Buffalo Turkey Burgers with Oven Baked Fries

Friday night we had a few wedding related things to take care of and then our only plans were dinner, wine and hanging out in front of the TV. Such an exciting life we lead :) but with all that we have going on, we're busy constantly and this has become our favorite way to spend Friday or Saturday night.

For dinner we'd decided on turkey burgers and oven baked french fries, but didn't have a recipe for either. I asked on Twitter if anyone had a good recipe for us to try and another awesome Jess, from Stylish, Stealthy & Healthy,  came through with an awesome one we couldn't pass up: Buffalo Turkey Burgers. I was just looking for a plain old burger recipe!

I used Jess' recipe pretty much exactly (see the link above for the details!) but we didn't have any onion powder. I probably could've just left that out or used a little diced onion but I'd also found this recipe for the oven baked fries which uses chili powder & cumin so I figured we'd throw those in the burgers too. I also wanted to use my cute little, non-dead basil plant again so we added fresh basil instead of parsley. Ty got even crazier with his burgers and added diced banana peppers & red peppers that his mom gave us from her garden to his. We're all about his & hers food in our house :)

Speaking of, we had his & hers french fries too! Well, "hers" ended up being awesome and someone snuck a few of them...but you know what I mean. Ty bought two of the biggest potatoes I'd ever seen and I had a sweet potato I hadn't used so we chopped them both up, coated them in olive oil and the seasonings in this recipe, then baked them for about 35 minutes on 450.

The Verdict: The buffalo burgers were so awesome topped with cheddar cheese and dipped in a little ranch dressing. We used whole wheat buns so that cancels out the ranch part right? They were maybe a tad too spicy for me, turns out Ty added a couple dashes of hot sauce in addition to the 1/4 cup of buffalo sauce...but that didn't stop me from chowing down! The fries also came out really well, I probably should've flipped them at some point though, so they could get crispy on all sides, but still they were really tasty!

If you have any other interesting burger recipes, please share!

Yummy Breakfast: Eggs Over Medium with Potatoes

I just made the most delicious (and pretty!) breakfast that I needed to share with you. Last night we made oven baked fries (recipe coming later) but Ty bought the biggest potatoes I'd ever seen and we had 1/2 of one left over this morning that we didn't cook. One of our family friends Paulette, is famous for her breakfast potatoes so I decided to try a version of them myself with eggs.

I diced up the potatoes and put them in a pan with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 tablespoon butter, and 1/4 cup diced onion that we had in the fridge. If you're trying to steer clear of butter, first you're crazy :) and second you could definitely leave it out and just use the olive oil. To help the potatoes cook faster, mix them up in the pan and then put a lid on it. The steam cooks them and you can get them in your mouth much quicker! Every 2-3 minutes I took the lid off and stirred the potatoes. I also added seasonings: seasoning salt, Italian seasoning blend and my favorite, a little Garlic Gold Nuggets.

After about 15-20 minutes of this, I stuck a fork in one of the bigger potato chunks (I'm not very good at dicing things all the same size...) and it broke apart which meant they were ready. I took the lid off and let them cook a little longer to brown up more.

At this point I got my eggs in a pan, and just like with the potatoes, I put a lid over them to help them cook quicker and more even. This was one of the first cooking tricks I ever learned actually! I love runny eggs (or dippy eggs I hear people call them) but I don't like any of the egg white to be uncooked - over easy eggs tend to always be a little TOO runny for me. So what I used to do was flip them and let them cook on the other side for just a few seconds. Problem is, I'm not even close to graceful and I lot of times I'd break the yolk. There is nothing worse than when you really want that yummy yolk and you see it ooze out from underneath your egg in the pan...I said a lot of bad words.

Then I had the bright idea to put a lid on the pan and let them steam that way, works perfect every time! Well, you can still overcook them and get no runny yolk...I've perfected the timing by watching to see when the yolk just turns white on top, then they're ready.

