Las Vegas

I'm pretty beat, so here's my pathetic blog attempt to cover our trip.  It was tons of fun, lots of indulgence.  Unfortunately we didn't hit it big, but on the other hand we didn't lose a ton of money either.  I sometimes forgot to take pictures.  Here are some food and drink highlights:


Pizza from the secret pizza place at the Cosmopolitan

Blueberry pecan pancake from Hash House A Go Go (Hubby's brown sugar banana was better)

I ate about 3/4 of it... even though it was way bigger than my head

Yummy bloody mary on Fremont Street!

Chocolate ice cream with almonds and coconut from Icepan

My favorite: braised shortrib with truffle teriyaki and celery root puree from Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar and Grille

My least favorite: orange chicken and spicy shrimp from Panda Express (a poor decision after too many cocktails)

Harrah's buffet... look, something green!

So yes, lots of indulgence.  I don't want to know how many calories I took in.  At least in Vegas we walked everywhere so I figure we burned off about 1/10 of the calories.

I had so much fun, but always on the back of my mind was our little guy.  I know he was in good hands, but it was hard not to worry about him.  Even in the couple days we were gone he changed.  He had another tooth come in and I swear he's about 5 pounds heavier... just like his mama!

That's all for tonight, sorry about the lack of posts and the shortness of this one, but I am beat and tomorrow is going to be crazy.

Good to be home!

Hey baby let's go to Vegas

Couple hours 'til Vegas!  Yesterday was a crazy day in the clinic, as to be expected.  I know it's important to take some time off now and then, but I still can't help feeling a little guilty taking a Friday off.  I always think of those people that are hurting and need to get in.

Yesterday was not a good day for picture taking.  Or eating for that matter.

Breakfast was a quick Larabar- carrot cake flavor.  After we dropped Tyler off at daycare I did manage to get a piece of whole wheat toast in with some peanut butter.  I hate not starting my day off without any protein.  No pics since I was super rushed.

Our lunch was whatever we could find in the kitchen.  I didn't have enough spinach for a salad, so I improvised and made a little chicken taco.  It started out as a chicken tostada, as hubby made sure to inform me, since I did not fold it.  Not an ordinary taco, took an Artisan tortilla and spread some roasted red pepper hummus on it.  Sprinkled some spinach leaves on the hummus and topped it with a little leftover grilled chicken.  It was too hard to eat as a "tostada", so I folded it up.

Since I didn't put any cheese on it, I validated the pile of baked Cheetos I added to my plate.  =)

Hubby and Tyler- he's wiped after a busy day at daycare

After work we got on the road and set off to meet my parents to drop off Tyler.  We had to eat quick, so we just stopped at a gas station and got Godfather's mini pizzas.  I had the humble pie, which was sausage, onions, and green peppers.  I only had 3 pieces, gave 1 to hubby.  I almost forgot to take a picture, but managed to remember with one piece left.

We met my parents in Webster City and made the exchange.  Thank goodness he slept through the whole thing or I probably would have been bawling.

I really miss the little guy, it's weird waking up without him.  I know he's in pretty good hands though.  If my parents could handle four kids for how many years, I'm pretty sure one little baby will be no problem.  I'm sure he's getting plenty of hugs and kisses.

So... have a couple hours to get some stuff packed up and ready to go to Vegas.  I've heard it's hot during the day and pretty chilly at night, so that means I have to have a variety of stuff.  Have to rethink my clothing selections or see if I can cram any more clothing items in.

Not sure if I'll get any blogging done, because it'll have to be on my phone.  We'll see, not promising anything.

Hope lady luck is on our side!

Roller packer or stacker packer?

Lots of mommy and daddy time for Tyler today.  Tomorrow he goes to daycare then off to Grandma and Grandpa's for the weekend.  

Breakfast today was a "fried" egg (just in a skillet sprayed with PAM) with a toasted whole wheat English muffin.  

This morning while Tyler took a nap, I started packing my Vegas bag.  We're not checking any luggage, so I have to fit most of my stuff in a little carry-on bag.  So the question is, what's the best way to cram as much stuff as possible in a little bag?  Is it better to roll everything up or just stack it?  I decided I could get more in with rolling it, but we'll see how wrinkly my clothes are.  

