Mixed Tape

Self Hosted

2011-09-05T10:30:00.000-04:00

Hey friends!

Guess what!?

My blog is now self hosted... :)

I changed the name of my blog and the URL check it out!

http://myrunningthoughts.com/

You can now subscribe with your email address, so you will never miss a post again ;) haha

YAY!

Catch ya on the flip side!

Vancouver Part 4

2011-09-03T05:37:00.000-04:00

I promise only one more Vancouver post after this one and I will get back to my usual posts :). But first a few eats from yesterday:

I bought some amazing blueberries from Trader Joe's and decided to bulk up my cereal a bit with blueberries AND a banana. yum yum yummy

Some grapes for my morning snack

a cucumber and mixed greens salad, with Fat free Balsamic Vinaigrette for lunch

and some plain Greek Yogurt, blueberries, and Banana Nut Bare Naked Granola! This was my first time ever trying this stuff and I am hooked. I hope all of their flavors are this good.

I think I need to add more granola next time:

Okay back to Vancouver we goooooo:

This was our trip up Grouse Mountain:

Sorry the pictures aren't amazing, we were stuck in the very middle of the skylift.

I was a bit concerned about riding the ski lifts without all my snowboard gear.

"Wait you want me....

to go up there?

on this thing?"

haha yup, just don't look down:

Unless you want to see a bear:

and more jagged rocks and tree limbs:

There were some amazing views from the top of the mountain, I bet it would be really amazing to ski here in the winter:

We headed back down the mountain (on the ski lifts), and sat down to enjoy the Lumber Jack Show:

These guys were pretty hilarious:

(My sister is holding these pictures hostage, so once I get them I will put them up here.)

We also went Zip Lining! If you know me at all, I am scared of almost everything, honestly, it sucks, but I did this and I am so glad I did. We went through 5 different lines, reaching speeds of 50mph. AH it was exhilarating! I highly recommend trying it out!

(Again my sister has these pictures, I promise I will put them up once I get them.)

After a long day we headed home to rest up.

On Friday, we headed to Victoria. A bit of a disclaimer about these next photos, it may look like I don't wash my clothes, but I do. I just really love this shirt and my mom had just done the laundry and it was on top of my pile. Plus I wanted to wear my patchwork skirt and this was the only shirt I had to match. So stop judging me!

Have you ever had pop rocks? Well I love them....and we had some in the car while we waited for the Ferry to Victoria.

Ferries are pretty cool:

Especially when you go with your family:

Once we got to Victoria, we headed to Butchart Gardens:

They have some of the most amazing flowers there. We took a million pictures, but I will share a few of them with you:

This was in the middle of the gardens, a beautiful fountain.

I love archways, and my sister

cool orb picture.

and my hubby :)

see my patchwork skirt... wouldn't have matched anything else.

I really love my sister :)

and archways.

Watch out tomorrow is the last day of our trip.. my cousin Niusha's wedding and a Bridal shower for another cousin.

Cheers!

Vancouver Part 3

2011-09-02T05:00:00.000-04:00

Hello friends!

You are probably bored with my Vancouver posts, but there are so many pictures I want to share, that I simply cannot put them all in one post. So please, stay with me, I am almost finished (not really). Here are some of my delish eats from yesterday. I went to the gym in the morning with my good friend Lejia, and did 3 miles on the elliptical. It felt great. I was hoping to go back again this morning but I was super exhausted and I just could not get myself out of bed, that and Lejia stood me up too.

Well, because I went to the gym, I had zero time to fix my lunch, but luckily at work they had gotten bagels for breakfast, so I took one and saved it for my lunch.

I couldn't wait for the day to end so I could go home and make dinner. I really love Trader Joe's. I cooked up some Red Quinoa with veggies, while Erik grilled the Pesto Chicken Genovese. This. was. so. good. Most def a do it again meal.

Okay back to Vancouver:

I honestly do not remember when we went to Gastown, but I have a feeling it should have been part of my last post, haha. We went to Gastown, in downtown Vancouver to see this famous steam clock, and to have dinner.

The clock was actually pretty cool. It chimes every half hour and hour, like a grandfather clock, but instead of "chimes" it literally sounded like a steam engine of a train.

We also got to see the site where they held the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, or well one of the sites of the Olympic games. The hotel that was attached to this site was where my cousin had her wedding, which I will recap in the next few days.

The following morning we headed out to Granville Public Market. My aunt, Erik and I decided to walk across the bridge to get there, while the rest of my family drove (lazy.. haha jk). We just didn't want to have to pay a bazillion dollars for parking.

When we got there, Erik and I stopped off at the Granville Brewery and had a little tasting.

