Hello, hello! I hope everyone is having a fantastic Monday thus far. I wanted to share my weekend adventures: The Monterey Beer Festival! This was my birthday gift from my sister, so Saturday my whole family drove down to Monterey to drink some beer!

I started my morning with a Luna bar, nectarine, and 8am spin class.

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After getting my workout in, I had a bag of rice cakes before hitting the road!

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It took us a little over 2 hours to get to Monterey, with a fair bit of traffic.

Naturally, we dove right in for a sample as soon as we got there.

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^Figueroa Mountain’s lager. One of the best of the day!

And then it was time for food! My mom and I split a corn on the cob and a chicken taco platter.

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Then, it was time for beer! This festival was crazy crowded, and a lot of the lines were SUPER long.

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(I realize Monterey is spelled wrong but I can’t edit snapchat, whoops!)

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^Black lager!

After spending a whole lot of time waiting, we decided to just go for the shorter lines and skip the bigger ones (or any with only IPA). There were all sorts of things; everything from IPA to lager to stout to cider to apricot wheat to ginger beer.

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^Raspberry ginger beer

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^Fav of the day: Dustbowl Vanilla Blonde Ale!

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^Good lager, but even better because they had a pup!

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It was a fun day! They had a live band, which was fun! I will say though that it was super crowded, and a lot of places ran out of beer, some within the first hour. But the weather was beautiful, and the beer was (mostly) flowing, so who am I to complain?

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We basically closed the place at 4:30 (an hour before the technical end) and then checked into our Air BnB to nap (at least I did) before heading downtown for dinner.

I was super hungry by dinnertime thanks to most of my calorie consumption for the day being beer. I split a salad with my mom, and then had roasted chicken with roasted potatoes and green beans.

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My dad ordered some ice cream for dessert, which we naturally stole bites of: chocolate, passionfruit, and maple bacon.

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Sunday morning, we slept in and then my sister, her fiancé, and I went for a short run pre-brunch.

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I think we were all more than ready for food by our 11am brunch reservation. I shared a warm goat cheese, beet, and mango salad.

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And for my main course, I got an absolutely delicious creamy polenta, poached egg, and queso fresco dish.

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Naturally we had to stop at one of the many fruit and veggie stands on the way home. Avocados, 10 for $1? Sign me up! (They were small, but still!)

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Road trip snacks:

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Pre-dinner snacks:

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I wasn’t crazy hungry for dinner, so I just had a massive artichoke and a sweet potato stuffed with cheese.

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Dessert was birthday cake Halo Top with a flax brownie.

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After dinner, I had to run into work for half an hour to do a treatment on a kitty (I volunteered), and then after, we made toaster oven s’mores with gf graham cracker.

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It was a fun weekend! And I cannot believe it, but this is my last week of work at the vet!