This morning I topped my eggs with fresh basil (from the plant on the back porch that I have miraculously not killed. The cilantro wasn't so lucky.) and a little more Parmesan Garlic Gold Nuggets, can't ever have too much of that stuff.

Check out that yolk! YUM.

Fabulous way to start off a Saturday. Now I'm off to the credit union, which if successful I will tell you all about next week, and then we're having lunch with my future in-laws!

Have a great weekend!

Chicken Picatta, but with Turkey

Last Saturday night we were in the mood for a little something different. Since we finished our cleanse on Friday (down 5 pounds yay!) and hadn't had any wheat products in 10 days, pasta was calling our names. I took a look at the recipe for chicken picatta that we got from our first cooking class at Mise En Place, we had all the ingredients except white wine and lemon juice (which I knew I could find at my parents house down the street) and thought it would go perfectly with pasta. We had chicken breasts and turkey breast cutlets, but since the turkey breast cutlets are smaller and thinner we used those instead of chicken. (Read: I'm lazy and wanted to skip the pounding the chicken step)

One of the healthy changes we've made over the past few years that we barely even notice is switching to whole wheat pasta. Now I'll be honest, I don't always like all types of whole wheat pasta (whole wheat penne is just not appealing to me), but we get whole wheat thin spaghetti and actually like it better than regular spaghetti or angel hair pasta.

I was really excited to try this recipe because it involved lightly breading the turkey like I've done in the past with Turkey Parmesan, but you add the extra step of coating the turkey in flour BEFORE you dip it in the egg and then the bread crumbs. I wanted to see if this extra step was worth it, did it really make a difference in the crust?

We weren't in a rush to eat so I poured a glass of wine and sat down to read through the recipe. When I first looked at it, it looked like it had a lot of ingredients. I've come to the realization that long ingredient lists completely overwhelm me. My definition of long is probably a little over dramatic, anything with more than 5-6 ingredients makes me think "UGH this will take FOREVER." This recipe has a few more that 5 ingredients but they're all things we normally keep around the house and once I took the time to read the recipe I realized, hey, this will only take like 30 minutes. If you actually know what your doing in the kitchen and don't take as many wine breaks as I do, you could probably make it even faster.

Turkey Picatta adapted from Mise En Place 

• 4 turkey breast cutlets (that's usually what comes in one package)
• Salt & pepper
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tablespoon water
• 3/4 breadcrumbs
• olive oil
• 3 tablespoons butter, room temperature, divided (meaning in 1 tbsp. chunks)
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine

Since we wanted pasta with this dish, the first thing I did was get a pot of water boiling - see how much I've learned?? It's all about timing! Then, I got the breading stations ready which involved a plate, a bowl, another plate and a baking sheet. First plate got flour, bowl got eggs & water, last plate got breadcrumbs, baking sheet got foil because I'm lazy and hate doing dishes.

One by one I got all 4 pieces of turkey through the stations. The big difference in adding the flour step was that it definitely made more of the egg adhere to the turkey which in turn made more of the breadcrumbs stick as well.

I set the oven to 400 and then started searing the turkey cutlets in a pan with olive oil. Somewhere around this time I also dropped in the pasta and refilled my wine glass :) I followed the recipe's instructions to sear each piece of turkey for about 2-3 minutes per side and was SO excited to flip them over to reveal a beautiful golden crust! Once they were done I put them on the baking sheet and popped them in the over for a bit. This kept them warm and probably helped the one thicker piece finish cooking while I got the pan sauce and pasta ready.

I have a history with pan sauces. Mainly that they never seem to thicken up, so I was a little wary of this one. Lemon juice, white wine, little butter in the pan. It took a little longer than the suggested 3-4 minutes but eventually the sauce reduced down and I added in the last bit of butter.

All we did to the pasta was add a little olive oil (so the noodles don't stick together) a couple spoonfuls of the lemon wine sauce and a fresh Parmesan. Tossed that together, top with turkey and more sauce and you've got yourself dinner:

The Verdict: I wanted to eat 6 plates of this stuff!! It was really simple, most of the ingredients we pretty much always have on hand (we keep a lot of chicken & turkey in the freezer), so we'll definitely be making this again. The extra flour step during the breading process also helped the breadcrumbs stay on while the turkey was cooking. If you've ever just used breadcrumbs, you know what I mean...no sad, soggy breadcrumbs left in the pan this time!