For lunch we went downtown and ate at F & M's customer appreciation lunch.  Didn't grab a picture, but it was a sausage patty, potato salad, fruit and Blue Bunny ice cream!!  We took Tyler and he had a pretty good time looking at people.

Here's an updated picture of my Snooki tan, probably looks worse to our pale little son.

Supper was pretty late today because I played with Tyler after work.  Trying to get as much time in as possible with him!

Supper was steamed broccoli and some grape tomatoes with a couple chunks of smoked turkey.  Best part was dessert: fresh peaches and raspberries!

One more post before Vegas!

Peaches and Cream

What oh what should I do with the leftover peach compote from yesterday's breakfast?  How about throwing it on top of some cooked oatmeal?  Ok!

Kind of looks gross but when I mixed it up it was absolutely delicious.  Reminds me of the old 112 song- Peaches and Cream.  Only there's no cream, just peaches.  And I'm pretty sure that song wasn't actually about peaches...

Pretty typical Monday around here, very busy in the clinic and not a lot of time for anything else.

Lunch was a spinach salad with chicken, celery, green pepper, feta and sweet onion vinaigrette along with some fire-roasted tomato Triscuits and roasted red pepper hummus.

Supper was another taco night.  We had one more tube of lean ground turkey to use up, so we made more turkey taco meat.  I had a taco on a whole wheat tortilla with cheese, spinach, iceberg lettuce and taco sauce.  Pretty simple but that's all I had the energy for.

Almost 10:30 and still haven't finished my charts for the day.... I'm out!

A day that we'll always remember

I don't always have the best memory of events, but I know I'll always remember where I was 10 years ago on this day.  I was just getting out of the shower after waking up (oops skipped a class that morning) and came out into the living area of our Farwell dorm room at Luther.  Someone had the tv going and they were showing footage of the first plane hitting the WTC.  It was just so surreal.  We didn't get to stay to watch too much coverage that day, because everyone was called out of the buildings and told to evacuate the campus because of a bomb threat.  I think I went to Walmart or Subway with some friends because I didn't have anywhere else to go.  

A day like today just makes me so grateful to all the men and women that fight to keep our country safe.  

On a happier note, Tyler had a much better day.  I tried to take a picture of the teeth that are coming in, and this is the sequence of pictures that I got:

He's a squirmy one.  Can't even see it very well, but one's sticking out and it's sharp.

For lunch today we had some brisket sandwiches, with bbq sauce and provolone.  

The afternoon was spent in a hot and stuffy gym.  The past couple years I've helped one of my good friends coach a youth volleyball camp that runs every Sunday for about 5 weeks.  It's 3rd through 6th grade girls.  Today we had almost 50 girls in the 3/4 grade session.  I was a little scared of how that was going to go, but it went pretty well.  I don't think I screamed too much and I didn't make anyone cry.  Always a good day.  =)

Supper tonight was a massive salad.  I'm not kidding, it was pretty epic.  It had spinach, green pepper, celery, tomatoes, apple chunks, chicken, avocado, feta cheese, and walnuts.  All topped off with some roasted red pepper and vidalia onion vinaigrette.  It was so big I had to use a big girl bowl.  

Tasted like summer.  

Here's crazy-pants in his jumper, he can really catch some air.  

And here he is looking strangely evil because of the weird light.

Off to bed, only 3 work days this week, then Vegas!!!  If anyone has any "must-see's" in Vegas, post a comment and let me know!

Snooki Saturday

Poor little Tyler had a rough Friday night and Saturday.  I'm pretty sure it's his teeth.  He just wasn't sleeping long and wouldn't eat.  No fever or anything else, just fussy.  Hard to get upset though because he's so darn cute.  So that led to about 2-3 hours of sleep for me on Friday night.

I sucked it up and got outside to get some fresh air and went for a quick morning run, ending up at the farmer's market.  I picked up some farm fresh eggs, apples, sweet peppers and peaches.

Taking advantage of the eggs, I had 1 egg and 4 egg whites with a little hot sauce, accompanied by a whole wheat english muffin.  

