This weekend flew by! Let’s rewind to Friday…I had another day of training, so lunch was at home. I finished up some leftovers (my special chicken) on top of spinach with a little bit of pepper Jack cheese and garlic expressions salad dressing. It was delicious.

I saw this car while I was driving…hahaha!

After school Friday, I came home and hopped on my trainer. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I knocked out 20 minutes and then got some lifting in. My legs were pretty sore from lifting last week, so I needed some time to spin them and work out some soreness.

Friday evening, we headed to Highland Springs for a Mardi Gras party with my parents. The food was INCREDIBLE.


We also got to hear one of my favorite cover bands – The Mixtapes! They’re a 90’s cover band and they are the best.

Is it even a Mardi Gras party if you don’t sip on a hurricane while wearing a mask?

I sure love these two! My Momma and my birth Mom.


Mitch, Dawn’s man, made sure to sport all kinds of awesome Mardi Gras accessories.

Poor Dawn broke four toes, so she’s been in a boot while she heals. She didn’t let the boot stop her from busting some moves on the dance floor.

The Mixtapes were so much fun. My parents had never heard them play, so I was pretty excited I got to experience the first time with them.

We danced a lot and got pretty sweaty…what else is new?

Big news – I found the baby in the King Cake! I was pretty excited. I got a free drink for finding it, so I gave that to Jake.

I broke out my fringed boots for the evening.

Can you tell which part of the King Cake our table liked the best? Team Frosting all the way!

Saturday morning was finally spent enjoying some trail miles with these girls! It was a wonderful morning.

We had a bunch of water crossings and they were SO cold. When I went to untie my shoes, my laces were frozen.

Alex always has the coolest frozen hair pictures during the winter.

I got 8 miles of trail in without any foot pain!! I was so happy. I’m hoping for at least one more long run without any pain, then I’m going to sign-up for the War Eagle 50k! Is there anything better than post-run coffee? My answer – NO!

On my way home, I ran by Walmart for grocery pick-up, then made the biggest breakfast burrito. It has eggs, mushrooms, spinach, and goat cheese, plus some chicken sausage on the side. Mmmm.

After breakfast, I started on meal prep for the week. This is what goes in our breakfast smoothies. I put two scoops of everything into containers, that way we can just dump everything into the blender, add ice, spinach, bananas, and almond milk, then blend.

After I prepped smoothies, I did 4 loads of laundry, vacuumed, and brushed the dogs. I took a break for lunch – cottage cheese and applesauce (one of the best mixtures ever), crackers, and pepperoni.

After lunch, I made some banana oatmeal, chocolate chip muffins. Here’s the recipe! They are AMAZING. 3 overripe mashed bananas, 1 egg, 1/4 cup coconut oil, 1 Tbs vanilla, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 and 1/2 cups rolled oats, 1 and 1/4 cups flour, 1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, dash of cinnamon – mix everything together (I never separate dry & wet ingredients…I’m impatient & don’t want a ton of dirty dishes. I’ve always done this & never had issues, but you do you!), bake at 375° for 20 minutes. Mmm.

All of that productivity made us sleepy, so we took a nap.

After our nap, Jake came home from a long gravel ride, so we headed out to celebrate National Margarita Day. We went to La Paloma. These were delicious.

There are two quesadillas that I really like at La Paloma. One of them is my favorite, but I couldn’t remember if it was the shrimp quesadilla or the veggie quesadilla. I got the shrimp quesadilla, which is always super good, but their veggie quesadilla is definitely my favorite of the two. I made a mental note to remember that for next time.


After dinner Saturday, we went back home and relaxed. It was wonderful. Then we slept in Sunday morning, which was also wonderful. After getting some much-needed sleep, we headed out for some miles together. It has been a crazy long time since we went on a run together, so I loved getting to spend the morning running with Jake. We knocked out six easy miles.

After our run, we headed to Brew Co. for brunch. A mimosa sounded amazing, well, they always sound amazing, so I had to get one. It hit the spot. Brew Co. has a new menu, which is outstanding. I got one of their new eggs Benedict dishes and it was awesome. I think it’s called the Ozark Benny or something like that. It’s a homemade biscuit, pork belly, gravy, and two poached eggs. So good.


After brunch, I parked it on the couch to knock out some computer work. I have a couple of projects that I am working on for my new job, so I tried to get most of those finished. I don’t start my new position until August, but there are a couple of conferences that they would like me to go to and present, so I have a couple of things I need to prepare before I officially begin.

The rest of our Sunday was spent relaxing. I think we both have fairly busy weeks, so it was nice to mentally prepare for that. It’s supposed to rain here most of the day today, so that is making me a little sleepy. I will get in a ride on our trainer and some lifting after school today.
Happy Monday, friends!
[…] had oatmeal banana chocolate chip muffins for dessert. They are delicious. My recipe for these is HERE. I have already had a couple of people tell me that they made them and they cannot stop eating the […]