Tonight for dinner we are attempting turkey burgers and oven-baked french fries. Jess sent me a great recipe from her blog to try and it looks amazing! The only thing I know we're going to do is use fresh basil - my mom did that in burgers she made the other week and wow, it made a huge difference in the flavor.

What are you having for dinner this weekend? Anything fun?

Feeling Inspired

A nice walk, a glass of wine and some good reading will do that to ya :)

The weather has been borderline pleasant in Virginia the past week or so, meaning it's still hovering around 90 but the humidity has dropped and there was even a little breeze today. I actually took two walks, one this morning before work and again after dinner tonight, both just around the neighborhood. I've decided walking is the new running, I walked a little over an hour today which is the equivalent of running for about 30 minutes. The biggest differences were not being a sweaty mess (just "glistening") and not feeling like I was going to die! I'm also having a weird pain in my hip so walking is easier on that.

My choice of reading material was electronic tonight, although I do really need a good book, I've barely read anything this summer! Related: we haven't been to the beach ONCE this summer...with the wedding and a bunch of other stuff, weekends have been pretty full. Since we're getting married on an island known for it's beaches (even though the wedding isn't actually on the beach), I'm hoping to get in a little sand time then.

What are you reading right now?

I poured a glass of wine (I'm sorta in love with Red Diamond Cabernet, chilled of course because it's hot out!) and did a little reading on Stratejoy.com - great blog if you're looking for a little inspiration!

I'm actually doing their Joy Equation, I was in the mood to try something new a few weeks ago. It's been interesting so far, a lot of writing and reflection. I forget how much I like to write sometimes, and how big of a difference it is to write with a good pen! Not even an expensive pen, just one you really like. I'm kind of a nerd like that :)

I have a great recipe to share tomorrow, I used turkey breast cutlets in place of chicken in the Chicken Picatta recipe we got from our first cooking class. Stay tuned for the results!

Welcome to Ashland, Center of the Universe!

(I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago but the time got away from me and I'm just finishing it today! Some how in the process I lost a few pictures too :( ....)

After a great run inspired by all the runners on Twitter yesterday morning, Ty and I decided we wanted to try somewhere new for lunch. We live about 15-20 minutes outside of what most people would consider civilization (and I know some Richmonders can think of a few other words to describe Short Pump) but if you go in the opposite direction for about 25 minutes you come into the town of Ashland. Ashland is really the only "town" in our area in the traditional sense of the word. They have their own police, their own town council and their own Mayor - who is a woman I just discovered. They also have their own slogan, hence the title of this post :)

I used the Yelp app on my phone to pick a restaurant. We discovered once we got there that there are really only two restaurants in downtown Ashland and we ended up at Trackside Grill.

We were expecting pretty standard diner fare but were highly impressed with the choices on the menu. We couldn't resist starting out with the Hanover tomato and mozzarella appetizer:

Hanover tomatoes are just coming into season and they made this so much more delicious! We started devouring it before I remembered I wanted a picture to share with you...

For our meals, I ordered the turkey & avocado wrap (which also included Hanover tomatoes) and got a little too excited when our waitress asked if I wanted regular or sweet potato fries. I don't even like sweet potatoes but I LOVE sweet potato fries.

I'm wary of wraps a lot of the time because they tend to get soggy before you finish them but this one was really good. I love almost anything you add avocado to, this wrap was really fresh and the sweet potato fries where awesome. I even got Ty to try a few, he liked them ok but he's definitely a regular fry guy. Today though he actually got a really great chef salad:

After lunch we walked around the town, which has train tracks running right through the middle, and we stopped in the corner grocery (which was so incredibly adorable) to get drinks. It was pretty hot outside so these totally hit the spot.

