Happy Birthday, Danielle!

December 7, 20137 Comments

Today is my sisters- gasp- 26th birthday! It’s weird, because I feel like I just turned 26. For those of you who have sisters that you’re close with, I’m sure you totally understand the sister bond. Danielle and I may not get along all the time, but at the end of the day, we are sisters and we always have each others backs.

Last night, we celebrated her birthday and Amy’s birthday with drinks at the Top of the Hub and dinner at Vlora.

We lucked out because the skies cleared and we could see the city!

Nights out with these pretty ladies are my favorite!

What a fun night! It was a treat to get dressed up for fancy drinks at the Top of the Hub and dinner at Vlora never disappoints. If you like Greek/Mediterranean food, I highly suggest going!

Happiest birthdays to you, Danielle (and Amy!). Here’s to a fantastic year!

Questions for you: Have you ever been to the Top of the Hub or Vlora? Where do you go when it’s a special night out?

This Week: Weekend Catch Up, Workouts, Things I am Looking Forward To

November 25, 2013November 24, 20135 Comments

Happy Monday, friends! How was your weekend? It felt good to have one since last weekend I was cooped up inside at MANIA on Friday and Sunday and ran the Spartan race on Saturday (I owe you that recap this week!), which didn’t leave much room for “weekending”. Friday night I went to drinks at Warehouse on Broad Street followed by dinner at Anthem which is always a favorite of mine! Saturday I taught an amazing kickboxing class (46 people came!!!) then ran a bunch of errands and went to lunch at Not Your Average Joe’s with my sister. I went back to Warehouse on Saturday night for drinks with a couple of friends (they ate dinner and said the food was great!!) and Sunday I hosted a Pampered Chef party. So even though it was a busy weekend, it was fun 🙂

Stemless champagne flutes at Warehouse? New to me… not sure if I’m a fan or not. Regardless, the bubbly tasted good 😉

Winter beer for lunch and an amazing seasonal flatbread which had pesto, caramelized onions, butternut squash, Brussels sprouts, and cheese (can’t remember what kind, though).

The girls got the “Greek Nachos” to start, which I tried and thought were delicious. It was such a fun idea!

How about the workouts? I took Monday and Tuesday as rest days because my body needed it! Holy moly did it need it. I was SO sore and tight after my weekend festivities that it felt good to rest and foam roll. Once I got back into workouts, I felt like I did the right thing by giving my body some time to rest.

Last Week’s Workouts

Monday & Tuesday- Lots of walking! Monday I took the long walk home and Tuesday ran errands and shopped. My muscles loosened up a lot by walking and getting blood flowing. Needed that!

Wednesday- I ran a 5K on the treadmill (a slow one, but that’s ok!) before teaching UXF Burn. It was a big class, so I didn’t get to do as much of the workout since I was walking around correcting form (I brought in some new moves so that required a lot of coaching from me).

Wore my new shirt from MANIA!

Thursday- Taught SHRED using a format I learned at Sunday’s MANIA events and taught kickboxing with a totally new set of combos (that I made up as I brushed my teeth, haha). It was high cardio- we gotta burn those calories before T-day!
Friday- I did 10 minutes of random cardio (jogging, jumping jacks, burpees, jump squats, etc. etc.) and the upper body and core exercises from Athena’s Total Body Blast workout.
Saturday- I taught a super sweaty, super high cardio, super crowded kickboxing class at the Oak Square YMCA. I woke up feeling like I had done a million lunges on Friday, and since I didn’t, I blame it on Delayed Onset Soreness from Thursday’s workouts. Felt good to shake my legs out in class!
Sunday- Since I feel like I didn’t get a chance to get in some isolated and focused strength training in, I headed to the East Boston YMCA for their 10:30 “Y Pump” class. Felt great!

This Week’s Workouts

Monday- Subbing a kickboxing class at the Watertown BSC- it’s a 6:30, so BSCers if you’re looking for a good class, please come!
Tuesday- I will probably head to the gym after work for strength and maybe a little cardio.
Wednesday-My 6:30 UXF Burn class is cancelled, but I am subbing the 5:30 Sports Conditioning Class, so if you get out of work early, definitely come- we will work super hard to burn lots of calories before Thanksgiving!
Thursday- I will do some type of at-home workout at my parents house. I am trying to come up with a Thanksgiving-themed workout, so be on the lookout 😉
Friday- Rest day! I am getting my hair done and then my family is heading to Kennebunkport for lunch at David’s, walking around, shopping, and drinks at Hurricane Restaurant (fun fact: I used to manage the books and be a hostess there- so fun!).
Saturday- Heading back to Boston early Saturday morning to teach Kickboxing at the Oak Square YMCA- come burn off your holiday eats!
Sunday- Maybe a rest day? I’ll see how I feel.