Their limited reserve, was the best IPA I have had in a long time. I am a sucker for IPA's right now, and have been since our trip to Boston.

We walked around the Granville most of the day, did some shopping

see my new hat (I wanted to get those sunglasses too, but I didn't)

And took some pretty silly pictures

On our walk back downtown we had a really nice view of the city, and managed to get some good shots.

By the end of the day, I semi regretted walking to Granville Market, it was great exercise but man we were pooped!

Tomorrow I will recap Grouse Mountain (ziplining.. whhhaaat), and our mini trip to Victoria! Stay tuned!

Vancouver Part 2

2011-09-01T05:33:00.000-04:00

Before I get started with part 2 of Vancouver I want to take a minute to share a great website with you guys! Have you ever heard of The Clymb? This site has great outdoor gear for crazy good prices. You all know how much I love a good deal :) haha. If you sign up for their deals through this link you will receive a $10 credit, and who doesn't love free money :)

Also I would like to share some of yesterdays grub:

My super yummy and healthy lunch :)

All mixed up. I only used about half of the Coconut chili dressing because it was super spicy, but so yummy.

This is my first ever Mojo Bar and I loved it! I went to Trader Joe's again last night and bought a few more.

And I thought this little birdy was super cute, I saw him on my drive home yesterday!

ok back to our regularly scheduled post:

Day 3 we headed out to Stanley Park, and took some really wonderful pictures. The following pictures are all from Beaver Lake:

I had a nice standoff with a black squirrel. He was actually really cute. I won, because after about a minute he ran away! haha, and I sat in the Tree chair.

After we walked around Beaver lake, we drove around Stanley Park and got out of the car when we were near the bay.

The weather was amazing and the clouds were even cooler!

After doodling around Stanley Park we headed back across the Lions Gate Bridge to have a picnic in the park. My cousin was still a little tired from our crazy trip up to Vancouver,

but woke up promptly when the food was ready

I took some pictures while my sister took pictures of me haha.

We all then took turns changing in our minivan to head over to my cousin, Niusha and Niaz's house. I hadn't seen my cousins in yearrrrrs, and it was so amazing to finally get to see them. My cousin, Niusha (in the purple) was the one who's wedding we were there to attend!

We got to see some pretty amazing views from their 11th floor condo!

Day 4 was a rainy one, so we decided it was a great opportunity to do something indoors. So we headed back to Stanley Park and went to the aquarium. I really don't think I have ever been to an aquarium, but I could be wrong. If I had, I was probably too young to actually appreciate the beauty.
My best friend Bethany can probably tell you the names, species and what all these animals like to do in their free time.

These little snakey worm things were awesome. They would come up from the sand when there was food approaching them.

I obviously had to take a picture of Nemo.

And a giant sea turtle

and some really cool jellyfish

In the aquarium they also had a rain forest section set up, it was really humid, but the animals were free to fly and move about as they pleased, it was really cool:.

We got to see an outdoor show of the baby beluga

and three active dolphins

along with this really awesome sea lion who was showing off for us in order to get some treats. There was a little girl sitting in front of the window with coffee and he kept putting his nose up to it and dancing around, hilarious!

Scuba Steve was also there:

and some really cool pics of plant life:

cute little poisonous tree frog, no big deal:

Creepy looking crocodile

along with many other unidentified animals:

haha, we had a great time!

Alright enough picture bombardment for one day! Have a great day!

Vancouver Day 1

2011-08-31T10:49:00.001-04:00

Hello friends! This is the start of our vacation recap, I won't do a post for each day (that would take way too long), but I do believe certain days deserve their own post.... especially the first one/two.

We left for the airport on Friday the 19th, for our flight at 5pm, getting there with plenty of time to doodle around, get iced coffee and what not. Two hours into our plane ride, all the flight attendants, started running up and down the aisles saying, " we need to collect all of the beverages and food we just gave out". When I say running I literally mean running. I don't know about you but I personally do not like to see flight attendants in a panic when we are thousands of feet in the air.

The captain comes on the speaker and says, " Sorry folks but we need to make an emergency landing in Charlotte, NC, it seems that some of the hydraulic systems on the plane are not working correctly"...

Me- Excuse me, did you say emergency landing?!?!?! Oy! *panic sets in*

Captain- " It should be a pretty normal landing, but you will see lots of emergency vehicles around the plane, but there is nothing to fear, that is a precautionary measure."

Me- *still panicking*

The captain wasn't lying tho, I don't know if he was just really good at what he does, or if it really wasn't that big of an issue, but the landing was relatively normal. He did have to apply the breaks a little more intensely than I would have liked but we landed safely and I could not wait to get off the plane.

