Travel

The Voyage

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We left for Charlotte bright and early this morning, and by bright an early I mean 8am.  One of the voyagers isn’t exactly an early riser… I’ll let you guess who that might be 😉

For breakfast, I cooked us up some jumbo eggin sandwiches.  These eggins consisted of:

  • 7 egg whites
  • 1 egg
  • Some franks red hot, S&P, Red Pepper Flakes
  • 1 linked Jennie O Hot Turkey sausage (already cooked)

This mix made 3 jumbo eggins (I used a jumbo muffin tin), and I cooked them in at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.

Sandwiched each eggin between a Thomas’ Multi-Grain English muffin.  I added ketchup to mine, and more Frank’s to Jarrod’s.

 Road shot:

For a midmorning snack I had a Dannon blueberry Greek yogurt with some Peanut Butter Puffins.  It took a lot of skill to eat this while driving.  Lucky for me, my dad is a NASCAR fan so amazing maneuverability skills just run in the family 🙂

For lunch, I packed us some grilled chicken breast sandwiches, with Trader Joe’s Cilantro Jalapeno Hummus, Spinach, Tomato, and Onion and Pepperidge Farm 7 grain deli flats.

I also snacked on some sliced green pepper, baby carrots, grapes, and a tootsie pop for good measure.

I love this diet iced tea:

It’s got really good flavor and none of that artificial sweetener funk taste to it. 

Delicious chocolates jarrod brought back from belgium:

 This one makes me laugh:

Being the budget travelista I am, I booked our hotel in Charlotte on Priceline.  We ended up with the Aloft hotel at Epicenter for only $50 a night!!!  The hotel room market price is $180+.  Boo.Ya.

Check out our swanky digs:

 

Just because I find this utterly ridiculous, I’d like to document (for the record) what I packed food wise (for two people):

  • 1 bag granny smith apples
  • 1 pound red seedless grapes
  • 1 peach
  • 3 sliced green peppers
  • 2 pounds baby carrots
  • 2 dannon greek yogurts
  • 1 GIANT pickle
  • Trader Joes Cilantro Hummus
  • Athenos Garlic Hummus
  • 1 serving of my healthified buffalo chicken
  • JIF Peanut butter
  • Thomas Multi-grain English muffins
  • Aladdins whole wheat pitas
  • Pepperidge Farms 7 grain deli flats
  • 4 sliced roma tomatoes
  • 1 sliced red onion
  • 1 bag spinach
  • 2 pounds grilled chicken
  • 1 piece of leftover Gionino’s pizza
  • 10 random protein/granola bars
  • 1 chocolate bar
  • .25 lbs mixed bulk candy
  • 1 bag caramel rice cakes
  • 1 bag Wheat Thin Multi-grain toasted chips
  • 1 bottle franks red hot
  • 1 round laughing cow cheese
  • 2 cases of bottled water
  • 3 bottles of wine
  • 1 bottle of Makers Mark
  • 1 bag of almonds
  • Peanut butter puffins
  • 2 boxes Crystal lite

On that note… Off to dinner! 😀

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What I ate

Tuesday GFNBW, OO, BCW!

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After my big b-day dinner last night, it felt especially good to get my run in this morning.  Today marks the completion of week #4 of my interval training plan!  I can’t believe I’ve made it this far, and still no knee pain.  I’m really looking forward to signing up for some races once I’m back to running a 100% of the time!

Here are my Runkeeper Pro stats for the interval:

3.04 miles in 32 minutes.  Not too shabby, given that I was power walking for 12 of the 32 minutes.  Next, I’ll be doing 3 10-minute intervals of 7 minutes running and 3 minutes walking.  Part of me is excited for this bump in run time, and part of me is nervous!

I’m not sure how they calculate the calories burned in this app since it never asked me to input my height, weight, or sex.  Pretty sure it’s not accurate, but at least the GPS function works!  Can’t really complain since it was free 🙂

Breakfast #1:  GFNBW

Grilled Fruit and Nut Butter Wrap!  These always make me smile 🙂

Today I spread 1 tbsp Trader Joe’s Crunchy Almond butter atop a Mama Lupe’s Low Carb tortilla along with some sliced strawberries and blueberries.

Then I grilled the wrap on the George Foreman grill, wrapped in foil, and enjoyed the deliciousness at my desk at work:

Stats on B#1:  193 calories, 18g carbs, 12g fat, 9g protein, 8g fiber 

Breakfast #2:  OO

For my midmorning breakfast I had… surprise surprise – overnight oats!  I switched up my usual mix by adding blueberries.  I know, really pushing the boundaries here.

I swear I’m going to get more adventurous with my overnight oats! I’m going to miss these creamy morning treats on vacation:

Stats on B#2:  208 calories, 38g carbs, 5g fat, 6g protein, 6g fiber

Lunch:  BCW

I had planned on making a new dish using the leftover crabmeat from  my birthday dinner, but I was short on time this morning so I quickly grabbed the fixin’s for a buffalo chicken wrap.

That consisted of:

  • 1 Mama Lupe’s Low Carb Tortilla
  • 3 ounces shredded chicken
  • 2 tbsp plain Dannon Greek Yogurt
  • 1 tbsp Franks Red Hot
  • Sprinkling of Black Pepper & Garlic Salt

I had the wrap cold this time, and it was DELICIOUS.  Reminded me of the buffalo chicken dip Jarrod and I always make for get togethers, only about three thousand times healthier!

Stats on Lunch:  166 calories, 8g carbs, 4g fat, 28g protein, 4g fiber

Tonight

The Man Candy comes home tonight!  His flight is only three hours delayed…  Oh well.  Tomorrow we’re heading southward to Charlotte, NC!   Roadtrip! 😀

Last night, Jarrod finally got in a Belgium Waffle:

That is RIDICULOUS.  I’m jealous!

