Saturday Family Time

Yesterday was a really good day. Good enough that I feel the need to share it with you.

After having some breakfast, we loaded the dogs into the truck and headed out for a couple if different hiking spots (these were more like walking trails, but I’d rather say the word ‘hike’ because that sounds better)

The first place we stopped at was only about 20 minutes from our house: Big Hill Springs Trail. It’s short (about 2km) but it’s really pretty. Lots of spots for the dogs to jump in the water, photo ops, and some areas with a bit of an incline to really get your heart pumping.

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The starting spot has a bunch of picnic tables and a ton of young families were there with their human babies. Fur babies are better, so we brought them.

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After a bit of a climb, and several dips in the water, we got more into the woody area. The dogs loved it because there were tons of new smells.

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That little walk didn’t take very long at all, so we hopped back into the truck and headed over to Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park. This had more paved pathways, but it was still a nice way for us to stretch our legs and really tire the dogs out. We probably went another 4-5km through various paths here when Layla FINALLY got pooped out and wasn’t tugging on her leash.

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I really enjoyed exploring areas of these paths that are so close to our house and I think the dogs just really liked to sniff new stuff.

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We rounded out the day with some local corn and yummy burgers (we added chopped jalepenos and madagascar peppercorn cheese to the ground beef…so yummy) on the BBQ.

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Delicious.

What did you do this weekend??

Latests

Thought I’d share some of the stuff I’ve been digging lately…

Latest Breakfast: A smoothie made with chocolate protein powder, sunflower seed butter, almond milk, and ice (BC Cherries too if we have them!)

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Latest Book: There Will Be Apricots by Jessica Soffer

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Latest Workout: Hot Yoga. I mean…it’s cardio, strength conditioning and stretching all combined into one! And my fave new thing to bring to class is this snazzy yoga towel by bestie gave me in a gift basket as my ‘something blue’ the morning of the wedding!

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Latest Nail Color: I actually strayed from Essie and picked up this gem of a color (1- because it was on sale, and 2- because it’s cute) It’s Stand By Your Manny- from the Modern Family collection

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Latest Music: Aka: Songs I have on repeat RIGHT NOW.

Latest Show: Weeds (still) We’re up to Season 7, Episode 10. I’m dreading when it’s over because I am addicted to that weedy goodness. 

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Latest Lulu Buy: Track Attack Shorts. Gave them the ol’ test run yesterday when I did a 6km walk through Fish Creek Provincial Park yesterday, and I gotta say I really liked them. I’m not really a short person…ESPECIALLY when I’m working out…but I found that the length was pretty good and the waistband stayed put.

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Latest Beer Find: Okanagan Summer Weizen. Simply put: it’s a summer brew with a hint of apricot. Yup. SOLD. We first tried it last weekend in Edmonton when MKT had it on their menu, so we stopped by the liquor store after dinner to pick up a couple more. And of course, the liquor stores near us don’t have it in stock (and yes, we already asked when it will be available..the answer? TODAY!!!)

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Latest Deal: Well, I DID get a pretty sweet J.Crew dress last weekend (originally $59 marked down to $9) but my LATEST deal was a groupon for The Clayground (pottery painting studio). A few weeks back, my friend Mackenzie and I attempted to meet up at a particular studio but found the prices to be WAY too high. I saw this groupon yesterday morning, so we both quickly bought one. Hello, cake stand, I’m coming to paint you!!!

Latest YouTube Funny: Tyler posted this on his facebook the other day and I thought it was hilarious:

Latest WANT: Ray Ban Aviators with mirrored pink lenses. Can’t find them on the Canada website (go figure) but they’re on the US website! Feel free to send me a pair.

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That’s about it for now, tell me some of your latests!!

Photo Montage Galore

I’m still alive. Yup. Just haven’t had enough things to actually chat about on here lately. So…yeah.

Things of lately (obviously if you follow me on Instagram, you got the idea already. And if you don’t follow me on Instagram, then please do!)

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Workouts have been pretty consistent. I have been mixing it up between outdoor runs, home circuit workouts, TRX, spinning, tabatas, and as of tonight….HOT YOGA! I purchased another one-month unlimited pass today and attended the Bikram Vinyasa Flow class. Love Love LOVE it because not only did I get a killer workout, but it allowed me to completely shut my mind off for 75 minutes. So lovely.