Things I am Looking Forward To

Gosh! There are so many things! I am exited to sub a few classes since I am missing both of mine on Thursday. I am excited to be home in Maine for Thanksgiving. We are doing dinner just the 4 of us and then we head to Sara and Amy’s mom’s house for dessert… a tradition for as long as I can remember! I’m excited about getting my hair highlighted and then spending the whole day with my family because we have lots of fun together 🙂

Questions for you: What was your favorite part about last weekend? Do you plan on working out on Thanksgiving? What are you looking forward to this week? Please share- I love hearing from you 🙂

Chicago: Part 3 {Brunching, Architecture Tour, Homemade Dinner}

November 19, 2013November 18, 20137 Comments

Hi there! After this post, my Chicago recap is finally done 🙂 In case you missed the other posts, you can find them here, here, and here.

Sunday morning, I woke up feeling mostly better, but my stomach was still a little off. We hung out in the hotel for a bit and I blogged and we watched some tv. Around 11ish, we ventured out into what looked to be another beautiful day in the city! Seriously, I cannot believe how lucky we got with the weather. It could have been miserably cold/snowy, which we were not prepared for at all!

We met up with JP for brunch at Eggy’s, but not before going to the grocery store to pick up a bottle of Prosecco since Eggy’s was BYOB. How fun is that?! Dining out would be so much more affordable if you could bring your own booze. Boston, get on that, will ya?!

Apparently cheese curds are big in Chicago (I didn’t even know what they were until Danielle and JP explained the to me), so we go an order of the fried cheese curds to start. I was pleasantly surprised by how good they were!

I got the green eggs and ham, which was one of their signature dishes. Sadly, it looked better than it tasted. It wasn’t bad, there was just too much stuff going on… too many flavors.

We walked around for a bit after brunch to digest and then jumped on an afternoon Architecture Tour. Whenever I go to a new city, I always try to go on as many tours as possible because I think it’s the best way to see the city and get a good overview of all the important pieces of information and dates. JP took this photo of my sister and I as we waited for the tour to start. Whoops. Not very good company!

Our tour guide was fantastic and I learned so much about Chicago! As I mentioned in my last Chicago recap, Chicago completely burned down and was rebuilt in the 1900’s, so a lot of the buildings are relatively “new” and really interesting to look at since so many famous architectures came to Chicago to show their talents. I didn’t take many photo’s on the tour because it was SO COLD. Seriously… We were freezing because it was mostly in the shade and on the water. Brrr. I did get this one of the Sears (now, Willis) Tower, which is the tallest building in Chicago (right? I think it is…) since they count the tall things at the top in the measurement.

I didn’t take this photo on the tour, but we did see them and talk about them, so I’ll post it now.

Danielle and I immediately noticed these buildings when we arrived in Chicago. They were so cool looking, and when we found out that they consider themselves mini “cities”, we thought they were even cooler. Apparently they have everything in the building that a city would have, so basically if you lived in one, you’d never have to leave. A little weird, right?

After the tour, we warmed up by walking around the mall on Michigan Ave and then got a drink in the lobby of our hotel. Danielle and I went to JP’s to make dinner on Sunday night since we were tired of eating out and were craving healthy food. Ok, and, we wanted to shop at the amazing grocery store across from JP’s apartment building. It was like a mix between Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s… but better! It was two levels and had the best deli/hot bar section I’ve ever seen. I died and went to grocery store lover’s heaven!

We went simple for dinner and I just made a veggie and chicken dish, served over a fancy fettuccine with a nice, big salad on the side!

Yum. It was so good! Danielle and I were in bed by 10pm on Sunday night and it was wonderful. Between traveling for work and then going right to Chicago to travel for fun, we were both exhausted!!! I think I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow 🙂

Monday morning we both got up and went to the gym and then hit the road for the airport.

I traveled in comfy clothes, which I never do, because I had to sub a class on Monday night and was worried we might be delayed and I wouldn’t have time to change. Lucky for us, everything was on time (shocking for the Chicago airport) and I got home and to the gym with plenty of time to spare!

All in all, both trips were a blast. I might be going back to Chicago with a group of friends over the summer and I’m already looking forward to that possibility because I seriously loved Chicago. If I didn’t live in Boston but had to live in a city, I would choose Chicago. There was just something about it that I loved and I could see myself living there!

Thanks for following along through my recaps of the trip!

Questions for you: Have you done the architecture tour? If you had to pick a city to live in other than where you currently live, where would it be? Do you know of any BYOB restaurants in Boston?

Chicago: Part1 {Shopping and Bar Hopping}

November 14, 2013November 13, 20138 Comments

Hi! I think I left off on my last post right as we got to downtown Chicago. After we dropped our bags off, Danielle and I decided to head to Michigan Avenue to grab lunch as we were both starving! Lucky for us, Michigan Avenue was only a 5 minute walk away so we were seated at Pizzeria Due in no time at all. Since it was vacation, we ordered beers right away. I went with the Green Light first and the 312 next, both of which were local Chicago beers.

We ordered a salad and 2 personal deep dish pizza’s which were amazing! I am not usually a big deep dish pizza lover, but with all the sauce and cheese on these bad boys, I was a happy camper!