Obviously we had a major problem, you see, we were on our way to Phoenix to catch a connecting flight to Vancouver... we obviously were not going to make that flight. After getting off the plane we ran to the ticking counter to see how we were going to get to Vancouver. The lady at the ticketing counter told us the next flight out to Phoenix was not until 9am the next morning, then we would be able to get on a flight to Vancouver at 8pm... No thanks, please keep looking....

She ended up finding us a flight to Toronto, where we would stay the night at a hotel, and fly out the next morning. Cool we will take that one thanks! I asked the lady at the counter if we had to pick up our bags when we got to Toronto or if they would just go straight to Vancouver and she told me we didn't have to worry about the bags, awesome!

*huh I thought we were going to Vancouver*

Well we got into Toronto around Midnight, and I suggested we go to the baggage claim to make sure our bags were on their way to Vancouver and not sitting there waiting... sure enough there they were, good thing I didn't listen to her... It took the Toronto US airways lady about 2 hours to get us a hotel voucher, and by then it was already 2am and we had to be back at the airport at 6.... In hindsight we probably should have just slept at the airport, but we went to the hotel anyway and got a couple of hours of sleep before heading back to the airport.

oh wait, but not before another fiasco, you see the shuttle from the hotel to the airport ran every 30 minutes, and when we got down to the lobby to get to the shuttle it was already full of pilots and flight attendants....AHHHH. We really thought we were going to miss our flight. Luckily I yelled at a few people, ( do not mess with me after only 3 hours of sleep, and an emergency landing), and we hopped into two taxis and made our flight!

*finally*

We picked up our car and headed over to the apartment we were staying in, in downtown Vancouver. It was a really nice day in Vancouver.

Pretty blue skies, and some cool buildings along the way.

We settled into our apartment, and headed over the Lion's Gate Bridge

to have some lunch:

The kabobs were pretty good here, not as delish as my mom's cooking but not bad for a restaurant.

After lunch we headed over to a shopping center that was having a really cool antique car show:

and grabbed a few food items at the Whole Foods, while gazing at the pretty flowers.

before heading to a family's friends house for the evening. A lot of people in West Vancouver live on a hilltop with amazing views of the city:

We took advantage of the nice day and the pretty views..

It was a very hectic start to our vacation, but now that we have been through it we can laugh about it!

Alright that is all for today, more tomorrow!

Doctor says...

2011-08-30T15:00:00.000-04:00

I had my second doctor's appointment today for the torn labrum in my shoulder and after 5 weeks of physical therapy, the doctor asked me if I was getting better (slightly), and if I could live with the pain I have now.. to which I replied absolutely not.

So I am currently scheduled for an MRI with Arthrography next Tuesday. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not really too excited about this procedure. I don't consider myself claustrophobic, but I feel like being in a scary metal tube for 30 minutes could change that. The are going to inject a contrast medium into the joint ( I feel like that is going to hurt), apparently my doctor said that they were going to be able to get a lot of fluid in my shoulder because there is a lot of empty space? (say what?) I don't have any idea what that means, but I'll go with it.

Good news is that, if I do have to have surgery the recovery time is only 4 months. And I have a feeling that is full recovery, which means I will (hopefully) be able to run my 10k in October, Woot (this is me not getting my hopes up), and go snowboarding this winter.

I will have more updates on that when I know more, next week.

For the next few days I will recap our Vancouver vacation, so stay tuned :)

Happy 2nd wedding Anniversary to us!

2011-08-29T22:18:00.001-04:00

Hello friends!

We have been on vacation in Vancouver for the past 10 days!

I am very behind on my blogging and commenting I promise I will catch up.

Today is our 2nd wedding anniversary!!!! We spent the entire day on a plane but we were together :)

We had a great vacation and over the next few days I will share our vacation with you all.

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow morning for my shoulder so we will see what happens. Wish me luck!

My first Digital SLR camera!

2011-08-17T19:34:00.001-04:00

Hello friends!

We finally bit the bullet and bought our family a nice camera! So of course all we did last night was take pictures of random things around the house:

My sister and her car... silly

me and the new camera!

My sister

The Love Knot ring I got my mom and sister for my dad's anniversary

I don't know if you can really take a nice picture of a Taco Bell Burrito

But I tried... and failed...

These are funny

Me too hot sauce.. me too.. well and my legs

She is even cuter in 12.2 MP!

Bat Dog!

Good Night!

Back to London

2011-08-16T21:04:00.026-04:00

My cousins left today :(.

It is always bittersweet when family comes to visit because you know eventually they will have to go back. When Ava or Farid stop being lazy and post pictures on facebook, I will put them up here. But for now here a few, they might be repeats:

Yup they are in the middle of Dicks sporting goods, playing baseball, totally normal.

