I’m working longer hours than I have before, but it’s been going really well. It’s also so nice to go home and relax, not study! That being said…having a little time to relax combined with spending all day doing veterinary medicine and talking about cases has actually made me want to spend some time at coffeeshops studying on my days off. This summer is turning out to be EXACTLY what I was looking for. Some time to relax, some time to actually DO veterinary medicine and practice my clinical skills. Plus, because I’m in a different part of the country, there are definitely differences in clients and cases/diseases, which is what I wanted. I get asked many times a day why I came all the way from California. I know people doing the same program I’m doing 20 minutes from school. It goes to show you that your life is what you make it. I wanted to spend some time in the South, in a different place, so I made it happen. And I’m so, so glad I did. I may have grown up in California and gone to both undergrad and now vet school there, but I’ve managed to spend a few months living in DC, Knoxville, St. Louis, and now Nashville. Not only has it been a blast, but it really opens your eyes to what the rest of the country is like. In a way you wouldn’t get just visiting for a few days.

In addition, I think Jackson is living his best life here. He quickly adjusted, and absolutely loves the place we are staying. He gets along with the other kitties, but mostly he loves looking at little critters out the window. Starting when it gets light around 5am until when I leave for the morning, he’s darting from window to window chirping.

While my days at work are longer than I’m accustomed to, they haven’t been totally wiping me out and dragging like I was worried they would. The only thing is my feet hurt SO much from standing all day! Hopefully they’ll get accustomed to it. In terms of fitness, with longer hours I just try to fit it in when I can. On days I start at 8am I do 6am Crossfit. Because I work 10-12 hour days, I make workouts a priority on my days off as much as possible. I may try 5am crossfit classes at some point…but I”m not ready for that yet!

I’ve been eating the same salad every day at work: peaches, goat cheese, turkey, and balsamic.

But back to the title of this post. Last weekend, my St. Louis friends made the 5 hour drive to visit me here! I worked Saturday, and they arrived Saturday afternoon and left Sunday late afternoon. We did a LOT in the 24 hours they were here, so here’s what to do in 24 hours in Nashville!

Our frist stop was dinner at a brewery really close to me, Tailgate. I’m OBSESSED with the atmosphere here. It feels like summer. There’s an outdoor area overlooking a hill, with lights strung up. At dusk, fireflies come out (which is mesmerizing for someone from California!

They also had REALLY good pizza. They had both GF crust AND cauliflower crust. It was so good we actually went again Sunday afternoon before my friends hit the road.

Everyone who visits me is coming here. It just feels like summer. I honestly didn’t exactly understand summer until I left CA and came to Tennessee 2 years ago. There’s something different on the other side of the country.

Next, we headed downtown to Broadway street. This is the main “downtown” that Nashville is know for. The cool thing about it is it’s a several block area with a whole bunch of bars, most of which have multiple floors with life music, and a lot have rooftop bars as well. We totally lucked out and the weather was in the upper 70s at night. We went in and out of a ton of different places. It was a blast!

On Sunday, we went to brunch at the highly recommended Biscuit Love. We went to the Hillsboro Village location, and I would highly recommend doing this. It’s their newer location, and after looking at their website, I was expecting an hour line to order, but we were able to order right away! Two of my favorite foods ever are biscuits and grits, so that’s exactly what I got. I got a bowl with cheddar grits, eggs, tomato gravy, and kale, and then a biscuit on the side. I only had a little bit of it though. It was good but not my favorite style of biscuit. In terms of gluten while I’m here, I’ve had a couple of small things and been ok, so I’m going with it. I didn’t push it since these weren’t my favorite style of biscuits, but biscuits are going to have to happen while I’m here.

My friends also ordered the Bonuts to share, which are biscuit donuts rolled in sugar and topped with berry compote and mascarpone.

Hillsboro Village is a cute little area near Vanderbilt, so we walked around there a little bit before heading to 12 South, my current favorite neighborhood, to take the iconic Nashville picture.

While there, we had to stop at Jeni’s ice cream. Another place that everyone who visits is going to go to. I’ve been DYING to try the gooey butter cake flavor, which is actually GF! When I went before and when I passed by a Jeni’s, they were both out! So of course that had to happen. It’s AMAZING. I got it with dark chocolate.