RC Cola!! Did anyone else drink that growing up? My grandma always had it at her house. For some reason drinks just taste better out of a glass bottle too. Speaking of soda (or pop as Ty calls it), did anyone else call 2 liters a "boss" or did my mom just make that up? She'd always say "Pick up a boss Coke at the store." which meant the big one. I've called it that a few times recently and the people around me have no idea what I'm talking about...

Anyway, we walked around town and around the Randolph-Macon campus for a while. On our way back to the car we noticed the other restaurant in town serves brunch on Sundays, I'm a sucker for brunch! So the next morning we got up and headed to Ironhorse Restaurant for brunch.

The restaurant has a great feel too it and lots of big windows looking out on the town. When I go out to a nicer restaurant for brunch and they have eggs benedict on the menu, 95% of the time that's what I order. I've had regular eggs benedict (egg, Canadian bacon, English muffin, hollandaise sauce) more times than I can count, but I also love when they switch it up with country ham, crab cakes, or fried green tomatoes - all have been winners in my book. Ty makes fun of me all the time about ordering the same thing so this time I thought I'd through him a curve ball and order the huevos rancheros. They did not disappoint!

(I'd insert a pic but it somehow got lost on my phone?)

Wow. My favorite part was the cilantro crema on top, I couldn't get enough! Ty also wanted to order something a little different so he went with the chicken and waffles. We both thought the waffle was really good but we weren't too impressed with the chicken. It was cooked nicely but didn't have a whole lot of flavor. Plus, because it was bone-in chicken it made it hard to eat. Most of the chicken and waffles we've had before have used boneless chicken (I don't know much about the proper preparation of chicken and waffles so maybe you're supposed to use bone-in?).

I was really excited to get another RC Cola and walk around town but, as in many small towns, pretty much everything is closed on Sundays including the adorable corner grocery store. :(

We will definitely be visiting Ashland more often, we haven't been to their farmer's market in a few years and I hear it's really grown! We're planning to check it out this weekend, apparently you can now get locally grown meat there in addition to the vegetables and fruit they've always had.

What is your favorite thing to eat for brunch?

Body for Life Week 12 Review

Friday was officially the last day of my 12 week Body for Life workout program! (Here are my Week 1 and Week 7 updates if you're interested) A very special thank you to my gym buddy Brittany for getting my butt out of bed and to the gym at 6:45am for these workouts!! I can't say I did EVERY workout, in total I probably missed a week's worth, the majority being cardio.

Did I lose weight?

Sort of. I mentioned in a previous update that I actually gained weight the first few weeks on the program. That lasted through about week 7 (it was 3 pounds or so) and then I stayed back at my starting weight through week 10. I also mentioned that I was not following the Body for Life eating plan. Two weeks ago, Ty and I started a cleanse eating plan and through the combination of that and the workouts I'm actually down 5 pounds as of this morning!

My Thoughts

I'm obviously not an expert or dietitian :) but I think the eating plan - any eating plan really, it doesn't necessarily have to be the Eating for Life that comes in the book - is very important if your goal is to lose weight. I don't eat terribly unhealthy most of the time but as I've said, me and vegetables aren't the best of friends and I definitely have been known to have a few too many glasses of wine...although that is starting to change (the vegetable part, I still love my wine I'm just trying to save it for the weekends!). I thought I could do Body for Life and lose weight without making any major changes to my diet, but that was certainly not the case. As soon as I made a few changes to what I was eating, the scale started moving the direction I wanted it to.

I also think if weight loss is your goal, you probably should add in more cardio. I like the 20 minute HIIT workouts but last week I started supplementing them with walking or the elliptical so that I was doing at least 30 minutes of cardio a day. Now if weight loss is NOT your goal and your just trying to get stronger, I think the plan works very well! I actually like strength training now that I'm back in the habit of doing it.

