Park Slope Tourists

My parents came into town today for a visit, they will be here until Wednesday and we are very excited!  We spent the day exploring my ‘hood and everyone had a great time.  I will say in advance that there were a lot of indulgences!  It is way too late, once again, so this is a pretty cursory review.

I started my morning off right with this fellow -

A small green juice from a spot on Flatbrush.  I had them add carrot to this and it was very, very tasty.

My parents, being islanders and all, were very excited to hit up Target so that was our first stop.  While we were there we got “brunch” at Buffalo Wild Wings (no, this was obviously not a spot we needed to show off, but my mom and dad couldn’t eat on the plane and food was a necessity).  I got the naked tenders.

They came with blue cheese, honey bbq, and potato wedges.

I ate 3 out of 4 pieces of chicken and gobbled up the fries.  I love that NY menus post calories, there is no way I would have guessed that what I ate had only about 350calories.

From there we hit up the farmers market at Prospect Park.

 My parents loved it here!  We bought macaroons to munch while we walked around,

and the four of us split a strawberry cider.

Next up, we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

We had a great time walking around.  The coolest exhibit was called “Wicked Plants,” and it showcased plants that are psychotropic, deadly, or illegal.  It was a lot of fun.

 

After that we headed to my apartment so my parents could check the place out (they are staying in a hotel, it works for my girlfriends to stay in one room with us, but my mom and dad wanted space!).  I was very happy to share a big sampling of Newman’s Own Organics with them – they were very excited about it

For dinner we wanted to stay local so we went to Perch, a fun spot on 5th.

We did a lot of sharing so my portions are not very clear, but you can assume I had more than my fair share!  They brought homemade bagel chips to the table as soon as we sat down.

I ordered a Bloody Mary to drink.

I’ve only had this at brunch but I feel like they can rock it at dinner, I love the spiciness.

We split the beer and cheese fondue wolaver’s organic brown ale, sharp cheddar

 

It came with bread chunks and apple slices and was absolute perfection!

We also split the most amazing salad I’ve ever had.

It was Waldorf inspired and had apples, buttermilk dressing, candied nuts and grapes.

I felt the need to extend the cheesiness to my entree (not a good idea) and I ordered the mac and cheese blend of grueyere, cheddar, blue cheese, and green onions.

 

It was good but cheese followed by cheese was just too much for me, I only ate about 1/3.  I shared some big bites of everyone’s sandwiches too.

I ralied in time for dessert and ordered the maple ginger bread pudding.

 

It wasn’t all that good, it was much more like a loaf of bread then a pudding, but I was pretty buzzed and self-control flew out the window.  I ate about 1/2 and gave myself a tummy ache.

A and I walked my parents back to their hotel and then made a treck (1.5miles) to the movie theatres.  I don’t know what was worse, the fact that Transformers sucked so badly or that I polished off this medium popcorn without any help from A.

Yuck, all around.

And, once again, it is time for a late late bedtime.  Hasta!

What bad movies have you seen lately?

Done and Drogging!

Hola chicas y chicos!  I realize this is a twofer post, but it is also a midnight wasted post, so it will be a quickie.

Thursday was pretty un-monumental.  I ate a KIND Bar as my train breakfast.

KIND Bars always make me happy.

The school day was a little weird, the kids were getting so tired of doing nothing.  A lot of people were watching a movie in Mr. S’s room and my girls class came in and was like “we cleaned up and played that game (Scattegories) in Ms. Wax’s room, can we do that again?!?”  Midway through the day we ended up going to an Anti-Violence Parade.  It was totally non-related to violence or the lack of violence but there was food and performances.  I couldn’t eat the burgers and hot dogs but one of my students bought me an (unphotographed) icee that made me pretty happy

For my non-mammal-on-the-grill lunch I came inside and ate this Asian-Style Potstickers Lean Cuisine.

I’ve decided that I only like frozen “diet” meals when they are Asian inspired.