After we saw everything in that neighborhood, we walked the pedestrian bridge. We were going to try and park on the other non-downtown side of the river, but we drove in circles across the river trying to find a place to enter or park, so we ended up parking downtown in a cheaper lot that our Uber driver from the previous night actually recommended. To get to the bridge, we walked through Broadway, which was just as much in the day as at night.

Note: we didn’t actually go to CMA Fest, but there was a lot going on all weekend!

Here are the views from the bridge:

And then it was back for pizza before they headed out. I am so thankful for my zoo friends. You know true friends will drive hours to visit you! (They drove 10 hours to visit me in Alabama last year!) It was such a great weekend.

And that’s how to spend 24 hours in Nashville!

Am I Kali yet?

One of my best friends ever from college came to visit! She lives about 2 hours away, and I recruited her here to help with Blogmas. So look for that post next week

The first thing on the agenda was to take a trip back to our college campus to have dinner with our 3rd roommate from last fall. It was nice to catch up, and I don’t think I’ve had guac in like 6 months.

On the way home, we stopped at Zest, a GF bakery near me. I needed a cupcake for my Blogiversary, after all. She has a gluten intolerance, so had no problem with that stop. We shared an amazing warm cinnamon roll and lemon poppyseed loaf.

We weren’t sure what to do for the rest of the rainy afternoon, and found ourselves in the mall. A Sephora recently opened there. They apparently have some type of technology where the computer scans your skin tone and finds the perfect shade of foundation of lipstick for you, and then you can “try it on” on a computer screen. A few of my friends have had fantastic lipstick success, so I wanted to try it out to find a shade of red lipstick. Even though I’ve never worn lipstick before. Go big or go home, right?

After the mall, we made dinner, which will appear on Blogmas in a few days! I’m kind of crazy pumped about it.

That evening, we trekked 20 minutes south to see some other college friends, and so I could introduce them to Yumi Yogurt, a classic froyo place in this area. I got butterscotch! We ended up heading back to their house and chatting until late into the night. So good to be reunited!

My college friend/roomie is fantastic, and if you’ve been reading for a while, you may remember she has an orchard with incredible persimmons. I had my first persimmon in many months, and I’m so excited. Apparently Chloe is too.

We decided to spend the day (post-rush hour traffic) in San Francisco. It was so good to be back there. We went to the Ferry Building, which is one of my favorite areas (I love the Embarcadero). It was typical San Francisco weather.

The Ferry Building has an amazing farmer’s market on select days, and I had never been before on one of those days. Sadly, the farmer’s market was pretty small this time of year.

A (decaf) Blue Bottle cappuccino was necessary. I love quality coffee.

This area is so incredibly gorgeous at night too, with the Bay Bridge lit up.

We wandered in and out of the shops before grabbing lunch at Mariposa, the gluten free bakery. I had an incredible turkey, cheddar, and cranberry sandwich.

The entire time I was eating this, I kept saying, “I missed CA food so much.”

Next up was one last coffeeshop that we had been meaning to try. I had a (decaf) cafe au lait for the first time, and it was nice and milky!

We beat rush hour traffic on the way home, and watched Friends for a while, before cooking dinner. Another Blogmas feature! (Although granted, less exciting than the previous night.)

Dessert was another form of persimmon: persimmon sauce (like applesauce in the slow cooker) with vanilla frozen yogurt and an oatmeal cookie crumbled on top.

Friday morning before my friend woke up, I went to 6am Crossfit and it was a good and tough one, but I’m really happy with how I did. We did our 20 rep set of deadlifts, which I did at 150#. It actually felt better than last week’s 145# so I guess I’m getting stronger? The WOD was TOUGH. 20 minute AMRAP (yuck) of 5 power cleans at 95#, 10 toes to bar, and 15 wall balls. I was determined to do toes to bar because they definitely need work. I considered scaling the cleans, but 95 really isn’t that heavy for me, so I decided I just needed to suck it up and do it, and it was definitely the right decision. I wasn’t the fastest in the class, but I’m still proud of Rxing this workout. I got a bit over 6 rounds in.

For breakfast, I had an amazingly right hachiya persimmon.