Parsa wanted to play in the fountain, also normal.

We will miss them, but we miiigghhttt be going to London in December or January (maybe), we have to see how much tickets are, and if we can get that time off of work. Or maybe we will just make them come back here!

I am still trying to kick this summer cold, so I had some Tomato and Basil Bisque for lunch today:

I didn't have much of an appetite (weird I know), so most of this ended up down the sink (I hate wasting food). I just wasn't feeling it. However, when I got home from work I had

a cupcake from Lincoln and Tatum's birthday party.. It was calling to me, chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting AND my lucky number on it, I couldn't say no. It was amazing.

For dinner, I made Trader Joe's Orange Chicken with potstickers. YUM. Afterwards, my wonderful hubby and I watched Eat Pray Love. I had already read the book a while back and wanted to see how they interpreted it into a movie. Not too bad, I still obviously like the book better, but it was a cute movie. The book developed Liz's character better, and featured a lot more of her "inner voice". Something that I don't think movies will ever be able to portray correctly. I highly recommend the book, and if you want a cutesy movie, you should watch the movie too.

Alright well I am off to enjoy my Nyquil induced sleep! Here's to hoping my cold goes away soon! Cheers!

Weekend recap

2011-08-15T21:05:00.041-04:00

Hello friends!

Sorry I am a bit behind on my blogging, with my family being in town the weekends are usually jam packed so I don't have any time to blog. After staying up until 2am Friday night, it was really hard for us to get up Saturday morning but we did. We were up by 8am, a quick shower, then headed off to my mom's house so my cousins and sister could get their stuff ready to go to the waterpark.

My best friend Jamie from my old job was having a birthday party for her two kids and we were all really excited to go. We arrived at the park and realized that the water park area was meant for little kids, so my family decided to play a game of mini golf, while I hung out and chatted with Jamie and her family. It was so great to catch up with her, we don't get to see each other anymore because we live so far apart :(, but we have been and will continue to make an effort to hang out with each other more.

Jamie ordered a super cute cupcake cake for her kids:

and the cupcakes were really good! We sang happy birthday and gave them presents before the huge storm rolled in.

Later that night, we headed back to Ultra Zone and played Laser tag from 8pm to around midnight. There were some pretty interesting characters at the laser tag place. And by interesting I mean, there were a group of 30something year old guys there who were really (really) into laser tag, I have honestly never seen anything like it. After our 6th game we headed to Honey Pig! We can't get enough of this place! Our table looked exactly the same as it did last time, loads of people and loads of food.

Sunday we spent most of the day at the mall. My sister and I both needed to get new shoes for our cousin's wedding and Farid needed to get a suit.

and while we were shopping for shoes the boys hung out and chatted:

Oh ya, I totally forgot to mention Sunday morning before we headed over to my mom's house I went for a short run and it felt great! It was only a mile, but I didn't want to push it. I wanted to see how my shoulder would react to me running again. It felt great, no pain at all! I don't think I can take Ella out with me yet, but I will hopefully be able to go out and run again!

At the mall we had some delish Five Guys for "lunch" (at 4pm), so when we got back to my mom's house we just hung out and watched Aladdin! Then headed home for the night.

I woke up this morning with a stuffy nose and a sore throat :( What a horrible way to start a Monday! I've been chugging these all day:

They are actually pretty good. I hope the surge of Vitamin C will make this summer cold go away! At work today they brought in some bagels, and since I had already eating breakfast I decided to save mine for lunch:

An everything bagel with veggie cream cheese, delish!

My cousins leave to go back to London tomorrow, so we all went out to Moby Dick for dinner. The kabobs here are pretty good, obviously nothing like my mom makes them at home but good for a "fast food" place. I say fast food, because you order your meal at the counter and they call your number to pick it up, aka no waiters.

Alright I am beat, I am going to go to bed and try and fight off this cold! Have a great night!

Adorable Food

2011-08-12T23:59:00.000-04:00

Hello friends!

Today was family lunch Friday, and boy was it a fun one. We went to Be Right Burger (BRB) in Reston Town Center.

They use all natural organic beef, and it is so darn good.

I made my own burger, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, grilled onion and Chipotle Ketchup (yum).

Sorry for the bad pictures, it was a messy burger. This was probably one of the freshest burgers I have ever had (outside my homemade burgers).

Ok, I am about to show you something that is going to blow your mind... The MOST ADORABLE food you will ever see, in your whole life... get ready:

BAM! Its a smilie face potato, I have never seen one of these before, and it was sitting at the bottom of my fry container at BRB. AH, I didn't want to eat it, but (obviously) I did, and it was gooood.

