Weekending Through Pictures

April 13, 2015April 12, 20159 Comments

What a weekend we had in Boston, right?! The weather was long awaited and it was so great to feel warmth and sunshine and be able to be outside without a jacket on! On top of that, it was part 1 of my birthday weekends and between massages on Friday and a hair cut and mani/pedi on Sunday, I was fully pampered! Enjoy the highlights:)

Friday night we had massages at Exhale Spa and then dinner at Ward 8 with my friend Jessi and her boyfriend.
Saturday I wore my new top from Lulu and taught a super sweaty kickboxing class.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Wicked Wine Fest

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Nikia & Kyle’s Snowy Spring Wedding

March 24, 2015March 23, 20156 Comments

It seems as though I say “that was the best wedding ever!” after every friends’ wedding. Waking up the morning after Nikia and Kyle’s wedding, my mind was thinking that same exact thing. We danced, we laughed, we cried, we loved. It was such a beautiful, wonderful wedding with so much love that it was hard to not think it was perfect!

RM and I got stuck in massive amounts of traffic when we left on Friday afternoon, but we finally got to Chittenden, VT around 8pm. Lucky for us, most of our friends had just arrived and we were greeted with a big ol’ glass of wine! The wedding festivities were held at the beautiful Mountain Top Inn, which was perfect since they had large houses for renting in addition to normal hotel rooms. Since there were 11 of us in our group (SMC girls plus some of our significant others), we opted to rent a house. The house was HUGE and could’ve fit probably 5 more people comfortably! There was a nice, big kitchen/living room/dining room area, 5 bedrooms and bathrooms, a whole separate living area downstairs including a kitchen. It seemed like it just went on and on!

After we finished catching up, we sat down for “family dinner”. My friend Jess picked up some chicken parm and eggplant parm from Bricco and it totally hit the spot!

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Kia’s North Conway Bachelorette Weekend

March 17, 2015March 17, 20159 Comments

I love celebrating my friends, and this past weekend was such a wonderful way to do so. My college friend, Nikia, is getting married this weekend so we all headed up to North Conway last weekend to celebrate her last weekend as a “single” lady. It was a mix of college girlfriends and some of her other girlfriends from different parts of her life. We all got along so well and by the end, it felt like we had all been friends for so long!

We arrived at various times on Friday night and took that time to drink wine, hang out and relax. The house that we rented was amazing!!! It was perfect for us because there were so many bedrooms and bathrooms- a must for a group of girls! It slept 14, had 6 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, huge kitchen, 2 gas fireplaces, a game room and a hot tub with views of the nearby mountain. The Maid of Honor found the house on VRBO if you’re interested in checking it out!

On Saturday, we got up and I led a 45 minute bootcamp. I did this at Sheila’s bachelorette weekend and was pumped when Kia asked if I would do it for hers. I’m all about drinking and partying and straying off of my normal healthy eats for a weekend, but I really like when I can still get in a workout and some movement because it’s something that makes me feel so much better! So, when you have a group of girls willing to do it with you, it makes for a fun event. I’ll post the workout on Wednesday, but it was a good one and it was so funny to listen to everyone grunting and groaning!
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San Francisco Recap: Part 2 {Wine Country!}

March 5, 2015March 4, 20158 Comments

In case you missed my part 1 recap of my recent girls trip to San Francisco, you can read it here.

I went to bed on Friday night dreaming of our Saturday in wine country. The last time (and only time) I went to wine country I was all hopped up on Vicodin due to a broken elbow just a day before my trip. Let me just put this on record: wine and Vicodin together are not a good idea… just trust me on that!

We woke up early on Saturday since our driver was due to pick us up at 9am. Since the girls had blow out appointments, I headed out on a short 2.5 mile run. The humidity seemed terrible (probably because I’m so used to the super dry weather here in Boston) and the hills were not my friend. But, I did feel so much better after I did it!

Shortly after 9, we were all settled in with bagels and bubbly and en route to Sonoma. How cute/amazing are these little mini cans of bubbly?! I’m obsessed- thank you for introducing me to them, Kel!!

The car ride there was so fun- we played trivia with the driver, sang to T.Swift and got to know each other better. Three of Kelly’s friends joined us (Heather, Kim and another Amanda) and they were a super fun addition to the group! Our first stop was Scribe Winery since Kelly is a member and could get free tastings for everyone. Although the morning fog was still present, by the time we left, it was beautiful, warm and sunny. And, let’s face it- the wine still would’ve tasted just as good had the fog not worn off 😉

I don’t know about you, but starting my day with a wine tasting at 10:30am was pretty fun. The wines here were my favorite and I ended up buying the Rose. I also loved that they put out snacks for us 🙂

Solid first stop!

Once we finished, we went to the Sonoma Cheese Factory to pick up sandwich lunches for our next stop at Nicholson Ranch. They let us set up shop at an awesome table in the sun with some pretty gorgeous views.

We did a 6 flight wine tasting and the wines were really good! Nothing that I wanted to buy and send back, but still very tasty.

I mean, do you think we could’ve asked for nicer weather? I don’t. Nope, it was pretty perfect.

Kelly’s friend, Kim, is a member at Rutherford Hill Winery, so we headed to Napa for our final tasting (she gets 4 free tastings as part of her membership!). I didn’t take any pictures while we were there, but it was so fun! We ended up getting a couple of bottles of the Pinot Grigio and hanging out at the picnic tables with some mutual friends who live in San Francisco, too (they ended up being in Napa for golf, so we texted the crap out of them to come meet up with us!).

On the way back to San Francisco, we made an obligatory stop at The Fremont Diner to share some of their famous Salted Caramel Milkshakes.

And yes, they tasted just as good as they sound… if not better!

The rest of the ride can be summed up by this picture… the end of wine country day… enough said:

Once we got back to the city, we changed quickly and headed back to Fillmore Street to have some much needed dinner (we drank A LOT of wine throughout the day!) at Palmers. Apparently they are known for their burgers, but I opted for meatballs (surprise, surprise) and Brussels Sprouts.

Our last stop for the night was at Mauna Loa, but none of us lasted long at this point.

To be honest, I’m not sure how we lasted until 11pm after the day we had!

What an amazingly fun day- thank you so much for organizing, Kelly! And, for sharing your friends, who are now our friends (because they’re super awesome!) 🙂

Questions for you: Have you ever been to wine country? What’s your favorite type of wine? Do you like milkshakes?

San Francisco: Part 1 Recap

March 3, 2015March 2, 20158 Comments

Can I please go back to San Francisco? If you could plan out a perfect weekend getaway, it would be exactly the weekend I had with a few of my girlfriends while in San Francisco a few weekends ago. Everything from the travel itself to the weather to the company to the city was so awesome. Since I’ve got lots of pictures and things to recap, I’ll break them up so that the post isn’t ridiculously long- enjoy!

Thursday

I had an 8:30 flight and since I live a mile from the airport, I had time to get up and do a little workout before calling a cab. I did 20 minutes of random cardio moves and ended with a fun combo: 10 burpees, 1 hand release push-up… 9 burpees, 2 hand release push-ups… 8 burpees, 3 hand release push-ups… and so on until I did 1 burpee and 10 hand release push-ups. It was way more challenging than I thought and my arms were spent by the end!

I packed up my healthy snacks and got to the airport with ease.