So ripe it was bursting!

I also tried a GF garlic bagel from Mariposa. Not bad!

I brought my lunch to the library again to work on classwork, and of course it involved persimmons. Salad with cranberry chèvre, persimmons, and champagne vinaigrette.

That evening was my dad’s company Christmas party! I have never missed one yet. I decided to break out the festive red lipstick.

Before and after:

Family selfie!

This is always a fun and festive event. It’s crazy how much all the kids have grown up! (Me included, I suppose.) And I’m always on board for good food and wine.

Salad:

Dinner was family style. I had some cedar plank salmon that was absurdly good, rice pilaf, roasted veggies, mashed potatoes, and spaghetti squash.

(The plates were absurdly large.)

Dessert: flourless chocolate cake with raspberry puree. YUM.

It was a fun night, and definitely a holiday tradition.

What’s going on in your life?

Breakfast:

I woke up 6am after 6 hours of sleep, thanks to a touch of jet lag. My stomach is still on central time!

I ordered a whole bunch of Flapjacked muffins and they actually beat me home! They arrived within like 3 days of shipping. Double chocolate is my favorite. I swear it’s like lava cake if you uncool it a little (and there are no eggs so no worries about that!)

I spent the morning running errands with my mom (which included a trip 2 Old Navy and 2 groceries). My grandma is coming into town today so there was lots to prepare!

Lunch:

My mom made crockpot lemon chicken rice soup a little while ago and thawed some out. I ate that with added spinach and feta. Avocado toast on the side, with Trader Joe’s Everyday seasoning blend.

Snack:

I saw someone on Instagram post about this company’s new sunbutter, so I checked them out. When I saw they had GF nut free bars, of course I had to try them out. The base of these bars is a seed blend of pumpkin, sunflower, and flax seeds. I ordered 2 flavors: chocolate and sea salt and apple ginger. It’s a smaller company, and I actually got a handwritten note which I thought was a really nice touch.

This was really, really good. It was chewy and had the perfect amount of salty. I will definitely order these again. It’s always nice finding new bar options other than just Luna bars!

I also had a couple of pieces of crystallized ginger.

Workout:

I went to my home Crossfit, the one where I first started Crossfit. I haven’t been too much lately, but this time I’m here for the long haul! For strength, apparently we’re doing endurance in preparation for the Crossfit Open, so we did one set of 20 back squats at 60%. Yuck. Yuck yuck yuck. I hate long sets. I used to think 10 was long…I was panting by the end of the set. We then did strict press for a set of 20.

I’m really proud of how I did during the WOD. I Rxed it, and it’s not one I could have Rxed a few months ago.

50 double unders

30 pull ups

30 wall balls

50 double unders

I knew right away that the pull ups would be my slow point here. I started doing sets of 5 kipping but ended up breaking it up even smaller as I went through. The pull up bars here were sort of hard to hold on to, so that made things more difficult.

One of my biggest downfalls for double unders is having tired arms. When my arms are tired, my double unders go. So coming off pull ups and wall balls wasn’t fun. I finished in 7:28. I was the last one to finish, but not by a lot, which I’m proud of!

Dinner:

My mom and I were on our own tonight, so we made one of our favorites, an open faced turkey and havarti sandwich.

This sandwich was from a cookbook that we first made years ago. It’s mayo+dijon, grated Havarti cheese, red onion, arugula (we used spinach though), turkey, apple, and ground pepper. The whole thing is put in to broil until the cheese is bubbly. We got the Havarti from Trader Joe’s and it was actually pretty different. It was softer and creamier. It was good! On the side, we roasted shaved brussels sprouts with a touch of oil, garlic, and pepper, and then added truffle salt when it came out of the oven. SO good.

For dessert, I had a piece of gluten free orange cranberry bread. It’s not “healthy” bread, but it’s delicious and that’s good enough for me, especially for dessert!

Here’s the recipe.

Plus a few milk chocolate chips.

I hope everyone is having a great short week leading up to the big holiday!

Breakfast:

A few snap pea crisps. I often grab a couple of these before meals while I prep my food.

Then I had a flapjacked muffin (double chocolate, the best flavor) with blueberries.

