Last Day

Today is our last day of vacation in Malaysia, and I don't want it to end.

I feel like I'm just now starting to rest and am in complete denial about going back to real life tomorrow morning. We've had a great time, and I'll post all about it.

love

laura

Valentine's Day and my movie star Husband

Tuesday was Valentine's Day!

Because we are just coming off of both our birthday's, anniversary, and Christmas, we decided not to do gifts for Valentine's Day. Also, because we're going to be on vacation on Friday, and there is Chili's in Malaysia...and believe me the best Western restaurant in town can just not compare. So we decided to just live it up when we go on vaca.

Random, but I did make this for breakfast. It was okay. I think I prefer regular oatmeal though. Which is actually what I had for lunch today.....i'm on a kick what can i say?

I LOVE Valentine's day! I know some people don't get into it because of the hype, but really why wouldn't you want to give out valentines to your friends and have an excuse to eat more chocolate?

Which is why I made Daniel chocolate covered strawberries, pineapple (his request), graham crackers, and marshmallows. I am a sucker for chocolate covered marshmallows....what could possibly be a better combination?

What's your favorite chocolate covered/dipped dessert??

I had extra chocolate so I ended up covering a homemade granola bar. Seriously, what can you not cover in chocolate??

I know this doesn't look that pretty, but yay for the cute heart plate!

We did end up going out for Valentine's though.....we had several friends going to dinner and then to see MI4, so we decided to join up! It was funny because it was us, another married couple, and close to 10 single girls. We always tease Daniel that it's always him and the ladies. Poor guy, he is always outnumbered!

And speaking of MI4......notice anything?!?!!?!??!

(this photo wasn't staged. It's actually from over 3 years ago)

Ya'll, it is insane how much they look alike!!! I was so distracted during the whole movie! If ya'll have seen it, or know my husband, I think you'll agree. When we were leaving the movie, I half expected Daniel to get mobbed for autographs or something.

Happy Valentine's Day!

love

laura

Veggie Nite

I've recently been inspired by all of the yummy-looking veggie recipes I've seen on Pinterest. I was SO inspired that I decided tonight's dinner would be called "veggie nite" and our dinner would consist of several veggie recipes.

My menu plan was:

Zucchini Boats from here
Roasted Cauliflower from here (I made this about 2 weeks ago)
Sweet Potato Fries
Roasted Asparagus

I was going to make these baked tomatoes too, but was already running out of room in the oven, so maybe tomorrow nite.

We technically only have one rack in our oven, but this other grill rack thing fits too, so you do what you can. It was difficult to get this meal together because everything baked at temperatures ranging from 350-450, and I had to choose one.

Also, there wasn't room for the asparagus, so I had to rotate stuff around a bit.

Anyways......look how pretty!

The zucchini boats were really good! I didn't have mozzarella cheese, I used powdered parmesan cheese instead (again, you make do with what you have, ha). The tomatoes were really where all the taste was at. Next time I will quarter the tomatoes and cook it all a bit longer.

The cauliflower, I had made before, and was delish.

The asparagus was just lovely. I just roast it with olive oil and a little garlic salt.

However.....the sweet potato fries, left A LOT to be desired! At first they were under seasoned, so I put more seasoning on, but in the end they just weren't that good. Maybe it's because as Daniel said "they're sweet potatoes." So I will not be trying these again.

And not only did we have fresh veggies, but we had fresh fruit to go with it as well! Pineapple, oranges, and strawberries, yummmity yum!

I am loving this fruit/veggie season right now!! Living here, you are slightly limited on buying fruits and veggies. You can only buy some things (mangos, pineapple, strawberries, cherries, asparagus, etc...) when they're in season. And I'm so happy that some of my favorites are all available right now!

have a good weekend!

love

laura

AND a huge good luck to my sister Sarah who is running in her first marathon relay! I'll post more on that later after I steal some pics from her!