Pros and Cons

There are things I like about Body for Life and things I might change based on my personal preference. Some of the things I like are:

• Alternating upper & lower body on different days - I felt like you really got to work the muscles harder.
• Increasing your weight and decreasing your reps in each set - I don't feel like I increased my weights much after the 4th or 5th week but I still felt pretty strong lifting the heavier weights.
• HIIT workouts - I'd done interval workouts before but not like that! I'll definitely keep these in the rotation going forward.

Things I'd do different:

• Add in more low-impact cardio - I like what I did this past week, added 10-15 minutes of walking to my HIIT workout days and 30 minutes of walking or the elliptical and the other days. I've dabbled with running again but for now, I'm really enjoying my walks!
• Follow some type of eating plan - I'm enjoying the one I'm trying now, I'm done with the "cleanse" phase so really it's just a healthy eating plan from here on out (lots of veggies, fruit, lean protein, healthy fats and whole grains).
• Change up the strength moves - the examples they give you in the book are the very basic moves for each muscle group, which is great if you're just starting out, but there are a lot of combination moves (that combine upper & lower body or biceps and shoulders, for example) that I think can be used as well to mix it up. You can find a ton of additional moves with a quick Google search! Search "upper body strength training" and you'll see what I mean.

What I'm Doing Next

I think I'm going to try the Tone It Up workouts. I've watched some of their videos over the past few weeks, I like that they use a lot of combination strength moves and the workouts are fast paced but shorter than what I have been doing. As we get closer to the wedding I have a feeling I'm not going to have 45 minutes to spare for strength training which is about what Body for Life takes.

Have you ever tried Body for Life or another similar workout plan? What did you think?

Wedding Update: Two Months To Go!

Two months from now we'll be walking down the aisle :)

This is probably going to be a pretty busy week wedding planning wise, we're expecting a contract from our photographer, quotes from the florist and the caterer, we've got to decide between the band and the DJ and on Thursday my mom and I are meeting her friend to go over centerpiece designs. Whew! Ty also finally found his wedding pants so he needs to order those and get the word out to the groomsmen too.

The other thing that is supposed to be happening this week? Our RSVP's are due. We set the RSVP date for tomorrow, which I know is very early but we're hoping to be able to invite more people if we can. I know there are tons of opinions about having a "B list," but it's what we had to do given the size limits of our venue.

Hearing the stories of my other friends who have gotten married recently, I expected some RSVPs to come in late...or not at all. But I'm a little shocked that only about 1/2 of the people we invited have responded so far. And we did online RSVPs, so they didn't even have to find a mailbox!

Here is the formal definition of RSVP in case you're interested (I was because I'm a nerd):

R.S.V.P. stands for a French phrase, "répondez, s'il vous plaît," which means "please reply." The person sending the invitation wo­uld like you to tell him or her whether you accept or decline the invitation. That is, will you be coming to the event or not? Etiquette rules followed in most Western cultures require that if you receive a formal, written invitation, you should reply promptly...via HowStuffWorks

The part that some people seem to over look is "whether you accept or decline." 


My friend Kelly got married this past June and said that she had about 20 people who never RSVP'd at all, some of them just showed up at the wedding and some of them she just never heard from. I think some people feel like they're going to hurt your feelings if they say no. For us, we're having our wedding on a remote island in North Carolina, given our original guest list is 27 people more than our venue will hold we are counting on the fact that some people will not be able to come! All of the resources we looked at said to expect about 20% of your guest list to decline, plus it's a long way down there and it involves a ferry ride, we really don't expect everyone to be able to do that.


It's also hard to plan catering and how many chairs, tables, linens, place settings, etc. to rent when you don't actually know how many people will be there. We're not doing a seating chart, but a lot of brides do and I'm sure it drives them crazy when people don't RSVP!


My thought is, if you receive an invitation to something, take 5 minutes and respond or at least let the host know if you're not sure. We have had a couple people tell us they don't know their work schedules yet so they'll let us know as soon as they do, which is totally fine! At least we've heard from them.

Do you have experience with people not RSVP'ing on time or not at all? What's the best way to handle this? 

My First Cooking Class - Mise En Place Richmond

Last week Ty and I attended our first cooking class! Mise En Place is one of the only cooking schools in Richmond and they had a deal on Living Social about a month ago, you know I had to get it!

