Fast and Easy Fruit Smoothie

Tony and I try to make smoothies pretty regularly. Some days they go with a bowl of oatmeal or cereal and some days they're on their own. After talking to a few people I realized how many different ways there are to make a smoothie. Some people add ice, others milk, juice, etc. This is just a really simple version that we enjoy and you can change up all kinds of ways.

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• Handful of frozen or fresh sliced fruit (today we used strawberries but some days we used frozen mixed berries)
• A big splash of orange juice (probably 1/2 a cup)
• 3-4 heaping tablespoons of low-fat vanilla yogurt (sometimes we use plain, we just recently switched to vanilla for morning parfaits we like to make thanks to Chick-fil-A for the idea!)
• A tablespoon of vanilla whey protein powder (totally optional)

Directions:

Peel and place banana in blender. Add in fruit, yogurt, orange juice and protein. Mix until smooth.

Some days we add in walnuts, almonds or granola. It sounds odd, but it's so easy to make sure we get those types of things in our diet and once it's blended together you don't really notice it in there.

Enjoy! :)

Fly Me To Cancun...

This past week we went to Cancun for a little vacation time. We had a really great time relaxing and spending time together. Tony has two weeks off so it's nice for him to have a vacation in a vacation. We packed our bags, sent Einstein to grandma's and were off to the beach!

We spent a lot of time laying out and taking afternoon siestas. :)

This is much nicer to wake up to than an alarm clock!

We brought our floaties and floated away behind where we are standing in this picture.

A shot of our hotel from the beach/pool area.

We went on a jungle tour where we got to ride our own speedboats through a jungle and out to the ocean to a snorkeling spot by one of the largest coral reefs. This was the only shot I was able to get because we were flying through the water and I was afraid I was going to lose my camera!

After a private tour ride with just us and a tour guide I slowly started to have second thoughts on snorkeling. We'd both been on snorkeling excursions before a few times but always with lots of other people. I didn't anticipate going as far out in the ocean as we did (it was an hour boat ride) so when we finally turned off the boats and got ready to dive in I had some second thoughts. There wasn't a single soul for miles and MILES around and the shore was teeny tiny. I said a bunch of "Tony we're going to die"'s. It didn't help that the night before they showed a shark attack on TV while we were getting ready for dinner. After a little coaxing and not wanting to be a wimp I jumped in. We saw lots of beautiful fish, a lobster, and came way too close to a baracuda who looked like he was wanting a closer look at the shiny parts of my swimsuit. Tony and the tour guide saw a stingray but I missed it because I had my eye on the baracuda. Oh well...my life was at risk! This picture was after I lost my cap, smushed my goggles on (you can still see the imprints) and 30 minutes of snorkeling. Overall we had a blast and I got to drive my own speedboat!

We ate dinner at a great Fogo de Chao-esque restaurant at our hotel. It was delicious!

We had this pretty view at dinner.

Tony and I really enjoyed the all you can eat part of the meal! :)

Afterwards we took a walk along the beach to watch the sunset. These are some of the sights.

We really enjoyed our trip. It's nice to get away for a little while and try new foods, places and take fun trips. We experienced riding on their public bus to places, checked out their markets and even made a trip to their Walmart, which although it was very similar they definitely do things differently there. You can buy a washer, fridge, or dryer there which was different for us to see. All in all we had fun exploring while we were gone.

We were excited to be there but we were happy to come home. First stop: Chick-fil-a! After being in a different country sometimes you just want your favorite things from home. We were happy to find that our grass had greened up while we were gone (no more patchy spots like in the picture above). It was nice just to walk into our house and be home! Next trip: somewhere cold! :)

Skillet Cookies

This weekend I had a craving for skillet cookies. Tony's mother shared these with me when Tony and I were dating and at first I wasn't sold. I still don't know how I like them because almost every ingredient in these I don't care for. They are very good, very bad for you, and therefore that makes them very good!

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter (or margarine)

1 pkg. of dates chopped

2 cups Rice Krispies

1/2 cup of finely chopped pecans

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 cup of sugar

1 or 2 handfuls of coconut

Directions:

Melt Butter in skillet.

Beat eggs and sugar together then add to melted butter.

Add dates then cook for 10-15 minutes over medium-low heat.

Once consistency of picture shown is reached and you can divide mixture in half with spoon turn off heat and pour in vanilla. (It kind of looks like pecan pie filling at this point)

Combine cereal and coconut into bowl. Add date mixture and mix together.

Form into balls using ice cream scoop as mixture will be very hot.

Roll in pecans and place on wax paper to cool.

Enjoy!

P.S. Tony made me laugh so hard when his mom suggested he put on a full baker's outfit to make the cookies. Here he is:

Father's Day Weekend

This weekend we went up to Bangs to visit Tony's parents. We took Einstein which is always special because they're not typically a dog-friendly home. They've made the exception for Einstein after years and years of not preferring inside dogs because Einstein's proven to be potty trained and well mannered. Yay Einstein!

It's always funny to see Einstein realize he's going somewhere with us because he gets so excited and he's such a good car rider.

Einstein is a city dog at heart, but this weekend he was able to explore some country sights he otherwise doesn't get to see. He took it all in stride and by Sunday afternoon he was feeling very at home in the country.

He was just as freaked out as I was by the chickens that looked like alien stuffed animals!

He met the new goat

For the first time since he's been visiting he actually hung out with Jack the "Outside Dog" on the property.

He couldn't quite figure out the peacock situation.

He was in awe of my mother-in-law's aquarium. He kept a close eye on the shark!

It was a short one night trip, but lots of fun was had! Something tells me Einstein can't wait for another trip back to the country where he can investigate the animal situation a little more!

Everything Hurts

Last week Tony and I joined a gym! We finally decided on one that met our needs and was close to our home. Snap Fitness it is!

We signed up, paid our dues, and were excited to be back in the gym.

Day 1: not bad.

Day 2: a little sore, but man, not too bad!

Day 3: pain...lots of pain...

Day 4: will it ever go away?

Day 5: nope, just get used to the pain.

Since we're getting ready for our trip to Cancun we knew that getting back in the swing of things would probably be painful but also much needed. I had taken a Jazzercise class this spring at my school and since I wasn't in pain or very winded (except for those few moves I just could NOT master) I figured I must be in pretty good shape for not being to a gym in over a year.

WRONG! Clearly cardio and strength training are two different beasts. I AM out of shape but hopefully not for long. Thank goodness Tony is so motivating because I'm so sore right now I don't even want to get off the couch. But I will. And I am. Swimsuits...here we come!

And So It Begins...

Welcome!

After a long time of going back and forth and discussing the positives and downfalls of Facebook with Tony, I decided it was time to say goodbye to the instant noseyness (is that a word?) that had become a daily ritual of mine. Originally, Facebook for me was a great way to keep up with high school friends who went to different colleges, crushes met the night before, funny posts to the roommates during the day between classes and so on. Then it all sort of changed. I felt like it was a constant presence and when the Facebook slang started to creep into my daily vocabulary I knew it couldn’t be a good thing.

So I have decided to take a step away from the ever present status updates and focus in on our wonderful life together as a family. I hope this will be a great outlet for the funny, crazy, thoughtful and sometimes boring things that happen in our family. Thanks for joining us along the way!