New obsession

I recently found a new blog that I am borderline obsessed with! Now, remember I'm not vegan, but I have a strong desire to eat healthy and find new and better ways to make things.

Now that I'm on Pinterest I'm finding all kinds of new recipes and blogs. My new favorite is Chocolate Covered Katie. If you haven't been to her blog, I highly recommend a visit!

Now, I don't have access to all of her ingredients, but there are some things that are doable. Which brings me to my new I-want-it-to-be-an-obsession-but-for-now-i'll-just-try-it-a-lot oatmeal kick!

Last week I decided to make oatmeal. Which is strange for many reasons.....I haven't eaten oatmeal since I was a wee one. Apparently I stopped liking it once I reached the toddler stage....babies, what do they know? And I've never made oatmeal before. I've seen instant packets in the states, and even here at the import stores.

So to satisfy my curiosity I googled some recipes and made this for me and Daniel last week. I don't have maple syrup so I used regular pancake syrup instead....I have no idea if it's the same thing or not, but hey they both have 'syrup' in their name. I also left out the raisins and dried fruit, because gross.

Anyways, it wasn't my all time fave, but it was a great starting point. One thing I do love about oatmeal, is that it's healthy, natural, and really filling. I hate when I eat breakfast and am hungry 2 hours later.

All this to say.....I did a little combo of CCK's Snickerdoodle and Brownie Batter oatmeal. This is what I did:

Microwaved 1/2 cup oats for 2 1/2 minutes with 3/4 cup water. Then I put that in my blender, with a few tablespoons of milk, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp Hershey's cocoa powder (hello less than 10 calories!!), 1 tsp Splenda, and blended.

(i think it came out to about 200 calories)

It wasn't amazing. But again, i'm still getting used to the whole oatmeal thing. But it did taste good, and filled me up! So I want to keep experimenting with different flavors. I really like the blending part. And I want to try her voluminous oatmeal trick soon too.

Can you tell I'm excited? Because I am.

In other news.....last night we had breakfast burritos for dinner. I think last night might have been a first for us to have breakfast for dinner. Not because I'm against it, I just never think about it.

We scrambled up some eggs, fried potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and bacon, and made our own tortillas!

yum!

No big plans this weekend. Daniel is teaching tonight, tomorrow morning we're getting together for breakfast with some friends, and will probably get some study time in too.

Also......you know my running has been almost non-existent lately. I just can't get motivated. Even though the scale is moving the wrong direction, I cannot seem to make myself go outside and run. But refusing to be a complete slug, I did do the 30 Day Shred yesterday. Because it's an indoor friendly activity and have I mentioned it's cold and gross outside??

Anyways, I haven't done the Shred in almost 6 months. The work out was fine, but let me tell you I am embarrassingly sore today! Note to self-it's not the Twice a Year Shred.

love

laura

Superbowl Monday

What? You didn't watch the Superbowl on monday morning??

Because we did.

We were supposed to be travelling this week, but it didn't work out (much to our disappointment). So we decided to kick our Monday off right by going out to eat for breakfast and trying to watch the Superbowl.

The commentating wasn't in English, which I'm sure some of you wouldn't mind, but I actually really like listening to the commentators. It makes it easier to follow the game if you're not actually watching it.

Anyways, between my french toast and coffee (with real sugar-I use splenda at home), I pretty much got the shakes and bordered on slipping into a sugar coma. Somehow, I pulled myself together long enough to go grocery shopping and getting nothing on my list because the store had nothing on my list.

After an extremely productive morning of eating....I decided to study because I have class tomorrow. And I get nervous going back to class after such a long break.

Then to put the icing on the productivity cake, I went for a run.

Sidenote: Daniel and I walked 6 miles on Saturday. I strapped on the Garmin and off we went. The big deal of the day was getting a fresh pineapple for less than a $1. It tastes amazing!