Later, after work and dinner, we went bowling! We had such a great time, and I was really on my game!

It is insane how over-sized everything is in America, I mean just look at that soda. Don't worry all three of my cousins and my sister got one of those AND finished the entire thing (they didn't go to sleep for a long time). My cousins also had some pretty hilarious bowling names:

Don't ask about the Afghan camel, I have no idea why Kian wanted that name. I also managed to sneak this pic:

Nalini told me to tag it, and made sure I called her out on my blog :). I don't really know what Erik is doing in this picture tho, haha. After bowling, around 11pm we headed back to our house and played Apples to Apples (best game ever), until around 2 am before passing out!

Ahhh what a great day! I hope everyone else had a great day as well!

Dumbells

2011-08-11T23:51:00.019-04:00

I miss actually using these for their intended purpose:

which is to actually tone my muscles instead of physical therapy for an injury. You see the little 1 lbs pink weight at the top? Ya that is where I am....super frustrating considering I used to be around the 10-12 lbs range. Today at physical therapy I did a lot of stretching, we are trying to gain some range of motion back in my shoulder, Amy said it is going to take a long time to get back to where I was... But it's alright, I am strong, I can do this. I will go back to the gym and regain my normal routine. I am such a creature of habit, that I haven't been 100% myself because my routine is all wacky.

I joined Daily Mile so that I can keep track of my running/elliptical miles. I haven't recorded any workouts yet (because I haven't gone to the gym in over 2 weeks), but I will go... soon....But for now I am having loads of fun with my family :).

We went to Costal Flatts for dinner tonight, sorry no pictures, I was so hungry I couldn't even think straight. I had the Filet Mignon, it.was.amazing! Also the house chop salad that they have is really out of this world. I don't know why but I LOVE grilled corn on my salads, it gives the salad a bit of grilled sweetness that makes it a perfect summer salad. I cannot wait until tomorrow night, or really the entire weekend, we have a lot of fun stuff planned, buuutt you will have to wait to hear about them :)

Have a great night!

Do you like grilled corn on your salads?

Cousins are fun!

2011-08-10T23:45:00.015-04:00

Hello friends!

Today was quite a busy day! We don't have ~~any~~ much food in our house right now so I didn't make anything for lunch today. I did however take a quick 7 minute trip to Pica Deli for their yummy Pieta sandwich:

I really must get some Poppy seed dressing to put on my homemade sandwiches, that stuff is out of this world.

I had to leave work early today because we had a repair man come over to fix the door of our fridge, but I did get some work done while he was there. After he left, I took Ella and headed over to Fairfax Corner to meet my sister and cousins.

We had a good time.

I really love having my cousins here, and I wish that they all would just move to the states so we can all be together all the time. We decided to hit up Pinkberry (the first time for me), for some delish, non-fat fro-yo:

I had heard great things about this place and I had it on my 101 list, and let me tell you this place did not disappoint:

I even got the Original flavor for Ella and she couldn't get enough of it:

After our pinkberry adventure we headed back to my momma's house for some homemade pizza.

and because there are were so many of us we made five pizzas. Which in the end turned out to be one too many, because when we were all stuffed this little guy was left untouched:

The good thing, is we all love leftovers, so YUM :) Oh course after dinner, we all wanted to go back to Fairfax Corner (it was such a beautiful night). I wanted Erik to try Pinkberry (he loved it), and the boys wanted to run through the fountain:

All in all it's really been a fantastic day! I hope yours was great as well!

Technology hates me!

2011-08-09T22:06:00.022-04:00

This is what I spent most of my day doing at work:

My computer works fine, but there is some weirdo windows installation thing going on. This was a simple task, take out broken hard drive and replace with new one. It was anything but simple. Turns out, because I have two hard drives, things are a bit more complicated than they need to be. Perhaps this is why the company sends this:

you know just in case you have to take apart their machines 100 times in order for them to work correctly. So until further notice, when we decide we want to deal with it again, I will be working with my machine looking like this:

why yes those are the hard drives of my machine sitting on my desk. worthless... At least for now the computer works.

In other technology failure news, I had to cancel the order for my new digital SLR camera, oh ya did you know I ordered one of those... I called the company who was supposed to ship it out and they said they had no record of my order, say what? So I called the company who took my order and they said " oh sorry, for some reason the order did not go through, we will resubmit the order for you." To that I replied, " No sir please cancel my order, I do not want to deal with your faulty online ordering system." ( I should have added a nice GOOD DAY SIR, to it but I did not.)

