Five on Friday {4.1.16}

April 1, 2016March 31, 2016Leave a comment

Good morning! And happy April and Happy Birthday month to my fellow April birthday friends 🙂 I could’ve gotten you guys so bad with an April Fools joke (quitting the blog, canceling the wedding, being pregnant, etc.), but I’ll spare you that and just get right to the Five on Friday topics for today!

Mary’s Gone Crackers– We are always on the hunt for healthier chip/cracker varietals, so when I saw these on sale at Whole Foods, I had to try them out. The verdict? I am a big fan! RM likes them, but still prefers the Almond Thins we usually have on hand. I like the Mary’s crackers because they are full of seeds and the ingredient list is pretty clean.

Signs of Spring- There may be snow in the weekend forecast, but for now I’m focusing on little signs of spring around our apartment, including these pretty flowers!

Wedding Registry Gifts- With the wedding shower in just about a month, the gifts have started coming in and it’s so exciting. I joked that every day is like Christmas these days! I know we technically know and picked out everything we’ve been getting, but it’s still exciting to see and feel the gifts. I was especially excited to get 2 sets of the “fancy” place settings I registered for since I had only seen them on line. I love them even more in person!!

Book Club- Tuesday night was book club night, which is always a fun time. Our friend Lauren hosted it in her absolutely adorable Charlestown apartment and the theme was “all the dips”, meaning everyone brought a different “dip” to enjoy. Since most people brought appetizer dips, I offered to bring a dessert dip, which was a big hit- we joked it was like we were eating grown up Dunkeroo’s (remember those things?!). I found it here, and chose it because it was SO easy… and because it was called “Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake” dip and that sounded heavenly. I highly suggest throwing a dip party at some point in your life!

Dresses for Wedding Festivities- I hit up Assembly for some shopping before book club because between my shower, bachelorette party and rehearsal dinner, I am in need of some dresses. I found one at the Express Outlet that I liked, but then when I went to Off Saks, I ended up finding this baby that I liked even more. Best part? It was priced at $220, but I got it for $48! What do you think?

And that does it! This weekend should be much more relaxed than the past handful of weekends. I’m teaching tomorrow and then hopefully going to a deadlift/hinge mini group training at Foster Fitness and that’s it for set plans. I hope to knock out a bunch more of the Box FIIT Certification, have a date night, meal prep and go to church- whatever you have on the agenda for the weekend I hope you enjoy yourselves!

Questions for you: What’s your favorite snack chip/cracker? What’s your favorite dip? Do you have any suggestions for where I can find a white romper or two piece outfit for my bachelorette party? What’s on the agenda this weekend? Get any good sweats in this week?

Weekending: Getting Into the Christmas Spirit

December 21, 2015December 20, 20154 Comments

Good morning- happy Monday! Did you guys have a good weekend? Ours was relatively low-key, but that was perfect since I was pretty dead most of Friday because of getting home at 2:30 in the morning after 11 hours of traveling! Work was luckily quiet so I was able to catch up on some stuff without being interrupted. Let’s recap!

Friday

I was supposed to get together with my friend Liz and then go to a little party with my sister, but I ended up canceling on both because I was just too tired and knew I had to teach on Saturday and wanted to be rested. RM ended up coming home early from work so it was nice getting to hang with him before he went out with some of his friends that night. He offered to pick me up Whole Foods hot bar for me for dinner, which pretty much made my night. That, and being able to watch a sappy Hallmark Christmas movie and finish our latest book club book.

Have you guys read this? If not, YOU MUST! This was such a fantastic book and I can’t wait to read the sequel. I may or may not have balled my eyes out as I finished the last couple of pages. Ugh. So good!

Saturday

I woke up feeling great thanks to 9+ hours of sleep! I was so excited to teach my cardio kickboxing class for 2 reasons:

It was my last class before Christmas and I couldn’t wait to use my Christmas playlist. It’s always a big hit and I love seeing everyone smiling and singing along.
I had some awesome new lululemon pants to wear- you can never have too much mesh, right?! The best part? They were an outlet deal- $29!

Class was awesome! Everyone brought their serious A game and it was so fun to get in a good sweat sesh before the day’s activities.