We chose a beginners class (obviously) and here was the planned menu:

Balsamic Vinaigrette, Julienne Vegetable Saute, Pan Seared Chicken with a White Wine Pan Sauce, Asian Glazed Baked Salmon with Perfect White Rice, Homemade Bolognese Sauce with Pasta and a Peach Cobbler.

Sounds delicious right? I really wasn't sure what to expect from the class, I knew there was no way we'd each get to cook all of those things in 2.5 hours. We were one of the first to arrive and I was surprised to see only one kitchen...I guess I watch too much Food Network :) I was even more intrigued about how the class was going to go at that point, maybe it's just a demonstration not hands on?

I also learned being the only blogger in the room means you're the only one snapping pictures...which is sort of weird, so I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked. Once everyone arrived Christine, the chef and owner, gave us the run down on how things would go. She had set up stations for each meal in the kitchen and we'd pick the one we wanted to try out and that would be our dish for the night. After the cooking there would be eating, Ty was definitely interested in the eating part! We were at the end of the long table which made us last to get into the kitchen so we got stuck with dessert. I say we got stuck with it only because we were both hoping to try the bolognese sauce, but the peach cobbler turned out to be a good choice too.

We were paired up with another couple (of course I can't remember their names now but they were super nice!) and we got to work prepping the peaches and the dry ingredients. We learned something neat, how to get the skin off of peaches! Apparently this works for tomatoes too if you're making your own marinara sauce.  I'm now wishing I had taken more pictures but bear with me :)

To skin a peach (or tomato): cut an X in the bottom of the peach and drop it in BOILING water - I emphasize boiling because my first batch I put into only "sort of hot" water and it took way longer than the 30 seconds the recipe called for. The sous chef set me straight though for my second batch - only 5 minutes into class and I'm already being corrected by the teacher...geesh...

Anyway, they told us you only need to leave the peaches in the boiling water for about 30 seconds and you'll see the skin start to curl back - even with my second batch it seemed to take longer than 30 seconds...maybe even as long as 2 minutes. Once that happens you take the peaches out and dunk them straight into cold water (you can use ice water but we used cold tap water and it worked fine). Once they're cool enough to handle, the skin should pretty much peel right off. It worked for some of them and not so great for others, still a neat trick though.

Next was just assembling the cobbler: sliced peaches on the bottom, flour, butter, egg, sugar mix on top.

Our partners getting their cobbler assembled.

Ty finishing ours!

The cobblers baked in the oven for about 30 minutes, they smelled amazing!! I was really concerned using the whole wheat crust was not going to taste good or be dry but everyone really liked it.

All of the meals were delicious, the eating part was definitely the most fun! We chatted with the couple we made the cobbler with and another couple across from us is getting married the weekend after us so that got the wedding talk going :) it wasn't only couples though, so even if you don't have someone to go with you I definitely recommend you take a class at Mise En Place. It was really fun to do a class like this together too, I think we'll definitely try another class now that we know what to expect!

Back on East Coast Time

After a rough start yesterday I think my body is finally back on track from my west coast travels.

Last night I got to hang out/do business with the amazing ladies of P.I.N.K.K., and Ty made a much needed trip to the grocery store to stock up on everything we needed to start our "cleanse" today! Lots of fruit and lots of veggies are on the menu and I'm actually really excited to get back on track with our eating. It's amazing how eating crap can really make you feel like crap if you're paying attention to it.

The cleanse eating plan is pretty simple, I like it because it's nothing SO drastic that I don't think I can do it for 10 days. The main things you cut out are wheat, dairy, fried/processed foods (duh) and alcohol. The only one of those I'm worried about is the alcohol, I do love my wine :) but 10 days isn't so bad. Plus I've been having migraines lately that seem to be linked to certain things I'm eating and to having one too many glasses of wine with dinner so it's probably good for me to hold off anyway.