To help digest the rather large lunch, we walked around Michigan Ave a bit and did some shopping. I got a new fake leather jacket and an awesome pair of blue velour skinny pants from the Gap. I am obsessed with them!!

We got carried away with shopping and had to rush back to our hotel to change and get ready to meet our friend JP out at the Public House. I hadn’t seen JP since June so I was really excited that he lives in Chicago and could be our tour guide for the weekend! He works with Jeremy, who we used to work with when we worked together (they both left my company and now work together at a different company in Chicago), so it was fun to see Jeremy, too!

After a few drinks, we grabbed a quick bite at Timothy O’Toole’s and continued to bar hop for the rest of the night. We made a quick stop at Butch McGuires and then ended the night at Hubbard Inn. I don’t remember too much of the later part of the night at the last bar, but thankfully we got back to the hotel around midnight… any later could have been a real problem for me! I don’t usually let myself get like that, but I think it was a mix of being on vacation and hanging out with JP that got me in the mood to drink. Yikes. Saturday was a super busy day, so I will save that recap for its own post!

Questions for you: Have you been to Chicago? Where was the best deep dish pizza you ate? Did you shop on Michigan Ave?

Boston>Dallas>Chicago

November 12, 2013November 11, 20139 Comments

Few! Hi everyone! How’s it going? I can’t believe that a week ago today I was packing up and heading out to Dallas. After making a detour through Chicago for a long weekend vaca, I finally made it back to Boston last night, just in time to jump into my car and head to Watertown to sub a kickboxing class. Not the brightest idea, but I wanted to help a fellow instructor out and I was itching to teach (it’s crazy how much I miss teaching when I haven’t taught in a week+.).

Let’s catch up, shall we? I am going to get to my Chicago recaps later this week, but I wanted to share some things I did and learned about while I was in Dallas. We are required to take certain classes at my company, one of those classes being a Business Writing Course. I’ve never been a terrific writer, and blog writing is veryyy different from business writing, so I was actually excited to take the course.

I got to Dallas on Tuesday night around 7 and immediately met up with a few coworkers (some taking the course and some just work in Dallas). We went to Pappadeaux and I ordered a glass of Chardonnay to quench my hunger thirst. I don’t know what it is, but as soon as I travel for work, I feel like I am on “vacation”, which means I tend to indulge in more alcoholic beverages than usual (on a normal week, I don’t drink at all Sunday-Thursday).

For dinner, I ordered the Seafood Skewers which were delicious! It was a mixture of salmon, shrimp and scallops with an assortment of grilled veggies sandwiched between. The plate was HUGE, so I barely made a dent in the meal- always a shame when I’m traveling and can’t take leftovers home.

Wednesday morning, I headed to the gym for a cardio and light strength workout and then went to day 1 of the training course. One of the best things I learned throughout the 2 days was how we have been taught to use big, filler words rather than using smaller, stronger words. I think some of you can agree that when typing business emails, a common sentence may be “Attached please find a word document with responses pursuant to your earlier requests. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.”, right? Well, in this course, we learned that no one likes to read emails with “filler” words that are used to try to make the piece sound fancier than it is. We want to read things that are quick, short and things that we understand. We were encouraged to re-write the sentence above with removing unnecessary words: “The answers to your questions are attached. Please let me know if you have questions.” Much easier to read, right?

I could go on and on about the course, but in attempt to not make this post ridiculously long, I’ll stop there. 😉

Wednesday night, my coworker and I grabbed Mexican at Chuy’s which is a restaurant our team went to the last time we were in Dallas. I splurged and ordered a margarita to start… It was SO worth the splurge!

I ordered one of the “lighter” chicken dinner options since I consumed my weight in chips, salsa and queso and was no longer very hungry.

We grabbed a glass of wine at the hotel bar before calling it a night. I was happy to have some earlier nights during this leg of my trip since I knew I would be staying out much later while in Chicago.

After the course ended for the day on Thursday, I headed to the Dallas airport. I mentioned on Instagram; that I had planned on eating healthier and not drinking, but what did I end up doing? Sitting at a Mexican bar drinking wine and eating chips/salsa. Ugh. I wasn’t so mad about it, though, because there were a few cute guys sitting next to me so chatting with them was a good way to pass the time. 😉

I got to Chicago around 10pm and headed to the hotel where my sister was staying. I was so excited to see her and start “vacationing”. We caught up for a bit and then went to bed. I had to work a bit on Friday morning so I got up early to work out and start my day. I usually rest on Friday’s, but I knew I likely wouldn’t work out over the weekend so I wanted to get something in.

Around noon, we headed back to the airport to take the Blue Line into the city. Our room was ready, so we checked in, dropped off our bags and quickly headed out. We stayed at the Sheraton in downtown Chicago and I highly recommend it if you’re looking for some place to stay. It was super affordable (I used points for 2 nights, but it was still affordable even without points), very clean/nice, had a great gym and was in a great location.