After, I met up with my friend Jessi and her twin sister to talk wedding hair. I’m in the process of selecting someone to do my hair and Jessi’s sister pretty much specializes in wedding hair so hopefully it will work out! I was pumped to get to wear my new Stitch Fix sweater (a full review of my latest fix to come!)- it’s so soft!

After hanging with the girls, I met RM at the Assembly Row shops and we grabbed a very late lunch/snack at Fuji. While the sushi was good, the rolls were very small and we were shocked that Roberto’s beer was $12 (!!!). Womp.

Once we finally started to get hungry for dinner, I whipped up some roasted buffalo cauliflower and some baked butternut squash and RM cooked some spicy broccolini. We also shared some leftovers to round out the meal. It totally hit the spot.

Sunday

Sunday started out the best way: with healthy pancakes! Historically, RM has always made them but lately I’ve taken that role and I have to say, I’ve been doing a pretty good job! I do not measure anything but here’s the ingredients I used yesterday: 2 eggs, 1/2 banana, coconut flour, almond meal, vanilla, flax seed, little bit of honey and some water.

After breakfast, I headed out to do some errands. I wore my new Athleta sweater that I got for a SUPER deal during a recent Schoola promotion. I am in love with how comfy it is and I can’t believe I got it for $42 when it’s originally a $128 sweater. Yes, please.

I also treated myself to a chai tea latte at Starbucks thanks to a very sweet member who gave me a gift card before class on Saturday!

It was a pretty busy shopping experience, but I was totally immersed in the holiday spirit so it was fun! I was able to finish up most of my shopping, which will make this week easier 🙂

I love the looks of a Christmas tree filled with presents underneath it. My mom always wanted to wait to bring presents down on Christmas morning (or late Christmas Eve), but my dad would always try to sneak the presents down earlier than that. I remember one year the back and forth of my dad bringing them down and my mom bringing them back up . I have to say, I like the presents under the tree before Christmas!

Late Sunday afternoon we went to RM’s mother’s house to celebrate his birthday, which is on Wednesday. We had a delicious escarole soup, croquettes and a fantastic coffee cake. The rest of the night was spent hanging on the couch, relaxing before a busy week- I love our couch time!

And that wraps it up! I have to go into the office today, but it’s a fun day because we are having our group Christmas party at Kings in Lynnfield. I also made my favorite Funfetti cookies, which basically make anything better 😉

Have a great Monday, friends!

Questions for you: How was your weekend? What was the best part of it? Have you finished your Christmas shopping? Are you working this week? What’s your favorite holiday treat?

Wedding Update: Finding “The Dress”

December 3, 2015December 2, 201511 Comments

Good morning! I’ve said all along that I don’t want this blog to become a wedding-focused blog, but I’m just too excited about finding “the dress” that I have to share my experience with you! I said to RM on Saturday that I wished I was still shopping for dresses because I had so much fun doing it… a little crazy considering the thought of going dress shopping kind of overwhelmed me initially. But, I am happy to say that it was literally one of the easiest shopping experiences I’ve ever had!

Let’s back up, though. When my parents decided to come to Boston for Thanksgiving, my mom suggested that I call some bridal stores to see if they had any open appointments for Black Friday. I had a feeling they would be booked and sure enough, most places I called were booked so I put myself on the wait list at Vows and Anthropologie. The next day both places called me back and I was able to get appointments for Black Friday- score!

As with most things wedding-related, I just didn’t want to make a big deal out of dress shopping and bring lots of people who would probably have different opinions. I wanted to keep it to just my mom and sister, but when my dad asked if he could come I couldn’t have been happier! It was so cute shopping for my dress as a family- they were all fantastic and my dad was cracking everyone up.

Anyway, we showed up to Vows right around 10 and had to wait a bit until they were officially.

My bridal consultant, Kristen, was absolutely fantastic. She listened to what I wanted (simple, not a lot of poof, low back, not a lot of lace, no sparkles, etc.) and grabbed a great selection of dresses for me to try on. She even set us up in a private room so that my whole family could be together (guys aren’t allowed in the normal fitting room area). I also loved that she was very professional- she didn’t give her opinion that would sway me one way or the other and she offered up lots of interesting tid bits of information regarding the style and designer of the dresses. I never once felt like she was just trying to make a sale.

