Weekend Activities: Thunder Storms and Celtic Fest!

I was having a ton of fun with my camera this weekend so this post is going to be picture heavy.

Friday started off with a thunder storm that drove the dogs to their favorite hideout, under the chair:

 

Had my new favorite snack of apples and Mighty Maple Nut Butter:

 

Friday night is Pizza night for the husband and I. We had Sarpino's:

Saturday

I dragged my husband out of the house early Saturday morning so we could grab some breakfast at a local diner.

Standard vanilla latte x 2:

 

French toast that was made with cinnamon in the mix:

Sunday

Woke up Sunday with one intention for the day. Celtic Fest at Millennium Park in Chicago!

Prerequisite for a Sunday morning outing, Caribou vanilla latte:

 

It was a beautiful day and I think the pictures will speak for themselves.

Views around Chicago:

Hilton Chicago showing some Blackhawks love:

Chicago Celtic Fest:

Drinks and Eats

We stopped at the Timothy O'Toole's booth and picked up some Pulled Pork Sliders w/ Jameson BBQ sauce:

The sliders came with potato chips:

I only ate half a slider because the flavor wasn't all that impressive. I would have preferred the pork been cooked in the BBQ sauce but instead the sauce was just placed on top of the pork.

The husband picked up these messy looking Irish Nachos. Somewhere under all those peppers, cheese and corn beef is a pile of chips. I think this was Patrick's favorite meal of the day!

Kettle one cosmo in the park:

After watching the Irish dancing and walking around the park I was hungry.  So we stopped into one of my favorite places, The Gage:

First up, Kettle one cosmo: 

  

My favorite fries ever.  They come with a curry dipping sauce that is A-MAZING!

After chowing down on the fries at The Gage it was time to walk home.  I loved seeing all the flowers in bloom:

I had a great weekend, hope yours was great as well!

Dog Scare and the Male Brain

Thursday morning started off with a scary situation. My husband bought our dog a new collar (a Michigan, Go Blue! collar), well the collar wasn't tight enough. Solera managed to slip out of the collar and run free. Good thing we were in a somewhat secluded area but that dog is fast and hard to catch.

Needless to say the collar is now tighter so crossing my fingers that we will not have any more incidents like the one described above!

After the dog incident my husband twisted my arm (yeah right!) and dragged me to Starbucks for a little "pick me up".

Grande iced skinny vanilla latte:

Latte is very filling to me. If I have one around 9:30 I'm usually not hungry until around 2:00. Must have something to do with the milk in it?

Around 3:30 I broke into my bar stash and ate an Apple Pie Lara Bar:

When I first started trying Lara Bars I didn't really like them. But I keep trying to enjoy them because the list of ingredients (Dates, Almonds, Unsweetened Apples, Walnuts, Raisins, Cinnamon) is all so natural. You can see how healthy it looks:

This bar is very filling! I'm happy to say I really do enjoy the apple pie flavor and am looking forward to trying some other flavors!

Around 4:00 pm my mind needed a little pick me up. I was really craving a big glass of Dr. Pepper but knew that I would crash 1 hour after drinking it. So I opted for a mug of Tazo Awake tea:

Happy Hour

The tea did the trick by stimulating my mind so I could finish my work. The awake tea did such a good job that I was able to join my husband for happy hour!

My summer drink of Raspberry Vodka and Lemonade:

Dinner

Chinese food which contained broccoli, bamboo shoots and white rice:

Very yummy!

The husband and I decided the dogs deserved a special dinner tonight. I put my cooking skills to work and mixed them up some wet chicken food with the everyday dog food they eat.

Appetizing, right?!?

These guys thought it was delicious! They managed to pick out all the wet food and eat it first than decided it was okay to eat the dry food. Goofballs!

After the dogs were fed I walked into the kitchen and was greeted with a strange sight:

Not sure why the husband thought it was a good idea to put his nasty shoes on the kitchen counter but he did. I couldn't help but laugh. I know he didn't learn this growing up because I'm pretty sure his mother wouldn't allow such a thing;)

When will I ever figure out what goes on inside the male brain. Growing up with all sister didn't prepare me for things like this!

