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Thanksgiving 2016

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving full of family and delicious food! I know I did!

I got into the spirit early with some pumpkin spice Cheerios pre-Turkey Trot.

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And took my annual pre-trot Charlie picture.

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I did the Silicon Valley Turkey Tort, the biggest in the world. 28,000 people! It gets bigger every year! Normally I do the 10k, which starts before the 5k. This year I did the 5k, and they did a mass start for the 5 and 10k. That created a logistical nightmare. Each corral was supposed to start at a different time, but that wasn’t well publicized so it seemed like a lot of people started in earlier corrals. Parking was a nightmare with road closures. I ended up having to jump out of the car half a mile from the start because my mom was not going to be able to park anywhere and traffic was a terrible.

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I ended up running with my phone, which was so necessary for communication. I made it to the start with plenty of time though.

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And then finally we were off! I am not capable of running a race without a time goal, so I set the modest goal of below an 8:45 pace for the 5k. It was not too crazy crowded at the start, but with the corral issues, the deeper into the race I went, the more I ran into walkers who went in earlier corrals. It got pretty clogged up in the last mile or so.

I was feeling really good on the run. No issues, not too tired.

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Despite the initial issues, my mom ended up getting to an ideal place on the course. She was at around mile 2.5, but in the finishers’ village because the course looped back around from there. She got some truly awkward running pictures, because I was looking at my watch and calling out the distance to her because she didn’t know where on the course she was or when to expect me to finish.

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The mile markers were measuring a little short on my watch, but I crossed the finish line at exactly 3.1! Perfect!

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I finished in 26:17, which I was more than happy with, and to be honest, a little surprised! I’ve only been running 2 days per week, but it goes to show you fitness in other areas carries over!

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The free Noosa yogurt after the race served as the perfect pre-Thanskgiving breakfast!

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Then, we had to do a quick-ish turn-around to make the drive to Napa!

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I’ve had this skirt for a while, but I feel like I never get an occasion to wear it!

As is our tradition, we spent our Thanksgiving in Napa. We’ve gone to Napa every year for as long as I can remember. It’s absolutely gorgeous here this time of year.

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Please note my lips in the above pictures. Blue. My lips turn blue so fast when it’s cold!

This year my Grandma from Florida joined us for the holiday!

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We went to a big fancy buffet, like we usually do. We shared a bottle of champagne for the table, and of course I requested we get the pink one! It looks so festive!

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Salad course was first:

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I got a green bean, mushroom, grape, and picked onion salad, assorted cheeses with dried fruit, and the star of the meal, pumpkin soup with gruyere. I go to the same buffet every year, and the soup is always the best part.

Main course:

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Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy (it probably had some gluten so I didn’t want to go crazy), roasted cauliflower, and of course, cranberry sauce.

Guys, my ability to eat is just sad. While I don’t suffer many flare-ups and issues from my stomach condition anymore, I still have zero ability to eat large amounts of food. I couldn’t even finish this plate. I think my 81 year old grandma out-ate me.

Before getting my main course, I checked out the beautiful desserts and came up with a game plan. My family takes buffets seriously.

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I had a chocolate mouse cup filled with blackberry mousse, and then split pumpkin pie an pumpkin cheesecake with my mom. Pumpkin cheesecake was my main motivator for trying to see what happened when I eat gluten. I still avoided the crust, but felt confident enough that I didn’t have to worry about crumbs here or there!

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Again, my eating performance was abysmal but the food was delicious!

After our afternoon feast, we checked into our room and relaxed and digested for a while before heading out to see a movie—another Thanksgiving tradition! We saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and I think everyone enjoyed it! I read all the Harry Potter books when I was younger and enjoyed them, but I’m not a fanatic. So coming from a non-fanatic, it was a good movie! I thought the relationship Newt had with his animals was adorable and relatable to me!

The movie ended pretty late, so we ended up not actually eating another meal that day. I was pretty hungry at that point, but an early bedtime won out since I don’t even know what time zone I’m on right now!

What is your favorite Thanksgiving food?

 

Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a fantastic day. Our Christmas this year was a bit unconventional, as we celebrated and did many of our Christmas traditions with my sister and grandma a week earlier.

Christmas Eve began on an active note—12 Days of Christmas at Crossfit!

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12 days of Christmas operates just like the song. You start with the exercise at 1 and do one rep. Then you go to the next exercise and do 2 reps of that, and one rep of the first exercise. And so on. I love festive workouts! I finished in around 30 minutes. And the best news? Earlier this week was the first time in 3 months that I have done snatches—the first time since my shoulder injury. On Monday, I used the training bar and worked up to 30 pounds, but I used 45 for the workout! Partly this was fine because these were power snatches so I did not have to squat down, which is easier on my shoulder.

To refuel, I heated up some chocolate soy milk and added mint extract and whipped cream.

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Next, my friend who is cat sitting for me next week came over and brought her “kittens.” I can’t believe how much they’ve grown!

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After lunch, we decided to pay a visit to the Humane Society to visit the kitties. We saw the kitty my sister is thinking about adopting soon as well.