I got a little bit of a late start to the day because I wanted to watch a short Netflix episode on the couch, and before I knew it I was trapped under 2 kitties.

Finally I was on my way to Blueprint for a little victory lap. After 3 months of intense research, I have determined that Blueprint has the best coffee in St. Louis.

Across the street, there was an international foods store. I popped in to look around and came out with a few interesting looking bars.

Pre-lunch snack:

1 of the 3 thin bars

Lunch:

Half Panera (St. Louis Bread Co. here) Fuji Apple Chicken salad with Vans Say Cheese GF crackers.

Snack:

A piece of the other new bar I got (it’s basically just dried apple covered in chocolate)

And a Luna

My workout for the day was Crossfit. We found our 3 rep max front squat, and I finished at 145. I don’t think i’ve done a 3 rep before but I predicted I would be around 145! The WOD was 15 Min AMRAP of 15 burpees, 10 ring dips (I used a band) and 5 shoulder to overhead (I did 75 lb push presses). I finished just under 5 rounds.

Funny story….yesterday’s WOD was 3 rounds of 50 double unders, 15 kb swings, 50 doubles, 5 power cleans. That’s a ton of double unders….In the middle of my second round of double unders, and I looked down and saw blood running down my thigh. I thought, “Wow, I can’t believe I whipped myself hard enough to draw blood?” But it turned out that my rope has exposed sharp wire at the bottom and it may be time for a new rope….

Dinner:

I apologize for the terrible lighting. I had avocado toast, a Dr. Praeger’s super greens frozen patty (with ketchup), and then on the side, I sautéed up some mushrooms and spinach with garlic, soy sauce, and coriander.

Dessert:

I FINALLY got to try this St. Louis classic. This is my second time having gluten since not eating it anymore thanks to a chronic stomach condition. But I HAD to try this St. Louis classic before I left. According to Wikipedia: “Gooey butter cake is a type of cake traditionally made in the American Midwest city of St. Louis. Gooey butter cake is a flat and dense cake made with wheat cake flour, butter, sugar, and eggs, typically near an inch tall, and dusted with powdered sugar.”

Ii picked up my piece from Park Avenue Coffee, which is supposed to be one of the best places to get it (featured on Food Network!). They have an insane number of flavors, but I had to go with the classic. (Also apparently you can order these online to be shipped anywhere, and there’s a box you can check that’s GF?)

Because I’m a scaredy cat and not trying to die, I just had a corner of it.

Guys this was SO delicious. I don’t even know how to describe it. Sort of like a combination between a sugar cookie and vanilla cake?

(I actually went back later and had most of the rest of the piece!)

Since I only had a little (initially) I had a snack a little later of a piece of a lemon poppyseed oat bar and a Yasso salted caramel froyo bar.

That’s it for the day! Here’s a picture of Yoyo, ensuring that he will always be around my neck (he likes to sleep on my neck) even after St. Louis, by sitting on my scarf.

Is there a food your area is known for?

It’s always weird to me traveling and then coming back. I always imagine a ton of different realities for myself. What if I was living there? What would my life be like? This trip was definitely some of that—I was really close to a college I got recruited to for softball for undergrad. I even went on an overnight recruiting visit there! (Which I had totally forgotten I had gone on until my mom reminded me!)

My layover was in the Dallas Fort Worth airport, and I actually found some good options. I got a caprese salad with chicken, artichoke hearts, olives, and fresh mozzarella.

Dinner in SoCal was really exciting though. I was looking at nearby places and discovered one of my favorite East Coast chains was 10 minutes away! Le Pain Quotidien. I went there twice on my trip to DC for the Cherry Blossom race.

I got the grilled chicken and mozzarella tartine on gluten free bread. Their GF bread is really great and seedy. Lots of texture.

Man, I missed California food. And dessert? OMG. Best thing I’ve eaten in a REALLY long time. I have had essentially no non-packaged GF baked cookies since coming to St. Louis. But there was a pie place in SoCal, I Like Pie, that offers a daily GF option.

Honestly, I didn’t have very high expectations for this (I was expecting it to be dry) but it was insane. It was a mini cherry pie.

I brought it to the hotel to eat during baseball and was still really full from dinner, but couldn’t stop eating it. It was so buttery and moist, with delicious cherry filling. The crumb top was of course amazing as well.