It was just a rough day all around, because after my computer and camera issues, I headed to physical therapy. I really love my therapists, they are awesome at what they do and they are super nice... well they are nice until it comes time to stretch.... Amy wanted to see how much progress I have made over the last what is it now almost 4 weeks, so she pushed me a little today. And by a little I mean, I have taken 800 mg of IBprofen and am sitting with an ice pack on my shoulder.

I asked her whether she thought I would be better off just having the surgery or continuing with therapy, and she was just as up in the air on that as I am. I am just frustrated.. really really frustrated. I also have lost all motivation to go to the gym (any words of encouragement are greatly appreciated). Since my accident, I haven't been able to do the things I want to do, and it is driving me up the wall. Sorry had to vent.....

Luckily, my family is a great source of my happiness. So instead of going to the gym, we have been hanging out with my family a lot. We have a wicked fun weekend planned, and I just want it to be here already! I promise I will take more pictures...

I hope everyone had a great day!

Busy Bee

2011-08-08T23:33:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't blogged in a few days! I have been super busy! As I said on Friday my cousins from London are here and we have been running around with the family.

Saturday we spent most of the day at the airport, waiting for my cousins and my uncle (from Iran) to arrive. Once they were here we all went back to my mom's house and ate dinner, played video games, and watched movies. Pretty chill for the first night.

Sunday, Erik and I spent the entire day cleaning our house, inside and out. We have really been neglecting our yard this year and it need a ~~massive~~ little trim. We were completely exhausted so we simply stayed on the couch and went to bed early.

Today was my cousin Kian's birthday.

That is him in London, my other cousin Farid has yet to post the pictures from our night. After work we went over to my mom's house for some yummy chicken kabobs, and Baskin Robbin's Ice cream cake (whhhaaaat, so good). Afterwards, we all headed to Ultra Zone for two intense games of Laser Tag. There was a group of 14, let's call them ~~jerks~~ 20somethings, who had matching shirts that said "Winning" on the front of them. I'm not going to lie, they looked pretty intimidating, they had eye black too. But we soon found out they were all talk, similar to Charlie Sheen.. oopps did I say that.... They lost both of the games, and we won.. no CRUSHED them in the last one. aaahhh nothing like a good game of Laser Tag to get your blood flowing! It was a fantastic night! And now I am totally exhausted. I hope everyone had a great night!!

Retail Therapy

2011-08-05T21:17:00.002-04:00

Because I was down in the dumps yesterday about not be allowed to run anymore, I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and got this:

It matched my coffee mug:

cute huh? So what I love pink, deal with it.

I got up this morning, and instead of going to the gym, (which I can't motivate myself to do anymore because I am just so frustrated) and did the laundry and vacuumed the whole house... that has to count for something right?

Let's hope so.

Today was family lunch day!!!!!!!! We went to La Madeline at Reston Town Center today:

I got the Turkey Bistro "Smoked turkey, crisp bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, melted provolone and sun-dried tomato pesto* spread on a toasted sourdough roll".

Oh dear this.was.so.good.

sorry for the weird-o blurry pictures. The portions are perfect here, ok so I was stuffed after my sammich and still ate the chips (bad idea, but so delish). But it wasn't a heavy sandwich. We must go back, they have quite an extensive menu.

Two beautiful sisters, enjoying lunch on a pretty Friday afternoon. This is happiness.

Tomorrow my cousins from London are coming to stay with us for two weeks!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSS I cannot wait!

That is all for today. Have a great weekend!

I thought...

2011-08-04T21:17:00.000-04:00

my shoulder was healing... I also thought I could start running...

but I was wrong..... I felt great this morning, no more pain than usual, so I figured "hey I ran, and I feel good, I can keep training."

No. Wrong.

I went to physical therapy in a great mood, and told them I ran and my shoulder didn't hurt and I was happy! My physical therapist Amy was not feeling my enthusiasm, don't get me wrong, she is awesome, but she told me she didn't want me running.

She said she didn't want me making my shoulder worse than it already is, awesome. So that was it, my bubble was burst. I told her I wouldn't run until she told me it was okay to. I know she felt bad about it, but I understand why she told me to cool it.

On a happier note, my range of motion is getting better, but I still have quite a bit of pain so we aren't out of the woods yet. Okay enough shoulder talk for today.

Other than that it was a pretty great day, after work we went over to my mom's house to have dinner with my family. We had a blasty blast. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family that can always make me laugh! For dinner we had some delish stuffed veggies:

My mom makes stuffed peppers, tomatoes and eggplant. When I was little I looooved the eggplant and now I am really in a stuffed tomato craze. Each of them taste different but they are all oh so good. I will switch it up next time and have a stuffed eggplant.... mmmm... I will put the recipe for this up soon.