I got back to the gym this morning finally! I can't say it enough, having a gym buddy waiting for you to get your butt out of bed in the mornings is the best motivation. Brittany and I are in the home stretch of the Body for Life 12 week workout plan, only 11 days left! I'll do a full recap once we're done, the 12 weeks really did fly by.

Also happening this week, day TDB:

I'm surprised it's been out so long and I haven't seen it! Ty is not even remotely interested in it, watching Harry Potter is a tradition between my sister, my dad and myself. I have a meeting with a potential wedding photographer tonight so we may go after that. Picking a photographer might be just as hard, if not harder, than picking the bridesmaids dresses. But we're only about 2 months away from the wedding so we have to get a few of the last big things nailed down asap!

We're getting really excited about the wedding, I can't remember if I mentioned before that we decided to go with online RSVPs through our wedding website. It saved us money on printing reply cards and on return postage, plus I get an email every time someone RSVPs which is really fun :)

I also had a trial run on my hair last week! My awesome cousin is doing my hair, here's us midway through:

It doesn't look anything like that once it's up and finished but my hair is SO straight, it was kind of fun to see it curly for once. The finished product looks more like this, minus the veil and adding a flower hair clip:

This is not me by the way :P and I can't find the website I borrowed this from!

It looked great once she finished and I even got to parade around my parents house in my dress with my hair done!

Is it Friday yet??

West Coast Girls Weekend

I just got back from four days in San Francisco with my best friends from college!

Those drinks in front of us are blended mojitos...literally the most awesome drink I've ever had. I have a full recap of our trip coming up as soon as Meg sends me pictures :) I let her play photographer for the weekend since she has a great camera and so I could focus totally on soaking in the city and chatting with these ladies. She's a better multi-tasker than I am!

I took a little blogging/Twitter/Internet in general break over the past week to recharge a little. It's amazing what unplugging every once in a while can do for you! I actually don't know how people blog while they're travelling? I didn't really have a chance to stop, turn on my computer, upload/edit photos, and write about them. Well, I guess I could've done that while we were watching Jersey Shore in the mornings :) but we never get a chance to just sit around and watch TV together, it was like we were in college again!

From the looks of my calendar (so far), I think August is going to be a calmer month that June and July were - knock on wood. We do have a lot of wedding related decisions to make but no big plans or adventures are on the agenda. This week I'm definitely getting back into the kitchen! On the menu so far:

• Lettuce tacos
• Frittatas
• Another shot at cooking with quinoa
• Asian noodle bowl (I don't have a recipe for this yet so if you know one let me know! I just want to try rice noodles again)

We'll also be doing a lot of grilling I'm sure and we're going to the farmer's market this weekend to stock up on veggies, just not sure which ones yet. Ty and I are actually starting a "10 day cleanse" eating plan on Wednesday to help get us back into the habit of eating fruits and veggies. We did the cleanse a few weeks ago (well I only did it for a few days, Ty stuck to it the whole time) and because the only things you cut out, besides the obvious like fried foods, are wheat and dairy, it challenged us to get more creative with our meals. We learned that we actually like some vegetables without smothering them in cheese and that there are a ton of other healthy carbs besides just whole wheat pasta and bread.

Eating in California is a great way to get inspired to eat better, everything is so fresh out there! 

I'm also in the home stretch of the Body for Life workout plan, Brittany reminded me today that we only have 13 days left!! I'll be honest, I did absolutely ZERO workouts last week. Between the trip to Raleigh and getting ready for the trip to San Francisco - not to mention that Brittany was out of town for work - I was running low on motivation to get to the gym. I'm not worried about it though, when I was training for my half marathon I took a week off and ended up coming back even stronger and faster than before so let's hope the rest does the same this time. 

We haven't officially decided what we're going to do workout wise after Body for Life, but we both like the Tone It Up workouts so I have a feeling we'll be incorporating those. I'm still up in the air about getting back in the running game (read about my running history here), I did find a local 5k I might sign up for though!

I can't believe it's already August!! According to the counter on our wedding website, we're 75 days away from the big day!