I went to bed with a VERY full but satisfied belly!

Monday morning I went for a run first thing. Well, technically I waited around for it to get light out first. The neighborhood of my hotel was borderline sketchy, and safety first!

You know you’re in SoCal when…

Scenes from my run:

Afterwards I sat down for a hotel breakfast. For some reason egg sounded good, so I had some egg substance with a mini blueberry chobani and honey nut Cheerios. How much nut is actually honey nut Cheeries? It says it contains “natural almond flavor.” I guess we’ll find out haha.

For lunch, I picked up some chicken vegetable soup the previous night at Le Pain Quotidien, which came with more of their delicious GF bread.

You better believe I did my research for dinner as well, and it did not disappoint. I went to Last Drop Cafe in downtown Claremont. I got the vegan sandwich on GF bread. The sandwich had all kinds of delicious veggies and dressing, but of course what won me over was the avocado.

Even better? It came with a cookie, and they offer a daily GF cookie option. This was a pumpkin snickerdoodle (!!!) which was the perfect way to celebrate Halloween! OMG so freaking good.

To continue the Halloween celebration through food, since the cookie was small, I decided to get some froyo—pumpkin froyo!

With some white chocolate raspberry and chocolate. Topped with mini m&ms and some hot fudge.

I love cute little downtowns:

I was a little sad to spend my favorite holiday alone in a hotel room, so I tried to quell the feelings with some chocolate from the hotel. And then food network holiday cake competitions which made me want more chocolate, so a Luna bar would have to stand in for a chocolate gingerbread haunted house.

This was my Tuesday morning:

Yayyy for 6am flights! I actually woke up before my alarm. Go me? I guess 3:55am pacific time=5:55am central time which=late for Crossfit.

Apparently getting to my gate super early is becoming a habit for me…plenty of time for breakfast though! I had a bar that I brought, and supplanted with “fruit.”

Lunch in Dallas was also good. I found a Southwest salad (with avocado!) plus part of a GF brownie. Yum!

I made it back to St. Louis in time for Crossfit.

Sidenote: I don’t understand St. Louis weather. It was 85 degrees when I got back. How is it over 20 degrees colder in SoCal than Missouri in November?? And how can it be 40 one day and 80 the next??

At Crossfit we did 1 rep max sumo deadlifts, and I fit 220 pounds. It was probably the slowest deadlift I’ve ever done but I got it up! For the WOD we did Annie with some push ups added in. Annie is 50-40-30-20-10 of double unders and sit ups. My double unders have seriously gotten so much better over the past year.

And how I’m blogging with the kitties and baseball I can’t believe I’m only in St. Louis for 2.5 more weeks though!

Where is your favorite area to eat?

I thought it might be fun to do a full day of eating while road tripping!

Disclaimer: I’m not one of those people that has a ton of exciting snacks while driving. A granola bar is about all I can handle while driving and still feeling safe (no utensils for me!) and I hate having food on my hands so I’m not into munching on crackers or chips while driving.

But here we go! I embarked on my journey at 6:45am. I made a awesome spotify playlist. I’ve been digging instrumental versions of pop songs lately, so that was the perfect way to start while it was still early. Check out this one!

I broke into breakfast of a granola bar and blackberries about an hour in.

For some reason, I always feel gross when traveling (even driving surprisingly apparently) so I really try to keep up the fruit, vegetables, and real foods (too many bars makes me feel bad too).

The whole Spotify thing was going great until I was in the middle of Iowa without great signal and the playlist kept cutting out :/

I stopped for lunch at 11:50, about an hour out from my final destination. Again, Subway is the most underrated “fast food.”

Salad with carved turkey, provolone, olives, tomato, olive and vinegar, salt and pepper. Crackers on the side.

Finally, just after 1:30, I arrived! I snacked on some mango.

And walked around a bit before eating the bar. I found fall, guys!

I was feeling a little bit icky so I interpreted that as not eating enough and had a few more of the above crackers! I checked into my hotel, before heading out on the next adventure!

I love visiting Crossfits when I travel. I think it’s a great way to get a feel for the area and what the people are like. I’ve actually gone to a ton of different Crossfits regularly now (school, home, DC, Knoxville, St. Louis), so I feel like I can tell a lot when I visit a box. Loved this one!