The rest of the day was pretty random.  A went out with his co-workers and I hung out at home and vegged.  I ate some snacks but never officially did dinner.  I had 3 of these.

And 1C of KashiHeart to Heart Blueberry with vanilla hempmilk.

I bought this Living Harvest Hemp Milk after hearing blogger raves but I wasn’t all that impressed, it was a little too sweet for my liking.

I also made a 3T serving of paperbag popcorn.

Now Friday, however, is when the fun started!  Today was finally, officially, my last day of teaching.  It was a little bittersweet because as excited as I am about going back to school and starting a new profession it’s odd to think about not teaching any more.  I had said most of my goodbyes to students earlier in the week so I didn’t have to shed too many tears about that.

{I will say, I shed some tears right now: I wrote a mega post that somehow got erased and my rewrite will be nowhere near as insightful}

I didn’t eat any breakfast but I was very excited to eat my last lunch from the pizza spot across the street from the school.

Goodbye East New York food!

The kids were dismissed at 10:30 and then things got a bit ridiculous.  We got called in to a staff meeting for which the entire purpose was to scream at the teachers.  Our principal got back the results of a DOE survey on which she and the school got very poor scores – she was pissed.  She screamed at us for more than an hour.  In addition to several other things, she said that even though we usually get out early on the last day she was holding us until 3 as punishment.

After she left some older staff members continued to scream for another hour.  Some of the things that were said were just shocking – there was so much anger and inappropriateness.  The newer teachers were shocked, Ms. N actually left the room and Mr. H said he felt like he was going to throw up.  One of the issues is that the school got very poor ratings on school safety and the screamers were beyond aggressive in saying that people were wrong.  There main points were a) things are a lot better than they used to be; and b) the kids aren’t “that bad” and it is pathetic that adults would feel unsafe.  I’m going to address those points really quickly.

A) It doesn’t matter if things are better, if they are not ok they are not ok.  You can not and should not lower your standards just because there has been a slight improvement.  I get that the kids used to light the bulletin boards on fire, that was a problem.  However, the lack of flaming bulletin boards does not a safe school make.  At least 2 times a week at least 5 students would come to school in the middle of the day, stoned as hell, and wander the hallways messing with other students.  That is unacceptable.

B) In spite of my experiences (for example: a male student getting an inch from my face and screaming that he would f*cking kill me.  Or another student bashing my face into a wall) I do NOT feel unsafe.  When it comes down to it, I am an adult and they are children.  However, when I filled out the survey I wasn’t thinking about my safety, I was thinking about student safety (funny, I thought that’s what we all were worried about?!).  It is not safe that in our middle school we have many 16year oldsrunning around and terrorizing 12year olds.  Bullying is unacceptable and it is rampant in our school.

Anywho, Moving on to happier things!  Both administrators gave me a hug and told me I did a great job and my principal told me I have a job waiting for me whenever I want it.  And after that we got wasted Ms. M organized an escape celebration for me and I couldn’t be more grateful.  A group of us that were close went to Franklin Park Bar in Prospect Heights.

I started with a Franklin lemonade, which was delish.

And then I made people do a round of Knob Creek shots.

And then I did another shot (alongside a too sweet mojito that I handed off after 1sip).

And then I had a pear cider.

And another.

And I also had a final shot that I was definitely not able to photograph.  I had a great time but I was definitely only semi-functional at that point and I very much appreciate Ms. M for driving.  I managed to get a pic of part of our group.

 

I love (some of) my coworkers!

Afterwards a smaller group of us headed to a diner in my ‘hood because every one wanted shakes and burgers.  I got a black and white milkshake.

It was good but A showed up and drank most of it.  I also got a turkey burger.

 

The fries were for Ms. N, I didn’t have any, and I had about half of the burger with A.

After my coworkers split A and I went down to 5thAvenue to meet up with my friend Lana (from Williamsburg).  Her bf was dj’ing and we went to watch.  I had a great time catching up, but definitely didn’t do any more drinking!  Apparently Lana has been reading my blog, so that is exciting – Hi Lan!