Speaking of the man candy, you may be wondering why on earth I call the BF that.  Early on in our dating, we were out at a local bar and my dad happened to show up!  I was unsure whether or not Jarrod would be comfortable with me calling him my boyfriend, so I introduced him to my dad as my “man candy” (i.e., manly eye candy)…  Totally less awkward than calling him my boyfriend, right?!   Hahaha… well the nickname just sorta stuck.  My family still refers to him as my man candy.  He is pretty easy on the eyes afterall 😉

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What I ate

Birthday Recap!

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Today I had a lovely lunch with my mom, sister, and nephew at Einstein’s bros bagels.  Einstein’s carries bagel thins now!  So I had a turkey sandwich on a wheat bagel thin with some delicious jalapeno chips.

After lunch,  I headed to Crooked River Salon to get my FIRST EVER pedicure!  I’ve never had a pedicure before simply because it didn’t seem like it would be worth the money (I’ve actually never had a massage either for these same reason).  But, Crooked River has ½ price manicures/pedicures on Mondays and since my birthday happened to fall on a Monday I thought I’d give it a shot. 

Overall, it was a very relaxing experience!  I got to read magazines, drink about 3 cups of coffee, and just kind of hang out while I was pampered.  No complaints here!

I swung by Macy’s to pick myself up a little birthday present:

Clearance rack + $10 off coupon + Macy’s rewards = 😀

Didn’t get to wear these lovelies tonight though, since my toes were still drying! 

For dinner, I met some friends at the Olde Harbor Inn, which is THE place to go for your birthday in my hometown (especially because you get your birthday dinner free 😉 )

I was in the mood to try something adventurous… but took some time pondering the menu before deciding.

My friend Tim went with the Big Island Salmon, which is char grilled and topped with Hawaiian sesame BBQ glaze and fresh pineapple mango salsa:

Allison went with the warm goat cheese salad, which has mixed greens, pine nuts, dried cherries, strawberries, goat cheese, and maple-peppercorn balsamic dressing:

I decided to go all-out and get the Split King Crab Legs!  I’ve never tried them before, and I thought it would be a nice step in the right direction on my long-term journey to liking seafood.

I was a little hesitant at first, but I was given a thorough crab-leg-eatin training session by the bar tender.

My first bite:

Guess what?  I loved them!!!

Of course I made a huge mess:

I had quite a bit of crab meat left over, so I brought it home to use for my lunch tomorrow.  I’ll have to do a little researching tonight to come up with something tasty!

Even thought the BF is in Belgium, his mom and sis stopped by!

They came bearing gifts:

I have a slight obsession with lawn gnomes… Iknow they are borderline creepy.. But I still <3 them!

I was also SUPER excited because I got a free T-shirt for my b-day:

You can always gauge how happy I am by the number of fully exposed teeth you can see in a photo.. hahahahah 😀

After dinner, we HAD to make a stop at Pav’s Creamery, which is THE BEST ice cream stand in our area (or the best in the world, depending on who you ask 😉 )

SOOOOO Many choices!!!!

I went with my old standby:  1 scoop vanilla with peanut butter, hot fudge, and whip cream:

 

Allison got a scoop of the Nuts over Cocounut:

And Tim got the banana yogurt with peanut butter sauce:

 

Fervently happy:

Birthday = Success!  Looking forward to my raincheck bday with the BF 😀

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Ramblings

July 12th

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Happy day of birth to me!

Today’s morning started off with:

That’s a card from dad and a card from mom 🙂

Last night, I cooked up some of my low-carb waffles.  I’ve been tweaking the recipe little by little, and each attempt gets better and better!

This time I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl:

  • 1/4 Bob’s Red Mill Low-Carb Baking Mix
  • 1/8 tsp baking powder
  • 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon

In another bowl, I whipped an egg white light and frothy.  Next, I added 1/4 cup of Almond Breeze Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk and whipped the two of them together. 

Then I slowly and gently mixed in the dry ingredients and added another tsp of almond milk, and cooked them up on the waffle iron for 10 minutes.

At work this morning, I popped the waffles in the toaster then topped them off with some fresh frozen strawberries and blueberries that I heated up in the microwave and some Smucker’s Sugar free syrup.

 

These waffles just keep getting better!  They were definitely fluffier.  Definitely tasty.

Good news/bad news: 

Good news is it’s birthday and vacation time!  Bad news is, I’ll be doing little-to-no cooking over the next week or so :-/

I’m going to keep my blog updated with all the delicious foods and restaurants I get to try, and also my attempts to eat healthy while out of town!

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Veggie Wrap

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Oh Sunday night…  how bittersweet you are.  I love you, but I hate you.

I tried something a little out of the ordinary (out of my ordinary, anyway) for my lunch today.  I was in the mood for roasted veggies, but also didn’t want to eat too much since I was heading to my dad’s for an early dinner.   So, I seasoned some broccoli with black pepper and garlic salt, and roasted it in the oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. 

Meanwhile I spread a french onion laughing cow cheese wedge onto a mama lupe’s low-carb tortilla:

Added the roasted garlicky broccoli:

And topped it off with tomatoes and onions:

Since I’ve developed an obsession with roasted veggies over the past few weeks, I think it goes without saying that I found this wrap to be quite tasty!

Veggies rock 😀

I had a big bowl of grapes along with the wrap, but somehow they elluded my camera… 

Stats on the veggie wrap:  151 calories, 20g carbs, 5g fat, 11g protein, 8g fiber

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