So in St. Louis on Tuesday I went to a noon Crossfit. Which was terrible in its own right because normally I eat sooner before a workout and was totally out of fuel by the end. Anyways, we did 8×3 back squats at 80-85%. I used 155# and it was awful. I had to drop the weight down for the last 2 sets to 145# because after my last set at 155 my fingers got tingly. The WOD was also awful: 12 minute AMRAP of 10 power snatch (55#) and 7 burpees. I was SO done after squats and this was just terrible. I went out for a run 2 days later and was legit waddling for the first half mile.

So I was not exactly pumped to see 7×3 back squats on the agenda today. I actually was more recovered than I realized, luckily. These were supposed to be fast, so I used 125# and it wasn’t bad at all. I had to do a few extra sets at 135 because 125 looked easy. The WOD was a quick burner: 4 rounds of 15 kb deadlifts (35#), 10 goblet squats, 5 toes to bar. I finished in just under 5 minutes.

I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to find dinner (spoiler alert: a while), so I snacked on a few more of those crackers before walking around some more.

I can’t get over all the beautiful fall colors here!

I was sort of at a loss for what to do for dinner, so I decided to try and buy some food at the grocery so I could eat it back in my room and turn in early (tomorrow is a long day!). I saw that Aldi was the closest, and I’ve seen it positively reviewed on a lot of blogs so I decided to check it out. I’m sorry, but it was WAY oversold. I get that it’s not that normal of a grocery store (didn’t realize that before) but I couldn’t find ANYTHING for dinner, even frozen. I couldn’t even buy any produce because the bananas were brown and the avocados were squishy. I did walk out with some GF snacks at least though, but not dinner.

I opened the bag of chocolate granola and broke into it in the parking lot.

And then drove to Panera. I didn’t want to be lame and end up there because I feel like I go every week at this point, but it was getting late! It was pretty busy so I ate some crackers while I waited.

I got my usual: Fuji apple chicken salad (no pecans).

For dessert, I broke into another Aldi find:

x2

And then had some more crackers upon arriving back at the hotel. As you can probably tell, on days I have problems getting enough calories in, I eat a lot of crackers.

I’m off to bed now! Like I said, long day tomorrow! I’m actually making the 6 hour drive back tomorrow afternoon/evening to make it back to St. Louis in time for an early morning 5k Sunday!

What do you eat on road trips?

I go through phases with blogging. Sometimes I’m not feeling it, because I’m too busy with life. Other times, I feel like such a bad blogger! I expect in the next year or so blogging may pick up a bit more because I will be going through some significant life changes (i.e. graduating). I sometimes feel that I don’t have that much to say, or contribute, but at the same time I miss the typical daily posts. I feel like there are fewer and fewer of those around these days. Maybe everyone is feeling the same way, but to be quite honest, those are my favorite to read!

In the theme of being a bad blogger, I seem to have lost my special blogging talent: the picture taking reflex. In the past, I would whip out my phone and snag a picture before anyone knew what had happened (myself included). I came to write this post today, and realized that the only picture I had was of breakfast. The same breakfast as yesterday. 

I <3 this breakfast. It takes me back to sophomore year when I first started eating this, but it’s been a while! Yes, I’m at that point of my college career where I get nostalgia from something as basic as breakfast.

That being said, sophomore year was ROUGH. This came up on my timehop this morning. So, so real.

Today I had a Cosmology midterm, which I think (hope) went pretty well. Naturally I celebrated by raiding the fridge and watching an episode of Monk. I seriously love that show, and it somehow feels comforting to watch it again all these years later. In the fridge, I found a GF grilled cheese with my name on it (literally written on it), so I heated up half of that, and had a few dates and an orange. I’m really trying to incorporate more produce into my life as my stomach feels better.

In terms of workouts, I went to Crossfit this morning. We did mostly upper body things—max pull ups in 2 minutes, max hand release push ups in 2 min, max toes to bar in 2 minutes, and max burpees in 2 minutes. That was followed by some rowing repeats. Rowing is still my jam, and I can still claim that after hundreds of hours on an erg freshman year.