Afterwards A and I did a long walk home and stopped in at a grocery store.  I picked up my favorite frozen food ever.

This veggie pad thai seriously rocks so hard, it is fantastic.

And now it is beyond time for bed.  It was a great, great day, I feel very blessed.  I am also excited because my parents are coming into town for a visit tomorrow, see ya then!

What was your favorite job to quit?  How did the last day go?

Fish and a Movie

It is obviously quite late so I will try to make this a quickie (hehe).  A and I had a good walk finish our errands.  I even took a shot of my tootsies because the fabulousness of the Chanel nail polish my mommy gave me needs to be shown.

When we got home we got down to dinner making.  My father and I have been talking about cooking fish (my parents’ new routine is fish every Sunday) and he generously offered to have A and me use his credit card to buy some.

Mahi Mahi is my favorite fish other than salmon.  We were hungry so we did things quickly.  First we did a three minute marinade,

2T mayo, juice from 1lime, and a big sprinkle of paprika.  Then A cooked it on the stove top for about 8 minutes, delish.

We also had oven roasted asparagus,

and sweet potato with Smart Balance Light.

All together.

It was a really nice meal – thanks dad!  I had a small glass of A’s beer too.

Our big after dinner plan was gelato that my girlfriends left but we had the fun discovery that our freezer had completely defrosted – woo who!  So we went to the movies instead   We saw The Hangover which 100% rocked my socks.  While we watched I had a regular sized Jr Mints (as in not movie biggie sized) that I bought at Staples today,

and 2 handfuls of caramel corn.

I like having small hands, my palm can’t physically hold more than a .5C serving.

And now it is totes time for bed – peace!

Drag Me

Sorry for my two day absense – my obsessive need to be near A has lead me to make some stupid (but fun!) decisions.  I’ve done a LOT so this with be a slightly less detailed account.  It’s been a great two days, but I’ll backtrack…..

Monday morning I ate a Cookie Dough Balance Bar for my train breakfast.

I try not to eat Balance Bars all the time because they do have 2.5 – 4grams of saturated fat, but they sure are good!

For lunch I packed a Fiji apple,

a TJ’s Nonfat Honey Greek Yogurt,

and 1serving of Doctor Kracker Fire Roasted Crisps.

 

The apple was super mealy so I only ate half but the crackers and the yogurt hit the spot.

After school I rushed around trying to get some program applications (I’m going to try to post about this on Thursday) filled out and faxed.  It was a lovely spring day and I was glad I dressed in season for school.

The picture is blurry but here is the flowery fabric -

 

I love this shirt, I got it and the same but in black from H&M last year.

With more rushing, I even managed to make it to the gym for a class.  1st I did 15minutes (2walk/13jog) on the treadmill to warm up.  I did 1.6miles.  Then I headed into a 30minute Abs and Stretching class .  Holey Moley, I couldn’t even finish all of the sets!

Next up, making dinner.  I did some snacking while cooked, I serving each of turkey pepperoni and salted peanuts.

It is also possible that I ate an ice-cream Snickers bar.

Yums.

Dinner was very veggie,

baked tofu in a sea of roasted brussels sprouts with a small pile of coleslaw.  I had never eaten a brussels sprout before this year but now roasted they are one of my favs.

The tofu I drained, pressed, sliced, then drizzled with evoo and a sprinkle of dried mustard and paprika, baked for 25minutes at 475*.  My eyes were bigger than my stomach, I only ended up eating 2slices (1/3 of the package).

And finally was homemade cole slaw, recipe below.

All together.

The cole slaw was inspired by this sale item at the grocery store -

Cole Slaw Recipe

• 4C shredded cabbage
• 3T mayo
• 3T apple cidar vinegar
• 1t sugar
• 1/2C raisins

Mix to combine and Done.  I’m sure this will be even better leftover.  I love raisins in cole slaw.