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We then saw the movie Sisters. Overall I liked it! There were some jokes that fell flat to me though. After the movie, we headed to Whole Foods for dinner and ingredients for the following day. For dinner I had some veggies and mashed potatoes. Since I’m not supposed to eat big meals thanks to my stomach, I wanted to break up Christmas dinner and have my potatoes early!

The evening was spent at home with festive red champagne.

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We were up fairly early on Christmas morning. I ate a Luna bar for breakfast first thing because we were planning on going for a run/walk around 9am.

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We then opened stockings. It was Chloe’s first Christmas and she seemed to enjoy what she got!

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After breakfast and stockings, we drove out to the bay on quite the chilly morning. About 39 when we got up! I wore my Santa Run shirt for the occasion.

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It was an absolutely beautiful morning, and so clear after the past few days of rain. We could see all the way to San Francisco!

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I ran 3 miles at a hair under a 9:00 pace, which was the goal!

On the way home, we stopped at Starbucks for some festive drinks. I had a holiday spice flat white. To be honest, I wasn’t a fan because it was slightly sweet and I don’t like sweet+coffee. For anyone else though, I’d probably recommend it because it wasn’t crazy sweet like some of their other drinks!

Once home, we opened presents!

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Lunch for me was Whole Foods Butternut Squash posole with cheddar and truffle salt (because why not?).

Then, it was time to start making dessert! We were lacking dessert ideas for a while, but I wanted to actually make something special. What I came up with was a modification of a chocolate silk pie. I used this recipe for the chocolate silk portion. The center is essentially just silken tofu and chocolate, which was perfect because I didn’t want something too heavy.

I started with a gluten free chocolate cookie crust and spread chocolate fudge sauce on the base.

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Then, I made the tofu base, but I blended in fresh mint and a touch of mint extract.

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Finally, I topped it with homemade whipped cream plus a crushed candy cane decoration.

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Christmas dinner was definitely unconventional. As we all well now, I’m on a soup kick and I can’t tolerate big meals so I lead the effort to make Christmas dinner in soup form. We used a basic chicken veggie soup recipe, but substituted Whole Foods precooked turkey for the chicken. Side note: the Whole Foods turkey is quite possibly the BEST turkey I have ever had. We also mixed in a truffle gravy seasoning mix for added flavor. For the “stuffing,” I made croutons by slicing up gluten free bread, spreading it with Earth Balance garlic and herb, and toasting it in the oven. Cranberry sauce was served on the side!

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We all agreed that the soup turned out quite well, and were satisfied with this twist on a traditional Christmas meal.

And finally: dessert is served!

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Overall, it was an awesome and low key day! I would also say this is definitely our healthiest Christmas ever!

I want to add one thing. While I’m all for enjoying yourself with foods over the holidays, I do want to mention that thanks to my stomach issues and new diagnosis, I’ve had to be very careful with what I eat, and as a result, I was much healthier throughout the holidays. It was actually wonderful. I still enjoyed some treats, but overall I felt SO much better. Having soup for Christmas was perfect! I also love that my family supports me so much in the way in which I eat. Right now especially, I know it is not easy and I really do try to be as easy going as possible about it, but the reality is that because of everything, it is an issue. So thank you! (Because I know they are reading this :))

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve+Christmas

I hope everyone has had a great holiday season so far! It’s been a looong time since I’ve gotten a post up, but I’ve been busy enjoying the holidays with family!

I’m currently blogging with my kitty snuggled in at my side. My mother likes to keep the house FREEZING so we’re both cold! So, let’s get to the holiday recap, shall we?

Christmas Eve morning started with a workout. I got up at 5am to go to a spin class….only to find that the gym didn’t open until 7 (the class was supposed to be at 5:45am)…despite the fact that the class appeared on the schedule! I ended up going to Starbucks for coffee and hanging out there for an hour or so.

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I ended up getting a killer workout in-treadmill intervals, single leg RDLs, and abs! I left feeling great and ready for the holiday to get started! Blasting Spanish Christmas music during the workout helped too 🙂

My family got all dressed up and headed to Benihana, a Japanese steakhouse. I wore my seasonably appropriate Christmas sweater.

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We started with a ginger salad and mushroom onion soup.

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But we all know the best part is the fried rice!

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I don’t know why I’ve never tried to make fried rice myself-it doesn’t seem that hard!

For my main course, I kept it on the lighter side by ordering steamed veggies (which came with a small tofu appetizer). I failed to take pictures, but it included all  kinds of goodies like mushrooms and butternut squash.

We had several other ideas for things to do with the rest of the day, but we ended up just lounging around. Later in the evening, we watched my favorite Christmas movie-The Year Without a Santa Claus!

And then it was time to hang the stockings and put out the cookies and carrots (for reindeer!).

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Not a bad looking tree this year! Fun fact-all our ornaments are unbreakable because my kitties like to chase each other around the tree.

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Christmas morning we awoke and opened stockings and pet presents.

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Billy enjoyed his new reindeer! It came in a little chimney with another reindeer and Santa!