I think I ultimately tried on maybe 8-10 dresses, but kind of knew from the first one that I had found “the one”. It wasn’t one I was crazy about off the rack, but once I put it on I absolutely loved it. It needs very little alterations and is different from most dresses I’ve seen. I thought all along I wanted more of the Bohemian, very simplistic look but when I tried those on, they almost looked too sexy for a wedding! They were so form-fitting that they showed everything- not really appropriate for a wedding!

Here are some pics of the dresses I tried on, of course, not including the one I bought 😉 That is going to stay secretive until I walk down the aisle!

This one was a fun one to try on just to make sure I indeed didn’t want a big poofy dress

This was a style I originally thought I wanted- no poof or boning- but when I tried on some dresses like this I realized they were a bit too, how to I say this, showy… and not really my idea of wedding appropriate!

We all really loved this dress but ultimately I wanted to change too many things about the neckline in the front and around my neck. And I feel like keyholes and lace like this are really standard these days and I wanted something a little different.

This was another close runner up, but I just didn’t love the way it looked on me as much as the one I picked.

Ultimately, I ended up cancelling my appointment at Beholden/Anthropologie because I realized all of the dresses that I loved from their selection were the ones that I decided were not wedding appropriate (for me, anyway). My mom and sister thought that I should’ve gone just to look, but I knew that I would’ve been thinking about the dress I ended up buying the whole time so we decided to just go for it. Walking home with my dress was the best feeling in the world and I can’t help but continuously look through the pictures my sister took of me in the dress. I cannot WAIT to wear it!

Now, it’s time to find shoes. I think I want something fun- maybe a fun color or sparkles or something like that. I’m not really doing “wedding colors” so I won’t need to worry about matching to that. I also think I want to wear my hair up, I’m just not sure the details on that yet. Also, I wasn’t sure I wanted a vail, but after trying one on with the dress, I think I do want one. It made me feel so pretty and so much like a bride!

Questions for you: Did you have an easy time finding your dress? Did you end up getting what you thought you wanted or did you change your mind when you tried it on? Did you wear a vail?

Weekending: Wedding Update Edition

November 9, 2015November 8, 201514 Comments

Good morning! How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? I was loving the great fall weather. Know what else I was loving? BOOKING A VENUE AND A DATE!!! If you’ve been following B2B for a while, you already know that wedding planning thus far has been stressful. Being on a budget, having no idea what I want and having a busy schedule anyway has made the whole process just not that fun. BUT, now that we have a venue and a date I already feel a million times better. Before we get to that, let’s chat about the rest of the weekend, too.

After work on Friday, I met up with my sister at Hopsters in Newton Corner. This place is literally walking distance from my apartment and they sell lots of craft beers and delicious looking charcuterie boards and flatbread pizzas. On top of that, you can even make your own beer there, which sounds like a fun activity even for someone like me who isn’t a big beer person.

The purpose for our meetup was so that I could finally officially ask her to be my Maid of Honor! I scoured Etsy for a while until I found this bracelet, which had my sisters name all over it (literally and figuratively!)- she loves bracelets and monogramed items so this couldn’t have been more perfect. Luckily, she agreed 🙂

When I got home, RM and I made a nice healthy fish dinner, thanks to my mom’s friend Jean’s husband who caught the fish!

A little while after dinner, it was snack time. Yes, we have a snack time every night- it’s my favorite! We always try to have healthy snacks like paleo banana bread muffins or toast or something else that’s not loaded with tons of sugar. On Friday, RM toasted up some Ezekiel bread, topped it with almond butter and my mom’s homemade blueberry jam, bananas, cinnamon and ground flax seed. Delicious!

After teaching on Saturday, I rushed home to shower and hit the road to head up to Jackson, NH to look at The Wentworth Inn as a possible wedding venue.

I had spoken with Kim, the fantastic wedding planner, a few times leading up to our visit and was totally in love with the venue before even seeing it in person! It was affordable, included a lot of things in the package that most other places didn’t include (90 minutes of full open bar at the cocktail hour?! yes, please!) and seemed like a great mini destination place since it’s just 10 minutes north of North Conway. I also loved that everyone could stay on site, which eliminated the need for us to need to book buses or vans or some other type of transportation. And, they source all of their food locally, from 15 nearby farms, to be exact, and they said nothing is ever frozen. For foodies like us, we loved the sounds of that!