Somehow after dinner A convinced me to see a 10:15 showing of “Drag Me to Hell.”  Drag me to Hell is right – Worst.Movie.Ever.  Seriously, I don’t know if you guys remember the year in the ’90’s when 80 movies in a row were terrible (Godzilla, Breakdown, etc.) but this movie was worst than all of those movies combined!  Even scarier was what I ate during the movie (I always eat a ton during scary movies) – an entire container of pretzel bites with fake cheese and a box of cookie dough bites.  Seriously, I’m glad I don’t have pictures.  A calls me a goldfish, I actually made myself nausous.

This morning I was still feeling so gross from the movie-crapfest that my train breakfast didn’t get eaten until well into 2nd period!

Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch Clif Bar.  This wasn’t bad, but it was my least favorite flavor in months.

Lunch was a total bust – it seemed like such a good idea at the time, but it just didn’t come together.

The idea was Pre-Smooshed PB & J Museli: Greek yogurt, oats, raspberries and peanuts.

Doesn’t that sound good?  Well, no, no it was not.  I took about 2 bites before I decided I’d rather be hungry.

I stayed after school to conference with some kids then rushed to the post office to main in an application.  A was my knight in shining armor today – it was pouring and he came and met me at the train with an umbrella.  Even better, he let me talk him into a meal at Sweet Melissa!

It was wet and chilly enough out for a hot drink so I took full advantage, Sugar and Spice Latte.

A caramel latte with nonfat milk and homemade cinnamon sugar marshmellows.

For eats I got the Tarragon Chicken Salad Sandwich.

It came with a green side salad,

was served on a crossaint and had green apples and golden raisins in it.

Delish.  Usually I don’t eat the bread on restaurant sandwiches (and I never eat crossaints) but today I ate the whole thing and it was delicious.

A and I hung out at home for a bit and then he said he was going for a run.  Well, my plan for June is to slowly get back into running shape doing intervals but I’m a crazy-face who misses my husband all day so I jumped up and said I’d go too!  We did some loops in Prospect Park and a few little loops in the Slope.  And get this – in 35minutes (I ran the exact time of my 35minute gym playlist on my i-pod, which was an exciting coindence) we did 4.4miles!  Not only did I know think I could run for 35minutes straight I never thought I could do more than 3miles this out of shape!  Other than a few quick stops for boob adjustment (holey heck I need new sports bras) we ran the entire time.  And my ankles/knees don’t even hurt yet (keeping my fingers crossed)!  I can not even describe to y’all how excited I am.

And then it seemed totally normal to tint my hair…..with Kool Aide (oh yeah!).

I used 4C of h2o and three mini packets to dip my hair into.  The end result?

Pretty much zilch.  It’s a little bit darker and it smells fantastic!  In retrospect, when I did this as a teenager I had blonde highlights.  I’m glad I tried though.

Now it’s time for a sweet (smelling, literally) bed time.  I hope everyone’s week has started without a hitch.

Have you ever used food for beauty?  How’d it go?

Up the Nut Box

The title should actually be “Up and The Nut Box,” but that doesn’t make me giggle.  We took full advantage (and foodvantage!) of the summerish day.  Sorry I ran off in a hurry last night, but Maneater was coming on!  I watched the 2nd half tonight and it rocked my socks – Sarah Chalke is my favorite actress.

What tv show/episode is this from?

“Quick!  What do you bring on a picnic?”

[confering - eggs? potato salad? a dead Lois?] ”We’re going to go with potato salad.”

“Show me potato salad!”

While I was watching last night I got hungry again so I snacked on this Smart Ones Three Cheese Ziti Marinara.

A was out super late celebrating a friend’s birthday so we got a late start this morning.  We trecked to the “big” movie theatre and stopped at Starbucks on the way.

I got a tall nonfat iced white chocolate mocha.

Then A and I went to see Up.  So frickin’ good!  I never, ever, ever cry during movies but this made me sob like 5 times.  See it!  A and I split a medium popcorn while we watched.