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The creepy pic that’s second down on the right (in the above montage) was a workout I did early in the morning last Friday before we hit the road to Edmonton. It’s super tiny print, so here’s the quick, but effective workout I managed:

4 tabatas (Tabata= 20 seconds WORK, 10 seconds REST, repeated 8 times for a totaly for 4 minues). I alternated between 2 moves for each tabata.

1: Jump squats/Jumping jacks with pulse squat

2: Pushups/Tricep dips

3: Fire Hydrants (alternating between L and R sides. link to video demo here.)

4: Russian twist/Lying weight press

So yeah, we went to Edmonton (about a 3 hour drive north of Calgary) for one night. It was a long weekend here, and everyone seemed to be getting out of town, so that’s what we decided on. Nothing glamourous. Just a chance to get away. We hit up the West Edmonton mall (ummmm they have an ice rink and an amusement park and a water park and SEA LIONS. Yeah, and lots of stores too) and found a nice spot for dinner, MKT. I decided to indulge and ate some foods I would NEVER order. Of course, my stomach totally paid for it, but I really enjoyed the evening with Tyler.

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The puppies have been getting some outdoor time, too!

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We hit our usual spot today. But I decided to take the four-legged friends up a bit of a hill just to see the view. (Just kidding, it was just to see how disastrous it would be to climb a hill with stairs with two dummies on leashes). It’s a bummer the photo didn’t come out as sweet as the view, but I tried..Maybe try clicking on it to enlarge it so you can see my stupid little write-up.

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And to round off my ‘catching up’ post (although I’m sure there’s tons I forgot, so I’ll probably mention them whenever) I made a batch of muffins this morning. I had a ton of fruit laying around the house, and I knew I needed to use some up before it all went bad (already have tons in the freezer, too!) I used a recipe that I’ve used before, but adapted to what I had readily available in the kitchen.

muffins

Skinny Banana Blueberry Muffins (adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction)

  • 2 1/2 c whole wheat flour
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 1/4 t salt
  • 1/2 t cinnamon
  • 1/4 c agave nectar
  • 1/2 c brown sugar
  • 2 large ripe bananas, mashed
  • 1 T white vinegar + the rest almond milk to equal one cup
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 1 1/4 c fresh blueberries

* Check out the original recipe, linked above. I used agave instead of honey, 1 full cup almond milk (w/1 T white vinegar) rather than 1/4 c yogurt + 3/4 c milk) and whole wheat flour instead of white whole wheat flour. Just improvising with what I had!

  1. Preheat oven to 325, spray muffin tin with cooking spray.
  2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
  3. In another bowl, mix agave nectar and brown sugar until fully combined- no lumps! Add the banana, milk mixture, and egg. Slowly combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Once fully incorporated, fold in the blueberries.
  4. Pour batter into muffin tin. Bake for 22-25 minutes, or until tops of muffins are slightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the muffins come out clean.

What food/meal have you been loving lately?

Favorite place to get away…even if it’s just for a night?

DO YOU LIKE MUFFINS??!! (you don’t have to answer that)

Pros and Cons

Pro: I went downtown on Monday to try a class at Heavens Elevated Fitness. The class was called Cardio Extreme and it was true to its word. The entire hour was jumping and jacking and high-kneeing and everything imaginable to get my heart rate up. A lot of it was somewhat choreographed- and me being the most uncoordinated person ever- I ended up improvising with a ton of jumping and clapping until I fell back into the rhythm. PS: The facilities are REALLY nice.

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Con: I can’t stop eating carbs this week. I guess my body needs it, but jeeze that cheese pull apart bread from Cobs Bread has been screaming at me from the kitchen to just eat.it.all.

Pro: I just changed my email address to my married name. And went to the US Consulate office yesterday morning to have my name changed on my Passport and Social Security card. Let me just say that that office was the first place I’ve felt special since moving here. They gave me preference in every line and rather than waiting for an hour PER change (1 for passport and 1 for ss card) I was in and out in 20 minutes. To be honest, I think I was the only American in there and everyone else was just applying for visas to travel to the States. America for the win! (Well, at least for yesterday!)