So the weather was very unseasonably nice today. It actually got up into the 50's and felt pretty good. The weather is supposed to return to 'yucky' by mid-week, so I knew I needed to push myself. So I ran 4 miles. Which if you're keeping track, you'll realize I haven't run over 3 miles in almost 2 months. Just call me consistent.

So pushed I did. And I realized something......you can't run 3 miles once a week for 2 months and expect to keep a respectable pace. At least I can't. I was slow. But in my mind running 4 slow miles is better than running 3 fast ones (more calories.)

After my run, I showered and made Zuppa Toscana soup. It was super yummy!

I might end the day by studying more and drinking some hot chocolate!

Happy Superbowl Monday!

love

laura

Love & Running

Remember the marriage weekend Daniel and I went to back in October? You can read about it here.

Well, they are having another weekend in our city this summer. Daniel and I really believe in UME and the organization as a whole, so we really want to be involved and help as we can to make this next weekend just as meaningful for other couples as it was for us.

We had a few people over last night to talk about the next UME weekend. I used this opportunity to use my new heart plate from Amy, and to try something I had seen on Pinterest.

Look how cute this is!! And super easy!!

I just chopped off the top part of the red pepper and put homemade ranch dressing inside! I will definitely do this again!

I mainly took this next picture so you could see that we finally put pictures in our frames, after having hung the frames about 3 months ago, ha!

Check out the UME site and find an upcoming weekend near you! They have several coming up in Arkansas, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia, and several International locations.

Hmmm what else is going on???

I haven't been running. I ran last Monday then all day Tuesday my right foot hurt when I walked. I think i got a callous or something, because the skin got really hard and raised, and was painful. I decided to rest a few days from running, but the pain has still been come and go.

I really want to run. Like, really. But at the same time, the weather is so gross here, I have very little motivation. Another thing I realized, is that when I ran in Oklahoma, I ran in the neighborhood behind our house, and there was never anyone out....it was just really quiet and peaceful and I got a lot of thinking/destressing done while I ran.

But running here just stresses me out. I am constantly watching where I'm running to make sure I'm avoiding the people who decide to walk straight into me and stop, or for dog/human poop, cars, bikes, scooters, etc.... I use up so much mental/nervous energy when I run that I don't really get the peace and quiet that I want.

That's my excuse for how anyways......

My sister is running in a marathon relay next week. She's one of those people that doesn't run for a long time, then just goes out and runs 9 miles. It's semi annoying and semi impressive. Anyways.....she tells me this morning that it is a trail run and heard the course is "challenging." She's starting to get a little worried, since she's been running on flat roads. Either way, I'm excited for her to run in her first marathon, relay or not, it's pretty cool!

have a good weekend!

love

laura

Bread bowls

Last night for dinner I attempted to make bread bowls for the first time. I've been wanting to make them for a while now, but I can quickly get annoyed with anything that needs to 'rise' during the baking process. I like to just throw my ingredients together and call it a day.

But, making the bread bowls was actually way easier than I thought it was going to be. I got the recipe from here.

Look how puffed up and pretty they are!

I grew impatient and took them out before they actually browned. They were still cooked all the way through, but I wish I had let them go a bit longer to get a little crunch on the outside. I cooked them for about 25 minutes or so. But the soup was ready and I was hungry, so what can ya do...

I made white chicken chili. I added a can of lentils because I accidentally opened them I'm always looking for ways to add good protein to our diet. I really liked the lentils in the soup, it added just a little something extra.

This morning I ran a few errands and bought chair cushions for our dining room chairs. You can actually see the red cushion at the very bottom of the soup picture. The cushions that came with the apartment were falling apart and needed to be replaced.

I also went to H&M (yes we have one here) to exchange a cardigan I bought that come to find out had holes on the pocket, and to Uniqlo. Does anyone know what Uniqlo is??? I just discovered it last week. I bought a purple turtleneck for $6!!!

We think we'll be travelling next week, I'll keep you posted!

love

laura