Five on Friday (VI)

 

Wahoooo Friday!! Any fun plans? Today, I’m doing coffee with Kay and my MIL/FIL, teaching & Kay has her last swim lesson! Tomorrow, teaching step and lots of family time. Sunday, brunch, teaching pump and a BBQ! This is my sixth Five on Friday post and includes five (ish) things I’m loving right now:

1. Finding fun recipes to try! I plan on making these quinoa vegetable muffins, these cookies, and I just recently made these protein granola bars and they turned out awesome!!

2. Skinny Pop Popcorn: I bought this on a whim on Amazon and I LOVE it. No artificial anything, gluten free, non-GMO, delicious! Kay and Josh love it too:

3. Love Grown Power O’s. The company was nice enough to send samples of the cereal to me (since they’re not yet carried in stores nearby). They’re totally delicious. I love the Honey and Kay loves the Strawberry. The chocolate and original are also yummy:

4. These Martha Stewart towels. We just ordered a bundle and they are so fluffy and fantastic.

 

(Source)

5. The song Classic- This song was in Body Attack 2 releases ago and I loved the song from the first time I heard it. MK is Walt from Lost (which just blows my mind).

Father’s Day Weekend & Recipes

Been a while :) What’s new with you? We had a fantastic father’s day weekend and I wanted to share pictures and a few recipes I’ve made lately.

First off, this weekend. We did all sorts of fun stuff for Daddy’s day. Kaylin made her Dad a special card and we picked him up his favorite sandwich for lunch on Saturday:

Saturday night, we went to dinner at Hank’s with Josh’s family. Kaylin and I also gave Josh his gift, which will involve a trip with his Dad to go drive some fast cars & eat a great steak dinner at Ruth’s Chris:

 

Sunday, we went to lunch with my parents. Dad gave his first go at pigtails:

We went to Vespa on DI. This restaurant is amazing- consistently good. Kay and my Mom:

My Dad & me:

Other than eating ;), Kay and I went for a couple runs and I taught Body Step. We also did tons of swimming. Kaylin is in swim lessons right now and has been rocking them. Love that she is a little fish.

In terms of homemade eats, I’ve been making a lot of salads lately. This one is spinach, arugula, hard boiled egg whites, craisins, roasted chickpeas, squash, and green beans topped with crab cake:

I also made my favorite fried rice with shrimp:

 

Tonight, we’re having my sloppy janes.

What’s new with you?

Vacation in Atlantic Beach, FL

How are you? We had a fantastic week. Based on a recommendation from Gina, Josh and I went on a vacation to Atlantic Beach, Florida. Our parents were nice enough to watch Kaylin for us, so we could enjoy a true adult getaway. I had MAJOR anxiety about leaving Kaylin, but I knew she was in good hands. 

We drove down on Monday and returned on Thursday. We stayed at the One Ocean resort. The resort was perfect for us. We could walk to dinner, the store, and the gym (we worked out at an LA Fitness). They also had a great pool area and access to the beach. One of the coolest features of the resort were the free drinks and snacks in the rooms!!

Here are a few pictures from our trip. Delicious spicy shrimp from North Beach Fish Camp:

The beach:

 Walk-up Starbucks:

 Poe's! Although we didn't eat here, we had to get a picture. There are only 2 Poe's, one near where we live in Charleston, and this one in Atlantic Beach:

 The pool:

 The delicious Brussels sprouts at Ocean 60:

 J's grouper from North Beach Fish Camp:

 Last night of our vacation:

Do you have any vacations planned?

Weekends Lately (Salad Recipe)

We've had some amazing weekends lately. Lots of swimming, running, playing, and eating.

 We've been having a weekly BBQ at Josh's parents house. I've been in charge of the salad and have tried to make an interesting blend each time. This week I used romaine, cauliflower, walnuts, dried cranberries, avocado, and roasted chickpeas (drain/rinse/dry chickpeas, in a large bowl mix chickpeas with a little olive oil, garlic salt & chili powder, roast at 400 degrees for 30 minutes):

Tell me about your weekend!

Gluten Free Strawberry Chocolate Chip Muffins

 Monday, Monday- make it a good one! How was your weekend? Ours was just perfect. We spent lots of time together as a family, I got in a couple great runs and taught Step. Sunday morning, peanut woke up to a great basket of goodies from the Easter bunny:

Later in the morning, we headed over to Josh's parents house for Easter brunch and fun:

 We all contributed to brunch and had a delicious and beautiful spread:

 I brought egg muffins:

 And gluten free mini strawberry chocolate chip muffins:

 I did a little recipe research and came up with the following:

Ingredients

• 1 cup almond meal
• 1 cup oat flour (ground up oats)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon butter-melted
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
• Desired quantity mini chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees-spray mini muffin tin with non-stick spray
2. Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients and gently fold in strawberries and chocolate chips
3. Place batter into muffin tin and bake for ~12-14 minutes

 Tell me about your weekend!

Five (V)

Happy Friday (and Easter weekend)! Hope you all have fun things planned. This is my fifth Five on Friday post and includes five (ish) things I’m loving right now:

1. Two recipes I really want to make:

Edible Mosaic’s Falafel-Spiced Roasted Chickpeas. Yes, please!

Hershey Pantry Baked Oatmeal. After hearing Lauren talk about how delicious their baked oatmeal is…I need to try it!!

2. World’s toughest job. My BIL’s girlfriend shared this with me and then I saw it on GMA. Such an awesome video:

3. Easter brunch! What are you making? I’m in charge of baked egg cups and muffins.  I can’t decide between a couple of different muffin recipes…

4. Race photographs. I’m clearly very focused on stopping my run keeper hahaha:

5. The kiddos. Love these two:

Tell me something you’re loving!

Awesome Saturday (5th Half)

How are you? Long time, no blog. Things have been busy (in a good way!). This past Saturday, Josh and I took Kaylin up to Columbia, SC. On Saturday morning, I ran my fifth half marathon, the Palmetto Half Marathon.

The race started at 7 AM, so it was just starting to get light:

 

Living in Charleston, I’m used to very flat races. This race was full of rolling hills. I pushed through, and was thrilled to see this sign:

I never look at how fast I’m running during a race and there were no pacers…so I didn’t know how I was doing. The hills had my head all out of whack and I was just hoping to finish under 2 hours…so I was thrilled when I saw my final official time of 1 hour 47 minutes and 14 seconds.

 

Whoop!

After a quick breakfast and shower, Josh and I took Kaylin to the Riverbanks Zoo. We had an absolute blast!! Kay loved the elephants & monkeys. If you ever go to this zoo, definitely buy your tickets online ahead of time. This saved us at least 45 minutes yesterday:

 

 

 

 

We drove home and had a lovely dinner and swim at Josh’s parents house. I didn’t take any pictures, but should have- their house is breathtaking! Today, I am planning a little recovery walk, laundry, and Easter bunny shopping. What have you been up to?