My First WIAW

Most you are probably wondering what the heck WIAW is, well, it's What I Ate Wednesday. I've been following others doing it and I figured I'd finally jump on the bandwagon as well. Better late than never right? Jenn @ Peas and Crayons does this every week and she has all the info on what to do if you'd like to join in. So without further adieu here is my first WIAW!

Breakfast:

Homemade blueberry muffin (I ate two!)


Lunch:Definitely nothing healthy, I had 2 snack-sized
Butterfinger bars (que blush)

Dinner:

Homemade lasagna with herb foccacia garlic bread

Dessert:

Strawberry tart! Allan's favorite

I'll have much more to post about tomorrow with an update that I don't want to jinx until it's all final!

A Jumbled Mess Part 2

There has been so much going on so again, I'm just going to graze over things so I'm not boring everyone to death.

Allan's niece, Natalie, turned 1 a couple weeks ago and she had her first birthday party last week. She's so big and walking around all on her own! Here are some pictures from the party:

The birthday girl

Uncle Allan with Natalie

Natalie blowing out her birthday candle

The week of Natalie's birthday party I also ended up hurting my wrist super bad at work. I'm now supposed to start physical therapy soon to strengthen my wrist, but since it's work related I thankfully don't have to pay for it. Whew!

A couple posts ago I posted about changing our cats' food so Bubbie could start eating senior food. Unfortunately the young ones thought his senior food was yummier than he did, so I stopped feeding him senior feed until I take him into the vet to see if it's safe if the young ones eat senior food. They're a handful! These 3 cats equal 2 toddlers I swear!

Healthy food update! I have a delicious recipe I have to share with everyone! 3 words: chicken pot pie. Doesn't sound very healthy does it? Well thank goodness for Ellie Krieger and making one of my favorite dishes much much better for you. Here is the delicious recipe! I didn't have phyllo dough so I used crescent rolls (not so healthy, but a small indulgence). And the delicious aftermath?

Yum!

I've also been super excited and full of plans for my bridal shower. I know I know, the bride shouldn't be planning her bridal shower, but I love planning stuff and my sister-in-law who is my matron-of-honor lives hours away. One of my bridesmaids, Stephanie who planned Allan's going away party, is helping plan it with me. And hopefully it should be happening in the next few 2 months because if plans go the way we're hoping (it's the military, nothing is 100% guaranteed) Allan will be coming home in December for Christmas and we plan on having our small ceremony then. Fingers crossed and good luck dust would be appreciated!

And finally, speaking of Allan, he leaves NEXT WEEK for basic training! How insane is that?! The time has gone by so fast! I'm going to miss him so much, but I am so so proud of him! These last 5 full days with him are full of plans and if it's anything like last time this happened it'll go by so fast.

Good luck to Allan in these last few days here!

Also, if anyone would like to see what Allan will be going through (albeit a watered down version) here ya go!

A Jumbled Update Part One

Hey there everyone! I had planned so many different blog posts and I've been so lazy busy that I haven't gotten around to posting all of them and at this point it's pretty pointless to play catch-up again. I'll give you a quick overview of everything and hopefully I'll keep on track after that!

In previous posts I've mentioned that I wanted to start eating healthier and have been seeking out some much healthier alternatives to what I used to eat. I had wanted to write about specific days and what I ate and I promise I will, but I'll catch you up on 2 alternatives I've discovered and looooove! First off, greek yogurt with homemade granola! I wasn't hungry until lunchtime and boy can I tell you that is an accomplishment! I've never had greek yogurt before and it's seriously the bomb! It's so thick and delicious and the granola really added a yummy crunch to it. Not to mention a killer amount of protein and fiber. The containers are about 6 ounces and I add about 1 1/2 - 2 tablespoons of homemade granola. Here is the recipe for the granola, but because I didn't have everything I literally only used the oats, maple syrup, and oil. I did add some cinnamon which made it extra yummy.

Eat that! Seriously!

My second breakfast staple I've been eating is oatmeal. I make normal oatmeal and add a tablespoon or so of low-fat milk (yes, I've been a whole-milk-girl my whole life and made the switch and will soon switch to soy milk) and then add about a tablespoon of brown sugar, cinnamon, and some coconut. The coconut adds a nice texture to the oatmeal and it's super duper delicious! The fiber really helps keep me full and it's not a whole lot of food. Delicious!

Mmmmm!

For lunch I've just been eating leftovers so nothing too exciting. For dinner though I made two dinners (that I have pictures of!). One was a penne with roasted tomatoes, garlic, and beans. I was really disappointed with the recipe. It had little to no flavor and the garlic burned so I didn't even have yummy garlic in my pasta. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone--all I can say is it was at least yummy looking. My second dinner was whole-wheat spaghetti with meatballs and yum yum yum! It was absolutely delicious! The meatballs we're filled out with portobello mushroom so you weren't eating a massive amount of red meat (baaaaad). My only suggestion is to sear the meatballs and then bake them before adding them to the sauce, they weren't cooked all the way through the way the recipe has you cook them and they came out mushy (hence why a couple of them are just smashed in the picture).