Question:

Does the male in your life do things that make you stand back and say, "why"?

Desert Mouth

Ever have those days were you wake up with (what feels like) a desert in your mouth? That was me Wednesday morning. I think it probably had something to do with the salt that was in the stir fry my husband made the night before.

Usually I go for coffee in the morning but this time around I went for a big bottle of water and some Crystal Light:



Add the CL packet to the water, shake and this is what you get:



My eating today was not very nutritious. I had so much going on at work and for some reason I wasn't really that hungry so I accidentally skipped lunch. Not a good thing when you are planning on working out later in the day.

I knew I needed to have something in my stomach before I worked out so I decided to try a LUNA protein bar:



Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor, how can a person go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter:



The bar was actually pretty tasty. It didn't taste like a candy bar but why would it. The 12 grams of protein did it's job because after eating this bar I wasn't hungry at all. I was actually really satisfied. I'm going to try out a couple more flavors of this bar and of course I will share with everyone what I think.



Wednesday was Cinco de Mayo so dinner was easy. I celebrated the holiday with my favorite go to Mexican restaurant, Flaco's Taco's!

A taco with beef, potato, lettuce and salsa:



I ate about half of this burrito. Filled with beef, potato and cheese:



I just love the flavor of the beef and the potato picks up that flavor and oh my word, it's heaven!



Topped off with hot sauce cause everything is better with hot sauce:



Workout

As I mentioned earlier my plan was to workout and I'm happy to say that I came through on that plan.

I walked for 5 min, ran for 25 min, walked for 5 min and than did some stretching to total 45 minutes of exercise:



And I burned 407 calories:



I think those 407 calories burned will offset a bite of that burrito ;) Just kidding, I think it's fine that I had a burrito as long as I don't have that big burrito everyday.

Moderation is key!

Question:

What is the first thing you grab to drink in the morning? Mine is coffee or water.

5K, Williams Sonoma and Dogs - Oh My!

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to get ready to run my first 5K. I was pleased to see that the weather was fantastic for a run!





I put on my running clothes, Polar F6 and laced up my sneakers with the orange band with the time chip in it.



After the national anthem and a police helicopter fly over with sirens blaring (I didn't even know the police helicopters had sirens) the race was started. As I ran through the start line I was greeted with people playing the bag pipes and was off to the races!

The race was an all-around good experience. I didn't do as well as I wanted but I was able to accomplish at least 1 out of the 2 goals I set for myself. I finished the race in 40 min 33 seconds. Not a great time but I'm happy I finished and finished under my goal of 45 minutes.

After the race my husband and I walked around the tents that were set up around Soldier Field. It was really a good time. I was able to talk to some Physical Therapists about some pain I was having in my hip. We were also able to watch the tots 40 yard dash. These kids were so into the races and fun to watch!





One of the highlights after the race was being able to try out some new healthy cookies! They are delicious and I will be doing a post about these later this week so be on the look out.




Sunday morning I woke up and promptly made myself a plate of cut up apples with a side of melted Mighty Maple Nut Butter!!!

I really like this combo. It tastes great and the nut butter really helps fill me up!

I also introduced my boys to apple slices:

They weren't really sure what to do with them at first. It was hilarious watching them. I think it took each of them 10 minutes to finish just 1 apple slice each!

Around 11:00 am, the husband and I headed out to Williams Sonoma to attend a cooking demonstration they were having. We learned about Copper Cookware as well as how to make a risotto dish that was delicious!

There is no way I can spend an hour in WS without purchasing something, just not possible to walk out empty handed:






New cutting boards. Love that these cutting boards are color coded so you always use the right board for what you are needing to cut:




I finally got a Microplane:





A couple new All-Clad accessories:





And some amazing tasting and smelling Roasted Garlic Puree:





I love this store! So many things I wanted to buy but I was strong and only walked out with what I could afford.

After our adventures in the city my husband and I came home to relax and spend some quality time with the dogs. However, I don't think Solera wanted anything to do with us because he shoved his head under the couch and just laid still for about 10 min:



No, he was not stuck, he was staring at a toy that was under the couch. He is such a goofy dog!

Question:

Do you have pets that do strange things? If so, what do they do.