Con: I got turned down from another job. People keep telling me to keep my head up and that there’s something out there for me. Which I believe…..but after being unemployed for 531 days. (that’s right, I’m keeping track) it’s hard to keep EVERY negative thought out of my mind. Is there some sort of vendetta against me? There aren’t any typos on ANY of my resumes and I have so much education and experience and enthusiasm to offer at any position. Yet still….nothing. I just don’t understand. To further..it really just makes me feel that life is on hold. I know, I planned a wedding and life is all happy happy in the partner department, but I still feel that even BOTH of us are just waiting to progress in our lives together..with the first step being me getting a job. Comprende? If I don’t get a job, we don’t travel. If I don’t get a job, we don’t have kids. If I don’t get a job, we’ll never get our dream home. If I don’t get a job, I will forever have puppy syndrome when Tyler comes home and the man NEEDS. HIS. SPACE. I get it. OHHHHHHHHH And if I don’t get a job, I don’t have the opportunity to meet people. 

Which brings me to my next point (Consider this a Con, extended): You know when people ask you how you are and you always respond “good?” Well, that’s the same thing when people ask me how I like Calgary. I tell them I love it (Don’t get me wrong, there are good points like ummm my husband and my dogs and the beautiful scenery) but I don’t really. At least, not yet. I am still working on making friends– I just really miss my gym friends, my home friends, and the ability for last-minute meet-ups. I just can’t quite get the hang of how people socialize here- and I don’t want to entirely submit to it!  And the fact that NO ONE wants to hire me. WTF is that? Or that just because I am the minority here and spell things differently and still have trouble counting out toonies and loonies (I MISS THE DOLLAR BILL, Y’ALL) and am just not CANADIAN doesn’t mean I have to be so isolated. 

[Please don’t leave negative comments here, I got some last week that really prompted this con]

Pro: I’m done with that rant. I’m not writing it to make you all feel bad for me, it just feels better to write and publish than to keep bottled inside. So if you hated the post, forget about it, because the next one will probably be funny. I guarantee that as soon as I press Publish I will feel better and immediately regret writing the whole thing. But it is what it is. 

Con: If you make apple chips, you will EAT THEM ALL. They are so good. So technically, this is a pro?

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Pro: I bought my first pair of Lululemon SHORTS yesterday- courtesy of a gift card from my MIL. Still not sure how I feel about them, so I’m going to keep the tags on and wear them around the house (aka: run up and down the halls and do jump squats) to see if they’ll fit the bill. 

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Give me a pro and a con from you!

Things of Late

Ahh, I wish I could have this past weekend back and relive it over and over. It was great weather, good company, and yummy food!

Thursday evening, I had plans to meet up with my friend Mackenzie at Color Me Mine. I thought it would be a great activity- and finally one that didn’t involve beer with the two of us. But, as soon as we got there, we noticed that the prices were sky-high! We hightailed it out of there and where do you guess we ended up……………a bar.

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I was kind of bummed that we didn’t end up with any pottery- since I was really hoping on painting a pretty sweet cake stand. Ah well.

Friday I took the puppies to the park for a good chunk of the afternoon. They got lots of play time in with other pups and Layla got in a few swims.

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We had hot dogs for dinner. And beer. Delicious grapefruit beer. It tastes best with a shot of vodka in it. Don’t question the madness- just try it!

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And the puppies helped man the BBQ with Tyler.

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Saturday, we went to Canmore to visit our favorite brew pub and to walk around for a few hours. It’s always such a delicious experience when we go to Grizzly Paw!

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Tyler ordered the deep fried pickles and fish and chips and I got the veggie panini.

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To top off a wonderful afternoon, we had ribs for dinner! They are seriously so good that I almost eat myself into a coma every time Tyler makes them. So worth it though.

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We also started watching Weeds. Yup, I’m addicted to that show. I am seriously loving Netflix with all this binge watching I can do. 

Sunday we met up with our friends Crystie and Greg at the Sun and Salsa Festival. Tyler and I went last year and it was so damn HOT. This year was a lot better temperature wise, but it was still crowded as hell. Yuck.

We stopped at one of the restaurants within Kensington (Pulcinella) for pizza and it was so good I seriously could have eaten two. 

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Lots of stuff was on the agenda today, but I want to get in a couple episodes of Weeds before bed tonight. Catch ya later!

What’s your favorite new-to-you show?