Whirlwind

Hi again!
These last couple have days have truly been jam-packed!
I'm so glad to sit down and take a few minutes to blog and relax this morning... but I still have so much to do today!!
Presents to bake... videos to make... ;)
I'm not the happiest girl today... Nick left early this morning and I won't see him for almost a month, so today's a bit of a sad day for me, but I'm trying to keep busy and focused on the excitement of the holidays and not think about it!
I have so many other friends that are back in town now I can't wait to catch up with!

Let me recap the last couple of days before I get ahead of myself...

Saturday
In the afternoon, I had that apple I mentioned, as well as 1/2 cup 0% chobani and a piece of a baked good I made (it will all make sense soon!)

Saturday evening I met up with Eric and we went out to get pizza for him, Nick and myself- we got BBQ Chicken and Hawiian. I had 1.5 pieces of BBQ chicken and 1 of hawaiian, plus a few cookies throughout the night! We had fun hanging out, playing some games and watching some comedy! It was nice to spend my last Saturday night with the guys for a while!


Sunday
Sunday morning I was so tired I forgot to photograph my breakfast- I had a quick on the go meal of a vanilla chobani, banana and some Barbara's shredded oats. I grabbed a small coffee with a splash of skim milk at Starbucks and headed to work.

I snacked on a couple small oatmeal cookies mid-morning, and had this for lunch:

I love Italian Wedding Soup, and I've never had the 'real' kind- this was really yummy and filling! The 'healthy selection' kind made it lower in sodium, fat and calories so that was a bonus! I also had the last of some grape tomatoes that were a good veggie addition!

Later on that day I had an apple and did a quick 30 minute run/walk on the treadmill at the gym (I went after work with my dad!) and then went home to get ready for dinner.

Since we were snowed in on Friday we didn't go out to dinner with my Grandma, instead we decided to go last night. We went to Red Stripe, a really nice restaurant I had been to before this summer in Providence, but a new one had opened in Narragansett and we all wanted to try it. Dinner was fantastic!!

Before I left I snacked on a couple small handfuls of nuts and a date to hold me over.


I'm glad I had my snack- dinner took a while, but it was well worth the wait!
To start, my dad and I split a fantastic bowl of gruyere-topped French Onion Soup- probably the best I've had! I had about 1/3 and let my dad finish the rest because I didn't want to spoil my appetite for my deicious meal!

I couldn't decide what to order so I decided to get a 1/2 portion of mussels (in a white sauce with shallots & leeks), which turned out to be HUGE...

I ate 10 mussels and shared the rest with the fam!

I also had one of the best bowls of risotto (appetizer-sized portion) I have had since Italy. Roasted tomato with olives, broccoli rabe and fresh parmesan. I ate 1/2.

I also tried ribs for the first time... I had a couple bites of my cousin's order:

For dessert, my dad and I split the strawberry shortcake. Mmmmm, is all I can say! The cake was fresh, and so were the cream and the strawberries! We enjoyed this for sure. I also had a couple bites of caramelized banana from my aunt's dessert. Yum!


Dinner was great, it was nice to hang out with my family and I think my grandma had a nice birthday!
After dinner I went over to Nick's to say goodbye =(... and then this morning I woke up bright and early to start my week with a nice workout. Had 1/2 a clif bar on the way to the gym. Then I spent 30 minutes on the elliptical, and 35 doing a nice arm strengthening routine. Back home I made myself a huge 'Kristin smoothie'- Frozen berries, nonfat soy, banana, chocolate Jay Robb- 1.5 glasses of cool heaven.

Finished this off and went straight to a cup of hot tea to warm me up!

Plans for today include more baking, adding to my 52 things, starting to pack (going home for a bit tomorrow!), picking up my sis from school so she can be my amateur cinematographer, playing food network star, having a quick dinner and maybe heading into town to see a few friends later on tonight! Told ya I was a busy girl!

More soon, thanks for bearing with my blogging tardiness!