The we walked around Cobble Hill a bit before the trip home.  We saw this -

with this sign in the widow -

so we knew we needed to go in.  I had to get a gelato.

 

I got a small white chocolate raspberry and key lime pie.

Cioa Bella is the best, this was so good.

When we got home A and I decided on an impropu picnic.  We went to Blue Apron to pick up supplies,

and headed to Prospect Park.

We had a Sigg with h2o,

rolls,

 

with goat cheese,

and a Sweet and Salty Brownie from Baked.

I ate 1/2 of a roll with 1/4 of the cheese and about 1/2 of the brownie.

When we got home we spent time budgeting and making plans for our possible upcoming move.  While we worked A and I split these panda cookies.

I also conferenced called with my girlfriends about their upcoming visit this weekend!  Then A and I felt it was totally necessary to go to dinner.  We had to obey our Burrito Bar obsession.

We split a Bob Dylan Smoothie (banana, soy milk, pb).  And I got chicken nachos with extra jalopenos for dinner.

I think I’ve finally had enough of this to never want it again, thank God.

And while I was watching, the best show ever, I ate most of these Starburst.

 

And now it is time for bed, night!

Who is your favorite actress?  Mine are Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, and I am always impressed with Will Smith.

Bright Ideas

Hi there, I’m back for my pm post of the day.  It was a fun fun fun (i.e. lazy) Saturday.  I spent 90% of my time hanging out with A – I <3 kissing my hubby!

Bright, totally normal, idea #1 – eating chocolate from Blue Apron for breakfast.

 

I really liked these little candies.  The inside had a kind of strange gummy texture but the flavors were good together.

Then A and I decided to go into the city for a late brunch.  On the way there we got lemonade.

When A bought his the woman said it was sugarfree so I decided to get some too.  After tasting it we found out that it was made with some sort of fake sugar and was not good at all; we each drank less than 1/3.  I need to make some homemade lemonade soon, it sounded so good! 

We hit up Freemans, a spot we had read about in SoHo.

 

It was gorgeous, it was an old home and it was decorated like an eccentric ski lounge.  The lighting was dim so my pics don’t begin to do justice.

I ordered Poached egg, a roasted tomato, cheddar cheese grits and buttered toast.

This was delicious!  I adore poached eggs and the bread was perfect for yolking.  I am sure the grits were good, but apparently I don’t like grits, so I ended up leaving most of them.

I ordered a Freeman’s Bloody Mary made with potato vodka, freshly grated horseradish and garnished with a caperberry.

It was only ok, the reason I have been liking Bloody Marys lately is for the spice and the horseradish in this kind of tapered off.

What was great was the next two drinks A and I shared: a Germain Fizz champagne, elderflower liquor, grapefruit and a Bourbon Tea Cooler bourbon, iced tea, pomagranate syrup.

 

The Germain Fizz was the best drink of the day (A also had champagne with absinthe), it was perfectly fizzy and sour.

I even got dessert, Bananas Foster with rum butterscotch sauce!

So frickin good!  A ate off all the ice-cream but I pretty much devoured the rest.  Kath posted about this dessert last week and I realized I hadn’t had it in forever – so glad I got to satisfy the urge.

I have to be honest, I was pretty wasted by the end of brunch.  I have always been a lightweight, even when I drank a lot, so at my current rate of less than one a week I am ridiculous.  I stumbled around SoHo laughing and fell asleep on A’s lap for the whole train ride home!  Not, however, before we stopped in at Boss Tweeds to play an arcade game!

 

When we got home (I had sobered up) we did some errands and hung out.  We watched a movie and my next bright idea (after candy and booze) was to eat a huge bowl of popcorn with melted SmartBalance for “dinner.”

Goooooood.  Not good was the movie, we rented “Rachel Getting Married” and I do NOT recommend it.  I love Anne Hathaway and I was really looking forward to this but it was so slow!  Has anyone else seen this flick?