Here is the delicious recipe

I've been going to the gym as well and I seriously never thought I'd think about doing a 2-mile run without wanting to kill myself, but boy has that changed. My usual workout is this:
2 miles on the elliptical

• 3 X 10 hamstring exercises on the machine
• 3 X 10 leg press 
• 3 X 10 quad exercises on the machine
• 3 X 10 calf raises
• 60 crunches
• 60 bicycle crunches
• 1 minute of plank

And usually I do arm exercises, but I hurt my wrist and work and can't use it so unfortunately it's just a leg and core workout for now.

I'll get to Part 2 tomorrow!

A Date, Preschool, and Harry Potter

My many events that I'm trying to catch you all up on!

• Allan's problems with the Navy (check)
• Allan's 2 going away parties (check)
• Our weekend date
• My niece starting school
• A venture into Harry Potter treats
• The wonderful pancakes I'm obsessed with (check)
• Frustrations with cat food (check)

Alright, I'll start with our date from last week (I know I know! I'm so behind!). Allan and I went out Friday night to get pizza and watch the first 49ers game of the season at Tony and Alba's. We got a delicious garlic, chicken, and alfredo pizza. It was amazing! I don't have a picture of it unfortunately, but I seriously recommend it. The next day we went and saw Captain America and I'm so so soooo glad we saw it! It was such an amazing movie! You need to go out and see it! It wasn't too exciting of a date, but we had seriously been planning this since we started seeing commercials for it on TV.

Next up, my 3 year old niece finally started preschool! I'm so proud of her and she was so excited for her first day! My sister set up an Enchanted phone call for her and it had a hilarious outcome. If you don't know what an Enchanted call is, well here it is, it's a phone call from Disney of a Disney princess, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, or Mickey; and you choose what you want them to call about (i.e encouragment, a holiday, happy birthday, etc.). We chose Ariel because she sounded the closest to what the character actually sounded like and when the phone call came my niece yelled "No!! I don't like Ariel anymore!" It was so unexpected, but absolutely hilarious. She wasn't as excited to go the next day, but she's doing really well. I just can't believe she's old enough to go preschool already! I'm so proud of her!

And finally something I've been really excited to talk about, Harry Potter treats! I don't know who has seen the movies/read the books so I'll do my best to explain without sounding like an encyclopedia. In Harry Potter that have a candy store called Honeydukes and they sell a lot of really yummy treats (what candy store doesn't?!) like Chocoballs, Chocolate Frogs, Cauldron Cakes just to name a few. If you want a long list here ya go! Universal Studios amusement park in Florida has a theme park in it of Harry Potter and they have their own real life Honeydukes shop and I've seen some of the things they have in there and am determined to make some of my own. I've loved Harry Potter since the first book came out back in the 90's and have always wanted to know how some of the treats they describe taste like. Once I start experimenting I'll blog about it on here so you all can see my progress with chocolate, caramel, and many many more tasty treats!

To end this I'll let everyone know, Allan officially has less than 2 weeks until he leaves for basic training! It's all going so fast!

Going Away Parties and PITA cats

Here is my list from the last post on the things I wanted to talk about:

• Allan's problems with the Navy (check)
• Allan's 2 going away parties
• Our weekend date
• My niece starting school
• A venture into Harry Potter treats
• The wonderful pancakes I'm obsessed with (check)
• Frustrations with cat food 

Now, on to a few more so I'm not playing catch-up anymore.

We had a 2 going away parties for Allan that got thrown into one weekend and boy am I proud of everyone for showing up on such short notice and a special thanks to our friends PJ & Stephanie who threw Allan an awesome going away party with 2 days notice! The first going away party was a going away dinner with Allan's family so I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking!

Allan with his cousin

Our party, with a few people cut off unfortunately

 Us at the restaurant

After we had the family party we had our friend party on that Sunday and boy did it come out well!

 The beautiful decorations!

 Allan playing with PJ & Steph's son Landon

 I happened to catch PJ with his video game concentration face

 The group posing while playing Wii

 PJ barbequing

 Stephanie's avocado pie! Soooo delicious!

 Everyone's last toast to Allan before he was supposed to leave

 Shooting pool

 Allan trying to be inappropriate

Our group at Fast Eddie's

So as you can see, we had a bbq at our friends' house and then met up with everyone at Fast Eddie's (a billiards hall). It was so much fun and I seriously can not thank PJ & Steph for throwing that party for Allan, even though we found out the next day that he wouldn't be leaving for 3 weeks later.