Then at lunch I headed in for my spray tan.  That was quite the experience.  You wear a swimsuit or your undergarments, whatever you want, and just stand there while she sprays you down.  That part is fine but then you have to just stand there for at least 10 minutes while you dry off.  I got bored and did some squats.  Multi-task!

The rest of the day you're not supposed to get wet or sweat or anything.  Yeah right.  Tyler drooled on me right away and left a blotch on my arm.    

I'm not really orange, just really brown.  Don't be frightened, but here's a self-portrait (with my bottle of Galena wine because I had to have a glass while cooking):

I was referred to as Snookie or LWOWW several times yesterday.

I'll try to get a picture today after a shower when it's calmed down a bit.

Speaking of cooking, hubby got out the smoker and smoked up some ribs, turkey legs and brisket yesterday afternoon.  I made some baked beans and skillet cornbread to go with the meat.  We ate at about 3 or so, so yesterday was a 2 meal day.

We also watched the big showdown, Iowa vs ISU- way to go Cyclones!  

We were supposed to go to another Wildtree party last night, but with Tyler being fussy and hubby not feeling well, we just stayed in.  I had plenty of time to blog, but something took up waaay too much of my day yesterday:

I actually started it on Friday night, but then finished it up last night.  Pretty easy read, obviously, but really good.  I just love young adult books - can't tell you how many times I've read the Twilight series- so I thought I'd cave and read the one that everyone's talking about.  

Great book, lots of action and interesting concept.  It's a book that I'm actually really excited to see the movie version of, because there can be several points of view that can be shown as opposed to the book which is just one POV.  You'll have to read the book for that to make sense.  =)

This morning I really wanted to use up some of the farmer's market peaches.  Hubby wanted pancakes, so I made some buttermilk pancakes with a peach compote (more like peach syrup).

I just used a mix for the pancakes, with a little vanilla added.  For the peach compote, I cut up 4 peaches and put them in a medium saucepan.  I added 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp of nutmeg and a pinch of cloves.  I brought it to a boil then turned it down to low and let it simmer for 15 minutes.  

Pretty tasty, but ended up making my pancakes mushy because it was so liquid-y.  

Off to play with Tyler- who after a full night of sleep is a much happier baby.  

Early morning struggles

Another early morning.  Guess Tyler is just going to be an early bird... not good for this late owl.  Today he woke up around 5, but I decided I would make the most of it.  I fed him while I pumped, and he fell asleep about 15 minutes after eating.  I put him back to bed, then got my butt up and did level 2 of Jillian's 30 Day Shred.

Let me tell you, it was so hard to motivate myself to get up and do it.  Part of me just wanted to go back to bed and sleep for another hour.  I really hate working out in the morning but man does it feel great to be done with it so early.

After my workout I enjoyed my overnight oats creation that I put together last night.

I'm still working on tweaking it, and this one was pretty yummy- I think the coconut milk makes a big difference.

1/3 c old fashioned oats
1 c plain coconut milk
2 T chia seeds
1/2 mashed banana
1/2 T chocolate protein powder
1/2 T cocoa powder

Just mix it together, cover it up and pop in the fridge.  You can heat it up in the morning if you want, but I like it cold.  It was like eating dessert for breakfast!

I know it looks like vomit or feces but it really does taste good.  I promise.

Lunch was a softshell taco on a whole wheat tortilla.  Turkey meat, cheese, spinach, taco sauce and plain Greek yogurt.  Hubby made up some taco meat using ground turkey yesterday, which we haven't done in awhile.

Good tip- for lower fat and less calories, substitute ground turkey instead of beef.  Just make sure you use a lean turkey- I think ours was 98% lean.  It does taste a little different, but once you mix it with other ingredients, it's less noticeable- especially tacos and chili.

Supper was a grilled chicken breast with leftover veggie stuff- veggie basket from last night and the last quinoa-stuffed pepper.

Looking forward to tomorrow- Iowa vs. Iowa State, hubby is smoking a bunch of meat in the smoker, trying a spray tan for the first time!, and several other exciting activities.

Anyone else out there ever try a spray tan?

Stay tuned!