A and I took a long walk around the ‘hood and our final bright idea was renting a Scrubs dvd.  Our brilliant plan is to stay up half the night cuddling and watching.  I love Scrubs with A so much I mentioned it in our wedding vows!  Hope everyone else has a comfy cozy night!

What are some of your guilty pleasures?  I am a (guilt free) popcorn, walks, and Scrubs fanatic!

Double Feature

Oh man, what a good weekend!  Sunday = fun day.  This will be a quick post because it is laaaate.

Yesterday morning A and I got up and trekked (in the rain!) to Target.  From there we headed to a movie theatre in Cobble Hill to watch the new X-Men movie.  We were both super hungry but the theatre is on a crappy street and it was pouring so we ended up getting food here -

There was literally nothing healthy on this menu, nor anything I really wanted, so I chose by calorie count alone!  The chicken biscuit had 350calories so chicken biscuit it was!

This actually wasn’t too bad tasting!  I would have still been hungry, but I was saving my self for movie snacks!  A small popcorn,

and Dark Chocolate Cookie Dough Bites.

A and I really enjoyed the movie, it had some great action and some really funny moments too!  When we got home I got down to business and got 90% of my work for this week done.  From there we (FINALLY) headed to the gym   I did 25minutes on the treadmill at 2minutes running/1minute walking intervals to equal 2.6miles.  I also did 5minutes of abs/stretching on the mats and 5minutes of arms on the machines.  It felt so good to be active again.

On the way home we stopped to fill in a few grocery staples we still needed and A got himself some pizza.  I made fun of him, but in reality I ate half of this slice

After doing a little more work, it seemed like a really good idea to see a second movie – oh yeah, we roll like that!  We headed to “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.”  It was good, but a little chick-flicky for me.  I made some better snack choices for this one (especially since they ended up serving as dinner).

A Sigg full of h2o, a big baggie of green grapes, and 1serving of Coldstone Jelly Bellys.

It is clearly time for bed, good night!

How often do you go to the movies?  I know A and I go a lot, but honestly, I really really like movies!  I think acting, and not just stage acting, but particularly film is so beautiful – this is a Lot of power in a well done scene.  People like Zach Braff and Will Smith seriously make me wonder how I kept myself from throwing sense away and doing something in film (fun fact – I have dreamed of being an actress since I was a little kid and I saw “Annie” for the first time).

Big Foods, Big News

It was another great day of touristing with my aunt and cousin!  We did lots more walking, sightseeing, and eating – all my favorite activities!  I did not get any school work done but it’s ok because I actually decided to play hooky tomorrow

We started our day by doing a walking tour of Park Slope.  We did more than 3miles in our neighborhood alone!  We saw lots of neat things but my favorite is always the Super Hero Supply Store.

This store provides the funding for 826NYCa program that provides writing programs for children in New York.

We went to a Mexican spot so A and my cousin could use the bathroom and a bought a rice milk drink.

Everyone else did some noshing but I decided not to eat anything because I knew we were headed up into the city for a 2o’clock reservation at -

Serendipity3is one of my favorite nyc restaurants, so good!  It is known for it’s desserts but the food is equally amazing.  I ordered the Summer Bries.

An open faced turkey sandwich on raisin pumpernickel with apple, brie, alfalfa sprouts, and russian dressing.  I demolished it, but left the greens because I wanted to save room for -

 

I talked a big game about finishing my dessert but I only managed to eat about 2/3 of it.  Delicious, but it left me pretty stuffed for the rest of the day.

A and I took my family back to the train and then headed back home to do zero work.  I am so glad I decided to stay home tomorrow!  I was feeling really, really conflicted but this will be my 5th day off (out of ten) for the year so I really shouldn’t feel bad.  We usually eat dinner late, but by the time 10rolled around and we were still feeling full we decided to skip it entirely.  A ate something small and I had a medium bowl of popcorn with SmartBalance while we watched the most recent House episode online.

During House I did the einsiest bit of exercise ever with the gift my aunt brought me – Yoga Toes.