After a tour and long discussion with Kim, we were pretty sure we were going to book our wedding at The Wentworth… on the 4th of July! They were giving a phenomenal discount to have the wedding on that day, one that was just too good to pass up, so we are going to be getting married on July 4th, 2016! We are hoping it doesn’t throw a wrench into people’s normal 4th of July plans, but since the holiday is on a Monday, we hope that people can do celebrating on Saturday and Sunday and be with us on Monday- I promise it will be a good party!

After our tour, we decided to walk to the Wildcat Tavern for a late afternoon snack and drink since we didn’t have lunch. The trio dip platter was a fantastic option and their wine selection was incredible! Ashley- they had La Crema by the glass 🙂

When we got back to our room, RM laughed and said we apparently didn’t need to get a snack. Curious, I went over to see what he was looking at and was so surprised by the super sweet gesture that Kim had done by sending us a nice card and a cheese platter.

It’s little things like this that really go a long way with potential clients- we appreciated it so much!

After resting for a bit, we went down to the hotel bar to have some dinner. They have a full restaurant, but we prefer the bar atmosphere. The food was unbelievable- I got the lamb stew and RM got the steak and everything was absolutely delicious and so fresh tasting!

We also shared some sort of apple tart with cinnamon ice cream for dessert that went unpictured because we were too impatient to wait for me to get my phone to take a picture 😉

Another great thing about the Inn is that breakfast and breakfast tip are included in your room rate. When we saw all that they had to offer for breakfast, we couldn’t believe it! They had a really nice continental breakfast bar with fruit, yogurt, cereal, pastries, etc., but they also had a full breakfast menu. We decided to split both of the specials: blueberry pancakes and eggs benedict, with a side of homemade corn beef hash.

Oh, my, God. Everything was so fresh and flavorful and just delicious.

We hit the road after breakfast so RM could be back in time to watch the game. I decided to make good use of time and went to Whole Foods. I treated myself to a smoothie since I was hungry for lunch at that point.

We decided we wanted to do a roast chicken dinner so I prepped that when I got back before going to a yoga class.

There is a CorePower Yoga a short walk from our apartment and last week there was a day where I just didn’t feel like going to the gym so I decided to check it out. They offer a free first week for new students which is an amazing deal, so I’m trying to get the most use out of it. Yesterday, the only class they had in a time that worked for me was their Yoga Sculpt class, which is almost like a yoga bootcamp. I really wanted a restorative yoga, but I ended up really loving the Yoga Sculpt class- we started and ended with nice yoga flows, but in the middle we used weights and did all sorts of lunges, pushups, squats, jumping jacks, burpees, etc…. I was totally in my element, even in the 98* room! I felt great when I left.

I popped the chicken and veggies in the oven when I got home and everything came out SO GOOD! I have never made a roast chicken before even though it’s my favorite meal so I was a little nervous but everything tasted delicious.

And that’s about it. If you made it this far, thank you!!

Now that we have our venue and date picked, I can focus on the fun stuff like dress shopping and invites and things like that! Feels SO GOOD to have the biggest part of wedding planning checked off 🙂

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Do you prefer beer or wine? What’s your favorite dinner meal? What do you have going on this week?

Weekending in Boothbay Harbor

August 20, 2015August 20, 20157 Comments

Hi! Last weekend was one for the books, so I just HAD to share 😉 My friend Meredith was getting married in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, so we figured we might as well make a little weekend out of it. I hadn’t taken time off of work since Italy, so it felt nice to have a 4 day weekend planned. After a long walk and breakfast, RM and I hit the road.

Since it was such a gorgeous day, we planned to leave early enough to accommodate a stop at Wells Beach for a few hours. The sand was soft, the sun was shining and the wine was flowing… not a bad start to the weekend!

(side note- have you seen these CANS of wine? they are the perfect thing to take on the road with you and I have to say, the rose was delicious!)

We packed up and hit the road to make the remainder of the trip around 4pm and unfortunately hit lots of traffic. We finally made it to the Inn around 6 and were ready for a shower and dinner. The Inn we stayed at was Topside Inn and we cannot say enough good things about our stay there. The owners, Mark and “Buzz”, were awesome and have done a really great job with the business that they bought just a year ago. The rooms were gorgeous and very “beach-y” feeling, everything was immaculately clean and detail was paid to just about everything you could think of- including leaving a wine opener with the wine glasses in each room 😉