Now, on to our 3 cats and our new frustrations with them. Our oldest cat is 13 so we've started putting him on senior feed because he really needs it, but unfortunately we have 2 adult cats that don't need senior feed. They eat out of the same bowl so it's a big PITA to separate their food and for the longest time this morning I had to jump between the cats to get them to stop eating each other's food. It's been quite a headache, but I think their learning finally. So fingers crossed that things finally work out!

I'm pretty sure that's definitely long enough for now.

An Overdue Update

It's been pretty dang busy around here and thus feel like I've been asleep on my feet. I figure it's easiest to list out some main things going on and then go into detail. This is going to be pretty long so I'll have to probably break this up into more than one post, but hey! gives you all something to entertain yourselves with! Now! On to my crazy life.

• Allan's problems with the Navy
• Allan's 2 going away parties
• Our weekend date
• My niece starting school
• A venture into Harry Potter treats
• The wonderful pancakes I'm obsessed with
• Frustrations with cat food

I'll start off with Allan's problems with the Navy. It's been a pain in the ass rough road with the Navy so far. Allan was told at the beginning of the month that a spot had opened up and he was asked if he wanted it, so he called me to ask my opinion and he was going to call back his recruiter to give him a yes answer. Unfortunately someone took that spot in the 3 minutes it took us to talk. We shrugged it off because at least he still had his ship date set for the end of the month. And just this last Thursday he was told that a spot opened up for Tuesday (as in he would be shipping in 4 days!), but we didn't put much faith in it considering our last time around. He said yes and he was told to come in on Friday to sign paperwork and so on Friday he went in and signed his paperwork. So now that it was official we scrambled to get all of his going away parties planned and thankfully got them planned and done (more on that next post). So we spent as much time together and on Monday waited until 4 to roll around for him to be sent off, but lo and behold we got a call at 3 saying that it wasn't actually official for him to leave yet because the guy whose spot Allan was taking hadn't actually been officially dropped from going yet. I'm sure you can understand our sincere rage frustration with what was going on. We were told that the paperwork would be completely processed by Thursday so we sat around and waited to hear what the hell was going on. Thursday comes around and no call, so we asked his recruiter and he looked into it and you can guess our surprise when they said that the guy shipped out already! So we've given up on an early ship date until he's left and I get a phone call from basic training that he has made it and been accepted. It's very very irritating, but hey! it's the military what else is new?

Now, as I've said before I'm working on making our diets much healthier and I've discovered a recipe that is sooo delicious. It's whole wheat pancakes and definitely worth making. For breakfast I ate 2 with peanut butter and honey and I seriously wasn't hungry until lunchtime, which is a record. Here is the recipe for it, but I had to ommit the nutty topping because Allan can't eat nuts.You neeeed to try these pancakes!

I think that's quite enough talk for one night. Everyone, try those pancakes!

A Quickie

Awkward title haha. Anyway, there has been soooooo much going on that it'll take me forever to update everyone and I just haven't had the time to do it. I just wanted to let everyone know I haven't forgotten about my blog and will hopefully be able to devote some time to writing this weekend!

P.S. Allan hasn't left for basic training still, that's my first part of an update for everyone!

30 days and counting

Today marks Allan's one month until he starts basic training! Time has flown by so fast. This month is full of going away parties and going out with friends and boy am I already tired from thinking of all the stuff I have to do. We of course have been cramming in as much fun stuff with each other before he's gone for a few months. He's so prepared for training (even if he worries he's not) and he's doing so well with his PT. I'm so so proud of him. We did have a problem with his recruiters a few days ago. Apparently a spot opened up so Allan would be leaving the 17th of this month, but in the 5 minutes he asked to call me to ask my opinion, they gave the spot to someone else. So our plans changed and then unchanged. But hey! it's the military, what do you expect?

Now, as much as I will miss Allan and miss him I will, I'm looking forward to having the house to myself (and our little furbabies). I get to watch all my favorite movies and shows that Allan always gives me a sidelong look when I watch. And hell, I'm even looking forward to writing handwritten letters everyday for him while he's gone.  But while he's still here, we have so much lined up to do before he's gone, including: movies on the beach, 2 going away parties, our niece's 1st birthday party, seeing Captain America in theaters, and much more! Phew!

On another note, I've been working on making our diet much much healthier. We've both grown up with food that's not the healthiest and since he'll be working out a lot and I've been going to the gym a whole bunch, I've been really looking into ways we can make our lives healthier. I'm excited to try out new recipes and up for the challenge of changing my diet (whole milk vs. low-fat milk). I'll post on here different recipes I've tried and how they come out.

And finally, since Allan will be leaving at the end of this month, I'll post on here how he's doing at basic training so you all can keep up to date. Also, feel free to let me know if you'd like anything written to him, I'm sure he'd love encouragement coming from our friends and families while he pushes himself in this new challenge.

And to end this post, I thought I'd share a picture of our cat who seems to be giving me a hint...

 Kitty wanna go to Abu Dhabi?