Alright I am off to watch Project Runway!!! I hope everyone had a great day!

Running Again!

2011-08-03T23:11:00.000-04:00

Hello friends!

I hope everyone is having a great day! At my physical therapy session today my therapist Melissa, was stretching my shoulder out and she told me that my range of motion in certain directions was improving! YES. This was great news! When I got back to my office I was talking to one of the owners of the company and he basically convinced me to start running again. My physical therapist had said that I could do anything as long as it didn't hurt my shoulder. Okie, awesome! So after work Lejia and I went to the gym.

To say I was scared to start running is an understatement. After going to Busch Garden's and walking around all day I was sore, I couldn't even imagine what running was going to feel like. But I did it! I ran the 2.25 miles I am supposed to be running this week. However, I looked like an idiot while doing it. I had my left arm tucked in, um just imagine what a turkey's wing looks like when you tie it up before putting it in the oven for thanksgiving. Honestly it was ridiculous, but I did it and it didn't hurt too much. I felt like I could have run further, but I started feeling a bit of pain in my shoulder so I stopped.

I have also been reading up on Labral Tears in the shoulder and have since found out that they do not heal themselves. Which I read as, I will have to have surgery soon. I also read that depending on the type of repair I can be fully healed in 3-4 months. Which probably means no 10k, no softball, no football...... BUT who knows, perhaps my body will super heal itself. I have my next doctors appointment at the end of August, so I will keep you updated.

Sorry that was a bit long winded, but I am very proud of myself for overcoming my fear so I had to share. Onto today's eats!

Lunch was another turkey and cheese wrap, yum! These are so good, I think I could have them everyday (other than my Friday lunch dates with my mommy and sissy).

For dinner tonight we had a group of 14 go to Honey Pig! Oh dear it was so delish. My cousin, Farid, had never been to a Korean restaurant (they don't have those in Iran), and he loved it! Sorry for the lack of before photo, we were too hungry and chatty to take a picture. But never fear:

ahh the aftermath. We had three tables FULL of yummy food! I love our friends! It's been a great day and I am off to bed now!

Crazy storm and a pizza

2011-08-02T21:46:00.043-04:00

Hello friends! I hope you all liked my post yesterday, sorry it was a bit long, but I wanted to highlight a lot of stuff. So let's catch up a bit shall we, yesterday for lunch I decided to try something new that we had gotten at Trader Joes this past weekend:

I am not really a big fan of dry, premade soups because they usually have a lot of sodium and really are not good for you, but its Trader Joes, so we decided to give it a try. I'm not going to lie and say this was amazing, because it was really just OK:

I was a bit disappointed that there was NO corn, please refer to the picture on the box, and the pictures I took:

Maybe the next one I have (we only bought two) I will eat at home, so I can add some spices and veggies, overall not bad for 99 cents.

We had a crazzzzy mega storm roll through later yesterday afternoon, which caused a lot of power outages and downed trees:

all those are from our neighbor's tree! CRAZY. Luckily Erik was home at the time so Ella had someone to keep her company as the storm rolled through. As we were starting to clean (I am not much help, seeing as how I can't lift heavy objects with my left arm), it started to rain again so we decided to go inside and make dinner and deal with the trees later.

We made pizza again tonight:

Erik is good at rolling out the dough, and he enjoys doing it! He did make a bit of a mess when he decided to throw the pizza dough in the air, haha too funny. Ella had no idea what was going on. Our pizza turned out delish, as usual:

Pesto, chicken sausage, tomatoes, onion :) I like this pesto pizza with the shredded chicken better , but this was still pretty good.

Today I had a farmer's market plum that my mom bought us this past weekend:

I don't think I have ever had a white plum before, but these are fab. I must buy them again next weekend. For lunch today, I made a turkey and cheese wrap:

This was make with humus, greens, tomato, Trader Joe's Honey Turkey breast, and colby jack cheese. I will be having another one of these tomorrow because they are so good, and so filling.

For dinner tonight we made some pre-marinated chicken from Trader Joe's, Sundried Tomato and basil, tater tots, veggies, and sweet potato fries:

This chicken was amazing, I think I can make the marinade myself but this was so perfect. The chicken was so juicy and flavorful. After dinner, Luke came over to help Erik clean up the trees from our backyard, while I took pictures:

haha. This is all I could do, I am frustrated that I can't help out, but I am trying to make the best of it. Alright well that is all for now.

Did you guys have crazy storms on Monday? What do you like to put on your pizzas?

Honeymoon/ 1 Year Anniversary!!