Does anyone use these?

I hope everyone had a great weekend and I will see you for a leisurely breakfast tomorrow!

The Big News

My big news is only exciting to me, but to me it’s pretty damn exciting!  I have officially decided that I am not going to teach next year.  I’m taking the year off to begin the prereqs for an rd program.  I am not positive that I won’t go back to teaching, but if that’s the case it will only be a year off and I will feel good that I explored all of the possibilities.  I still don’t know what state I’ll be living in (it depends on where A does his grad program), but at least know I know something!  Wish me luck!

Monday Night – Wednesday Morning

This is my final vacation post   Actually, I don’t get a sad face yet, I have four days left of vacation from school when I get back to the city!  I hate to cut island time short but I know school will seriously overwhelm me if I don’t have several days to get back into the swing of things.  Plus, maybe I’ll get to the goshdarn gym!!!

Monday, wedding remembering

Before I left the library for dinner I snacked on some Ritz Bits that were there for the kids in the after-school program.

My mom and dad run the program and we’ve argued for years over the fact that they have snacks for the kids with transfat (not the Ritz).

Then we headed out with both sets of parents to relive our wedding rehersal dinner.

I started with a roll with olive oil for dipping (x2).

And a 1/2 Ceasar salad.

And for my entree I ordered a spinach stuffed portabello.

It was tasty but too cheesy.  I ate everything but the salad underneath.

In spite of the cheese overload I still made room for dessert, chocolate mint meltdown cake.

I shared this with A and then went home and fell into a food coma.

Tuesday, too much sun day

I woke up very well rested on Monday!  And I even felt well enough that I ate a Lindt truffle for breakfast!

A’s mom set out a big bowl of these for me but I felt too sick to eat them this vacation.  I love Lindt truffles so much one Christmas A’s mom actually had to tell me to stop eating them!

Then A’s dad took us down to Beach-Comber to get in some early morning beach time.

My mommy met us there and we headed to Havensite to do a little shopping!  We stopped in at my favorite restaurant (second only to Lotus) Barefoot Buddha.  I got the Bigfoot Bagel Sandwich.

Frittata, smoked turkey, turkey bacon, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, chipolte aioli & tomato coulis & spinach.  Holy frickin’ yum!!!

I also split a passionfruit smoothie with A.

After some shopping my mommy went off to run some errands and A and I walked on Waterfront into town.  When we first started dating I would drag A on that walk all the time so we had a great time!  Plus we got tons of goodies once we got into town.

I started with a chicken patty.

 

A patty (pronounced like liver pate) is fried dough filled with seasoned meat; chicken, beef, conch, saltfish, etc.

Then we got some beer.

In St. Thomas there are no open container laws so you can walk around with your drinks.  (Sidenote: the first few times I drank in college I would forget that I was stateside and walk out of bars with my “beverages,” made for some interesting conversations with bouncers/cops!). 

I drank half my Greenie Light and handed it to A in favor of a passionfruit guava fracco!

Fraccos are basically shaved ice, but back home you can buy them from trucks on the side of the road.  This one was way too sweet so I only had half.

After town A and I headed down to Megans for a final beach visit around 3.  I layed out, but I got A building a sandcastle as my view.

We also took a loooong walk down the beach to laugh at all the sunburnt tourists.  I got mine though, I realized at the end of the day that my forearms got burned on my walk downtown!

On the drive home from the beach we stopped in at the famous stt dairy spot, Udder Delight!

I got a Bailey’s Delight Milkshake – rum raisin ice-cream, eggnog, egg(?), and lots of rum!

I’ve eyed this flavor for years so I’m glad I got it, but it was only good in small doses so I ate about half.

My snacking went further “vacation-style” when I got home, with a minibag of Cheetos.

And half a mini bagel with pb.

My mom made dinner for A that I wasn’t very excited about so I only ate small plates.  Cucumber and tomato salad,

spinach sauteed in sesame oil,

and a teeny taste of chicken and dumplings.

