Family Reunion

I had lots of yummy food yesterday. My sister, Sarah, and her husband, Joosung, were in town for a visit. It’s the first time they’ve come for a visit since my father moved back. My dad made some delicious brisket and unfroze a cheesecake for the occasion. Fancy.

My family knows how much I love cheesecake (I could never get sick of it) so they gave me the first piece! If I had to eat one thing for the rest of my life it would be cheesecake. I’d get fat and die happy.

Tasty saturday meals:

Meal	Food	Calories
Lunch	Brisket	260
	Baked beans	70
	Corn mix	35
	Marshmallow fruit mix	150
Dessert	Cheesecake	285
Drink	Grande Soy Iced Chai Latte	240
Dinner	Chips and salsa	50
	Fajita taco salad	120
Snack	Fruit	20
Total		1230

My dad took Daniel and Joosung golfing while us girls went shopping and drank some chai lattes. It’s our drink of choice at Starbucks. Order it with soy milk — you won’t be disappointed!

Then for dinner we all met up for some Mexican food at El Tapatio. I ordered the Fajita Taco Salad. It’s like a normal taco salad but with fajita veggies inside! There wasn’t as much lettuce as I was expecting but it was stilled pretty good! It was so big, I barely made a dent on it. But now I have left overs for today!

Now it’s time to look at how I did for the week.

My average is over 100 calories higher than last week. I also didn’t actually commit to any working out except for Thursday. I forgot to mention it earlier but Daniel and I walked around the park that day. I’m not sure I really did better when it came to my goal of not letting social gatherings cause me to go over my calories significantly. Unless you count eating with my parents as a social gathering because the Popeye’s chicken did me in on wednesday. My goal for this next week is to dedicate more time to working out. I also would like to commit more time to stretching and improving my flexibility so I’m going to try to do yoga every morning and night. It’s time for less sitting and more doing!

Day One of the New Apartment

We are finally getting semi-settled. It always feels weird moving to a new place at first. I wonder how long it will take until this place feels like home.  Our apartment is still a mess so once everything’s put away I’ll provide those before and after photos.

So on move-in day we needed something fast and easy for lunch so we grabbed some Burger King. Fast food is packed with calories and my diet took a toll. What I would consider a fairly small meal was over 800 calories. I had 3 chicken strips, a small order of fries, one packet of honey mustard, and a small tropical mango smoothie. Wow. Good thing I was going up and down a lot of stairs that day (we live on the 3rd floor). Then for dinner we decided Chipotle would be delicious and easy. I didn’t eat much yesterday but it added up fast!

Meal	Food	Calories
Breakfast	Cereal	80
	Almond milk	20
Lunch	BK chicken strips, mango smoothie, fries, honey mustard	860
Dinner	Chipotle Burrito Bowl	470
Total		1430

Alright, now for the juicy stuff. So today is my one year anniversary with Daniel. It’s crazy that I met him a little over a year ago and we’re already moving in together. It just feels right. I love that crazy kid. So I thought we were going to exchange gifts today but he decided to surprise me yesterday. After family had left from helping us move I was unpacking boxes and there was this envelope on top that said “I love you Rachel” on it but I just assumed that was the letter Daniel had wrote me back in June when I was in Germany. So I just moved it to the side while I unpacked other stuff.  I saw it again when I was unpacking a different box but didn’t notice and moved it to the side again. Finally Daniel said, “what’s that?” pointing to the envelope in the box and I scooped it up and said, “that’s mine!” all jokingly possessive. Until I realized that this was a different envelope than what the letter had been in. It was stiffer with a card inside. I opened it up and there hanging in the card was a beautiful pearl necklace! That sneaky boy! I fail at being surprised apparently. Isn’t it normal to just have a bunch of envelopes that say “I love you Rachel” hanging around?

It’s not the best quality photo but you get the idea. My man did good!

As being Queen of Procrastination, I didn’t allow myself time to think of a creative delivery for Daniel’s gift so I decided while he was busy unloading the car with stuff to hide his gifts in the apartment and play the “hot and cold” game with him. I told him they were hidden somewhere and he had to find them. If he was far from them I said he was “cold” and as he got closer I said he was getting “warmer” and then “hot.” He found them pretty fast. In the bathroom I hid some cologne (Dolce & Gabbana Sport [Mmmm smells so good!]) . And in the living room I hid a mini wooden chess board that I found in Germany. We have yet to play but he plays chess way more often than I do so he’ll probably beat me. I gotta get some practice in!

Anyway I have some good recipes for you all tomorrow! We decided to do some cooking for our anniversary instead of spending a lot on a fancy dinner.  Definitely a good choice. My man made dinner and I baked dessert!