Then, it was time to dig into breakfast! We got a TON of food gifts this year, and especially breakfast foods!

My dad make scrambled eggs (not pictured) and I dug into blueberry coffeecake and a blueberry English muffin (other half didn’t make the picture).

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Then, my parents and I opened presents. Which, of course our kitties loved.

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After getting prettied up, we were off for Christmas lunch with my grandparents.

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My grandparents live in Berkeley, so we met up at a restaurant in the marina with views of the Golden Gate bridge from afar!

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The room we were seated at had an insane view!

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Lunch was a full buffet with all kinds of delicious food!

Course 1:

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Crab salad, Greek salad, pasta salad, and cheese with bread.

Course 2:

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Traditional Christmas fare! Half a biscuit, a small piece of cornbread, turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce, and candied yams.

Dessert:

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Creme brûlée, bread pudding, and chocolate dipped pineapple and rice crispie treat. There was a chocolate fountain! I HAD to try that!

After lunch, we climbed the hill to my grandmother’s house to open presents and have dessert.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time for dessert because we had to come home and take care of my dog, but she sent us home with some beautiful cakes!

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Chocolate mocha cake.

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Amazing blueberry cheesecake.

Once I rallied a bit from my food coma, I dove in!

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So delicious! It was a great day, spent with great people, although I had a bout a 3 day food coma! So thankful for this family!

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On the Eighth Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me…

8 holiday traditions.

Hey guys! Sorry this post is going up a little late. My blog was down for some unknown reason last night-I hope that did not cause anyone problems!

Also-does anyone mind that I’m not linking the other 7 days? It was starting to get really tedious in terms of posting but also with the link backs. So without further ado, let’s get into some of the holiday traditions I/my family do every year! Here’s last year’s!

1. Every year my family goes to Napa over Thanksgiving-whether it be for the day or just around Thanksgiving. I can’t remember the last time we didn’t go. This year we went for Thanksgiving day and the day after.

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2. Every year I pull out my peppermint body spray from Bath and Body Works. I got this at least 5 years ago, and the smell just reminds me of the holidays! Plus, it’s sparkly!

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3. Every year on Christmas Eve, my family loads into the car with the dog and drives around looking at Christmas lights.

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(I totally almost used the same picture as I did last year…)

4. Every Christmas Eve my family goes to Benihana’s, a Japanese steakhouse where they cook food in front of you.

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5. Every year my best friends and I get together and make Christmas cookies. They’re just basic sugar cookies, but the fun part is decorating! This one started out because as middle schoolers we were obsessed with plaid things, and wanted to make plaid cookies.

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6. Shopping in the city. Every year around the holidays, the same friends and I go up to San Francisco to go shopping and walk around. And see the kittens in the window at Macy’s.

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7.  Christmas movies. These happen every year as well, although the only one that we seem to see EVERY year is Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas. That’s my dad’s favorite-not sure how he manages to get that on the list every year! It does seem to have some good life lessons though. My favorite is The Year Without a Santa Claus.

8. Decorations. This is one of the best parts! A simple bow can make everything more festive. We always get a real tree. We used to go to tree lots, but found Whole Foods has the best and cheapest trees!

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How does your family celebrate the holidays?

On the First Day of Christmas My True Love Gave To Me…

One amazing family.

Last year’s Day 1.

Well, today is the first day of the countdown to my blogiversary! How perfect that it falls right around Thanksgiving.

My family is seriously the best. Cats and dogs included.

They get up before 6am on a holiday to go to a turkey trot with me.

Last year vs this year:

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Gotta love my kitty!

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The race went well. Last year I went out super fast and was DYING for most of the race. This time I reigned my pace in so it was a more fun experience!

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Last year there was a guy who ran the whole race dressed as a pirate while carrying a pirate ship. I think the same guy this year was dressed as the death star.

Much less heavy!

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Anyways, so grateful for my family. After cleaning ourselves up, we headed to Napa for the big meal, and stopped by to see my grandparents.

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I also love my pets, despite the fact that I’m very allergic to them…

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Then, we arrived in Napa and it was time for the feast!

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We went to a buffet, and the set up was absolutely beautiful.

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They labeled everything with pumpkins! How cute is that? Plate #1 was salad+soup. The soup. Guys. It was amazing. It was pumpkin with gruyere, and the best part is that they had the recipe listed on a pumpkin so I WILL be making it.

Plate #2:

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And of course, desserts. My family takes buffets seriously, especially the desserts. We don’t mess around with the tiny dessert plates.

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^The set up, not my plate unfortunately. Here’s my plate:

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Pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate cake, chocolate mouse cake, mango cake, pudding cup, and chocolate covered strawberry. The chocolate cake may have been my favorite this year!

I have to say, I’m all for healthy living but Thanksgiving is not the time to worry about that. Although in my old age I feel like I haven’t eaten at much at Thanksgiving as in the past-I miss being a growing teenager with a bottomless stomach!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and enjoyed good food with their loved ones. I know I have a lot to be thankful for!

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