All together.

After dinner we hit dessert hard!  My parents got me raspberry cordials, in an adorable box, for Easter so I ate one of those.

And my mom made a key lime pie with creme fresh.

Yums!

We spent the rest of the evening playing Taboo.  We get pretty excited about board games.  At some point in the evening my dad made me a small bowl of air popped popcorn.

A is the bestest that he makes me popcorn on the stove but I can’t wait until we have room for our wedding stuff and I can make air-popped!

Wednesday, goodbye

Fun fact – today is 100 days until I turn 24 on July 24th!

I wanted to start my morning healthy (100days and all and I have a long travel day), but I also wanted to appreciate my mom’s yummy pie, so I compromised.

I took a small slice of pie and a nonfat plain Greek Gods Greek yogurt and mashed them together in a coffee cup.

Perfection!

A and I are at school with my mommy right now and around 11 his dad is coming to pick us up.  After lunch with his parents we have at 4:30 flight to Atlanta, a short layover, and a final flight to NY.  We don’t get in until late late so I won’t be posting again until tomorrow.  I’m sad to see this part of vacation end, but I am excited to get back to my little box!

What is your favorite board game?  Mine is probably Pictionary.  I like Monopoly, but only if I get Boardwalk!

1, 2, 3

I made it to break!  Today was actually the sickest I felt, but knowing that it was “Friday” I was able to push through.  My lack of post yesterday was due to the fact that I was in bed before 9.  Thank God too, I can’t even imagine how I would have felt today without a healthy dose of shut-eye.

Yesterday morning I packed this on the train, a small banana and a Balance Honey Yogurt Peanut Bar.

I don’t a lot of Balance bars because they have 3.5grams of saturated fat.  However, they are hands down the best tasting bars on earth.  This flavor knocks my socks off.

Lunch’s flavor kept my socks firmly on unfortunately.  I tried a new yogurt brand and was muy unimpressed.

I like that fact that it was dairy and soy free, but the flavor was just off.  My two clementines were juicy as usual though.

A ate a lot more food than we were expecting this week so we actually ran out of meals early!  We ended up going for sushi last night while we were out on a drugstore run.  We went to Sinju, a place close to our house.

Here is my plate.

From left to right: California handroll, spicy crunchy salmon roll, broccoli tempura roll.  Delish.

I did manage to sneak in some snacks before my early bedtime though.  Easter candy,

and some paper bag popcorn.

This morning I packed an Iced Oatmeal Cookie Luna bar for my train breakfast.

I also cracked open this stash bright and early.

In spite of slightly reduced taste (I have no smell because I’m so stuffy) my lunch was a mega success!  You guys know I love pina colada flavored things, and today I went for double trouble.

Pineapple Coconut Light and Fit yogurt, 1/4C oats, 1T unsweetened coconut, TJ unsweetened dried pineapple, and a small banana.  So frickin’ good!

Try this mix at home!  Of course I had two clementines with it.

After lunch I had to give a presentation at our teacher meeting so I didn’t get a much needed chance to rest my voice.  This chocolate flower a student brought me made up for it though!

I didn’t eat it, but I did have two of these guys.

I got home as quickly as possible today, I am on vacation for a week and a half, woot!  At home I snacked on the few bites of leftover couscous A ate earlier this week.

We are out of food so I know I won’t have to cook dinner tonight   I do have an agenda though, I need to put some laundry away before I pack.  I like to be organized, but I am the worst procrastinator packer ever!  In college I would start packing for trips home literally 5minutes before my SuperShuttle pick up time!  I’m planning on being a grown up today and getting it done tonight though.  I also am hoping to get a pedicure!  Other than splurges on food, we haven’t bought much fun stuff this year.  I know how much happier I will be on the beach if my feet are pretty.

I’ve got to scadaddle, I’ll be back with a quick post later.

What are you celebrating this year: a. Passover, b. Easter, c. both, d. neither?