Before dinner, I went for a 3 mile run. My legs were a bit heavy but I hit my goal pace fairly easily, which is a good sign for my 5k on Sunday! That being said, I think my body is ready for some low key days leading up to Sunday!

Since this post was lacking in pictures, I do have some things to share that I’ve actually bothered to photograph (but haven’t bothered to post).

I’m currently in love with tortilla pizzas.

Mexican chicken, beans, and avocado over lettuce with a tortilla on the side.

The pup was spayed this week. She’s had a rough time so far, but seems to be feeling a little better! Although I haven’t seen her yet, I am getting regular updates!

This was the gluten free vanilla blueberry cake from our dinner on Friday. Lots of this was consumed over the weekend.

That’s all for now—back to work!

Now that I’m (hopefully) getting into a groove with my new eating habits, I thought I’d do another WIAW link up with Jenn and the gang.

Before Crossfit, I had another piece of Cranberry orange bread. Love it.

Crossfit was really tough. The workouts at this Crossfit are hard, I’ve determined! Haha. They tend to be longer. This one took me about 14 minutes.

3 sets

15 box jump w/step
10 no push up burpee
5 power clean and jerk
250m row
Rest 1

Post Crossfit, I had some fage 2% with homemade cranberry sauce and sun butter. Cranberry sauce is the easiest thing to make. I had no idea. I just threw leftover cranberries on the stove and eyeballed water and sugar. This is probably tarter than most which is fantastic!

My first class today was at noon, so I packed a lunch and ate early. Miltons GF everything crackers+leftover Tuscan Chicken and Vegetable stew.

After a couple of classes, I came back and had my afternoon snack. I grabbed a couple of slices of turkey on the way in with a piece of avocado, and then had one of my Raaw Macaw bars.

After doing some reading, I headed to the gym for a short spin workout. The classes I teach start up again next week and I have a ton of new music, so I wanted to get a feel for the choreography.

I was hungry when I got back so I had a few more crackers to take the edge off.

One thing about having to eat small meals is I have to be careful not to get ravenous because I have to really be in control when I eat my mini meals.

Dinner came shortly after—for some reason this looks like more food than it was, but I had some roasted sweet potato, roasted garlic kale (SO good), and a small salad with rosemary chicken and sesame dressing.

Dessert #1 was an Enjoy Life gingerbread cookie. These are so good—soft and spicy! I prepackaged a few desserts before coming back to school to help with portion control and because it makes me feel more organized.

For the first time, I grabbed dinner #2 while getting dinner #1. This is mostly because I think I need more vegetables, and the vegetables are never present as leftovers from dinner.

I only ate about 1/2 of the drumstick because I wasn’t really feeling it. The disadvantage of getting food beforehand is that it’s hard to be intuitive about what I need so I’ll reconsider that in the future. For second dinner dessert, I had 3 GF chocolate covered pretzels.

And that’s a wrap!

What’s your favorite kind of quick bread?

Quickbreads are one of my favorite things so I’d love an idea as to what to make next

Since I can’t eat a lot these days, for my meal I ordered a salad and fried rice. There were able to make it with gluten free soy sauce which was awesome!

Then, we returned home to make Christmas cookies and watch the Polar Express. I had only seen it once before, but I was in the mood for a different movie this year and really enjoyed it! For cookies, I made my healthy polka dot cookies.Since my sister was eating them, I threw in some honey for extra sweetness, and made about 1/3 of the cookies with normal chocolate, not mint, chips.

I started “Christmas” (Saturday morning) with a Crossfit workout. I worked on power jerks, and the then WOD was an ascending ladder of double unders and a descending ladder of kb swings. My double unders were actually really good that day for some reason!

Then, it was time to put on our fake Christmas best and head over to see my grandma.

For lunch, I had soup (shockingly)—Manhatten clam chowder—and then some of my dad’s sweet potato fries. It was nice to see my family, but unfortunately we had to run out of there after dinner to take my puppy out of her crate.

At home, we ate homemade desserts (this is cranberry apple cobbler) and made mimosas—both with fresh squeezed orange juice and with crane-raspberry juice.

Chloe enjoyed her first Christmas! She loved opening her presents from Grandma.

