet again another piece of whole grain bread, but with almond butter this time:

I had some errands to run at lunch so no gym, but I did have some mail waiting for me at home that made me a very happy girl! My 2 pieces of Lululemon that I won on EBay came in!

LOVE! I ate my lunch when I got back to my desk. I had a great sandwich consisting of Mediterranean roasted chicken (from the deli), provolone cheese, Dijonnaise and lettuce on a WW bun:

I also enjoyed 2 mini Tolerance bars:

Dinner was chicken breasts on the BBQ with a side of steamed broccoli and Budweiser BBQ sauce:

And dessert was the last few bites of coconut pineapple ice cream. Mmmm…

Well, I think I’m gonna move inside now and make myself a cup of chai tea:

Hope you’ve all had a great 2 days!!

Bye for now!!