Happy WIAW!
Today, I’m blogging from Solvang, an adorable little Danish town completely decked out for Christmas. There’s not a not to do here besides eat delicious Danish pastries. There are worse things in life.
Technically I consider myself a “healthy living blog,” and while these foods may not be your typical idea of healthy, healthy eating really is all about balance. How many times will you be conveniently within a mile of about 20 different bakeries, with a father who wants to go into all of them? Balance is trying one of everything…and then splitting it with your family. So here are some things from the past couple of days!
Monday before we left, I went to m gym for an abs class, followed by weight lifting on my own-I did my Jingle Barbells workouts. It was nice to have all the time in the world, and be able to take long rests between sets. I’m normally in such a rush! I followed that with a protein smoothie-I’ve been dying to have one of these for months. Yay for being home!
Milk, spinach, frozen banana, cocoa powder, a little protein powder, and a handful of ice.
Lunch on the road was a bagel sandwich and thai bubble tea.
And then we arrived! Naturally the first stop was pre-dinner pastries.
A blueberry “boat” (probably my favorite o the trip), custard filled pastry, and a Danish “waffle”-a pastry with butter cream frosting and raspberry.
Dinner was at Pea Soup Anderson’s. Anyone who has driven through California on the main, long stretches of road will be familiar with this place-there are signs advertising it hundreds of miles away, and since we were RIGHT THERE we had to get their famous pea soup!
In the morning, we went to the hotel’s hot breakfast. The oatmeal was a highlight-it was very vanilla and cinnamon-y.
Then, I went for a run with my sister and her boyfriend. I’m in WAY better than last time I ran with them (at the beginning of half training in June)-last time I was dying, and this time their pace felt comfortable. I think we covered between 4-4.5 miles?
Then, on our way in to town, we stopped at a little drive in. I ordered a burrito with chicken-it was interesting, the lettuce, salsa, and guacamole were on the outside! A lesser known fast-I’ve eaten very few burritos in my life. And as a result, I never know how to eat them! I’m really uncomfortable eating them-I had one of my first burritos with my friends and they totally made fun of me for it!
And of course dessert.
We spent the afternoon walking around downtown Solvang and wandering into little bakeries. A highlight was our visit to the foot spa for a massage. Since we all know the sad shape of my feet, it was great.
Guess what we did next?
We went to an ostrich ranch! I kinda really really want one. Or at least to ride one-is that a thing?
We even got to feed them. They’re aggressive little guys! (Ok, maybe not little…) We had a bowl with a handle, and you held on the handle tightly while they went at it and just kind of hoped. It reminded me a little of water skiing-you hold on for dear life and hope, and there’s the adrenaline rush that something is going to go horrible wrong, like they will somehow peck your hands off.
My sister’s boyfriend feeding ostriches.
Since we were all stuffed with pastries, we ended up eating a late dinner at our hotel restaurant, which turned out to be really nice.
I ordered the vegetarian portabello mushroom burger, which had a lots of veggies, lots of cheese, and lots of mess. 
And since this is vacation, dessert happened (again) as well. Bananas foster and lava cake.
Everything has been delicious, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready to go back to my routine. I wanted to do nothing all afternoon but curl up and sleep. But such is life. Everything is about balance.
Oh, and one more though about my 5k on Sunday-I probably screwed myself over with pacing as well. I thought I could have held an 8 minute pace, but based on my pace estimates, my first mile was probably 7:30, and the last two 8:30-so if I go out that fast there’s no way I could hold an 8:00 pace! I think I need to practice running more at that pace-to get my body used to the effort as well as the feel.
Have a great week everybody!
Favorite pastry?
Blueberry danishes and apple turnovers! Mmm….
I LOVE Solvang! I’ve been up there quite a few times for vacations/soccer tournaments and can definitely agree with you when you talk about how cute it is this time of year and how delicious all their pastries are. And feeling ostriches? Such a cool experience!
It’s adorable! And aren’t sports tournaments always in the most random places?
I grew up in CA and we made many trips to Solvang as a kid, looks like it hasn’t changed much! We always stopped for pea soup on the way home too, still one of my favorite soups of all time.
It’s the only pea soup I’ve ever liked! And such an experience after seeing signs on any long road trip!
I just died over the custard filled pastry, your bananas foster, and the veggie burger with all the cheese! Thank you for the reminder about balance. I seriously need to work on this area in my life. Also, good job on the 4 miler 😉 I pumped out 4 miles today as well! Back to balance, I really want to work towards not being restrictive to foods I want to enjoy, in moderation. I eat clean 7 days of the week and sometimes will allow myself a balls to wall “cheat meal”. See my problem? Far too many days and why am I calling it a “cheat meal”? Sigh, progress in small steps!
Lovely post, as always 🙂
-Ash
It’s really easy to fall into being overly restrictive-and I can totally relate to being to strict and then going crazy. Sometimes we all need a reminder to let go a little, but it can be hard!
Okay soooo much good food going on here!! I’ll go in order: That bagel sandwich looks DELICIOUS, are you eating oatmeal on a plate?, I’ve never had a burrito, and that burger!! Seriously I want all of these eats haha! I know what you mean about wanting your routine again – after I eat like crap for a few days all I want is smoothies and veggies!
Haha yes, oatmeal on a plate! I don’t recommend doing that-it gets cold so quickly! And you’ve NEVER had a burrito? Wow!
so many pastries…just the way I like it! YUM!
You really can’t go wrong!
Baking – definitely my favourite dessert. Certainly, I love both ice cream, and chocolate, and so on… But give me dough and a lot of stuffing and I will follow you anywhere. And if it also flaky pastry… My biggest weakness 😉
Seriously! So amazing!
I’ve heard amazing things about Solvang, it looks amazing! And I definitely agree about the balance thing, that’s really what healthy living is about, after all.
Solvang was cute and the pastries were delicious! It was a long drive though!
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