Rain has been in the forecast all week, but we got a reprieve from it on Saturday night so we decided to take the opportunity to visit a nearby neighborhood that goes all out for the holidays. We decided to bring Chloe to enjoy the sights and sounds!

Fake Christmas was fun, and it’s only drawing out the celebrating!

Friday morning began with a visit to the beachside juice stand. My fresh squeezed orange pineapple juice was enjoyed beachside, with some yogurt and fruit.

First kitty spotting of the trip by the beach!

After we cleaned up, we headed to Lahaina. Folks-it was a scorcher that day! Upper 90s and humid.

My dad is constantly in search for the best lau lau (pork wrapped in taro and banana leaves), so we stopped for lunch at a restaurant with local fare.

Teriyaki chicken for me!

Dessert was much anticipated-a gluten free bakery! We shared a cream puff and then I had a chocolate cupcake with lilikoi (passionfruit) icing.

It was impossible to tell the cream puff was gluten free, and the cupcake was phenomenal. The cake was moist and dense, and the frosting was the perfect tart counterbalance.

We walked through downtown Wailea, burning up the whole time as we stopped in and out of shops. Finally, we reached our destination: Dan’s Greenhouse. This is a little hidden treasure-we’ve actually been coming to this little shop every time since I was a child. This is also where I got my beloved plumeria plant that has lived in my dorm the past 2 years! But the best part??

Miniature pot belly pigs! I’ve mentioned before that I don’t eat red meat, and these guys are partly why. I think I stopped eating pork around 5th grade, after absolutely falling in love with these guys. This little guy was just a ball of energy. I believe he was 6 months old-he was 8 pounds but will grow to about 15. They eat a vegan diet-similar to what they eat in the wild. If you overfeed them or feed them a too protein rich diet, they can grow to up to 70 pounds! You can pay to feed them, which is more than worth the money. I got to sit on the ground with him in my lap, as he gobbled up berries, kale, and oats from my hand.

I think the photo quality reflects just how wiggly he was!

On the way to the car, we stopped for a dole whip for my dad and iced lattes for my mom and me-plus some much needed time in air conditioning!

My final stop in Lahaina was Enjoy the Ride-a spin studio! They had a big screen in front that displayed a real terrain which was cool. The class was fun but not the hardest I’ve ever taken-it was perfect for the vacation!

Scenes form the drive back to Wailea/Kihei.

Dinner was at Three’s Bar and Grill. We started with a miso kale salad-I’ve had a couple of these while here and I’ve really loved them! For my entree, I had fish lau lau, which also included purple sweet potatoes and kale.

Dessert was gluten free lilikoi cheesecake. Gluten free cheesecake is something I’ve seen pop up on several menus around here!

Saturday morning was another highlight. We began with a trip to Starbucks for a quick breakfast (I had a smoothie plus sliced pineapple from Starbucks!)

On the agenda was the Grand Dairy Tour at the Surfing Goat Dairy. This tour allowed us to see the production process of the small, humane certified dairy. We got to feed the goat, milk the goats (!!!-so excited), herd the goats, and finally-taste all the cheese! I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Their cheeses were top of the line. We bought some to et during the rest of the trip, and are planning on ordering more online to send home! The blueberry and the lime goat cheese truffles I tried were delicious as well!

Next stop-higher upcountry for lunch and pineapple wine tasting!

Lunch was at the ranch burger place across from the winery. I had a taro burger on a gluten free bun.

At the winery, we did the complimentary tasting where we got to choose 3 types of wine to try. I tried the sparking pineapple wine, the rose sparking, and the sweet raspberry dessert wine.

I was really torn about taking home a bottle of the sparkling pineapple or the sparkling rose. I liked the rose more, but the pineapple was really unique!

We took a complimentary tour-and I learned that they produce a really small amount of their award winning sparkling rose-it’s made with grapes grown on their property, and because they produce so little, they only sell their award winning rose on the property, so I felt good about my decision to get that! Scenes from the tour:

The rest of the day included a decaf Kona cappuccino, exploring some shops in Wailea, goat cheese, and room service.

Um-check out this cheesecake. Lilikoi cheesecake with a gluten free brownie base. YUM.

So-can you tell I kind of like animals?