2011-08-02T07:34:00.056-04:00

I was looking through my computer's files and I found this blog which I NEVER posted!!! Enjoy, this was about our honeymoon/ 1 year anniversary on August 29, 2010:

Here it is, finally our honeymoon blog... almost a year later.. I warn you this will be LONG!

So as I said in the previous post, we left London very early in the morning to go to Dublin, Ireland. Once we arrived, we got our rental car and headed to the hotel. We saw a lot of pretty churches, and houses along the way.

After we checked in, we decided to go for a walk, there was no one out on the streets, since it was still around 8am. After we ate breakfast, we went back around the hotel, and decided to do our souvenir shopping. I think I had a little too much fun in shop! We walked to the Temple Bar, and saw more beautiful churches, and lots of people.

We had decided to walk to the Guinness Brewery (terrible idea). It was such a lot walk, but we had the opportunity to see a lot of the city. The Guinness brewery was AWESOME!

They had a really cool waterfall thing, right in the middle of the building. The main building where they held their self guided tours was in the shape of a pint glass, with the top of the glass had a room with a 360 view of Dublin.

We walked around all the different displays, learning about the deliciousness that is Guinness, until we got to the very top, where we enjoyed the view of Dublin with a nice tall glass of Guinness.

Both of our beers had a shamrock shape in the foam! I thought that was very noteworthy.

We took the bus back to our hotel area, and went to a little Italian restaurant called “Toto” for dinner, then headed back to the hotel, and literally passed out!

Day 2

We got up early the next morning, and went to a yummy bagel place called “The Bagel Bar” for breakfast, then hit the road to Kilkenny (which was our favorite city in Ireland). The drive down to Kilkenny, was so beautiful, perfect green landscape and wonderful weather. We took a really nice walk around town and went to our first castle (Kilkenny Castle), the inside of the castle was really pretty. We took a self guided tour of the castle, then walked around the gardens around the castle.

We then went to Esquires Coffee House, for a nice afternoon coffee break. Little side note, the coffee in all of Ireland was as thick as mud, delicious, but really strong. We loved it. After our coffee break we went to our second brewery of the trip, Smithwick’s.

The tour was really awesome, there was 6 of us on the tour, so the tour guide took his time and showed us everything, and shared so much of the history of not only the brewery, but of Kilkenny as well. We learned a lot of how the town came together to build the St. Francis Abby Church, when times were really hard financially, it was a real touching story. After our tour, we went to the underground bar they had at the brewery, where we learned how to pour the perfect Smithwick’s and drank!

After we finished our beer (which is now one of my favorites), we walked around the town a bit more, had dinner, then went to the hotel to crash again.

Day 3

Up early the next day, free breakfast at the hotel (lots of salted meats). Then we were off to Blarney Castle! Before we went into the castle we walked around “The Rock Close”, oh boy was it amazing. They had waterfalls, a rock shaped like a witch, and signs with stories on them.

We then ventured into Blarney Castle, this place was HUGE, and had the most fantastic views you will ever see.

We walked up some crazy skinny, spiral staircases, to get to the tippy top where the Blarney stone was.

And at the top we both kissed the Blarney stone, and boy was it scary. You were a million feet in the air, at the top of the castle, and they made you lay back and grab onto the bars and hang basically upside down. It was awesome haha.

After the Blarney castle we decided to go to the Jameson Distillary (Erik loves his whiskey)! We doodled around the gift shop while we waited for our tour to start.

The distillery was really cool, we learned it was an old distillery and that they had since built a new one just a few miles down the road, which was fully operational.

We went to the old barrel room where they had a display set up of all the different aged whiskies.

After the barrel room, Erik got to participate in a whiskey tasting, where they tried 3 different types. One was obviously Jameson, they had Johnny Walker, and Jack Daniels, Erik passed and got a certificate :)

Day 4

We spent our fourth day in Ireland driving around the Ring of Kerry. I cannot even begin to tell you how amazingly beautiful it was. We had to stop every 10 minutes to take a picture, stunning. I wish I had a better camera, because I don’t think my camera did this place justice. I will let the pictures do the talking for this section of the bloggy.

Day 5

We took a ferry across the ocean, to go to the Cliffs of Mohr. Here is what our navi showed us as we were going across the ferry.

On our drive over there, we got to experience, the crazy TINY Irish roads, we took a pretty cool video of Erik driving. Ill try and post it here, if not it will be on facebook.

I believe everyone should go to Ireland and go to the Cliffs of Mohr, OMG they are spectacular.

They do warn you, they are pretty scary.

Im also going to let the pictures tell you the story of how amazing the cliffs are.

After the cliffs we went out to dinner at a place called Pier Head, the food was really yummy, and it was right by the water.

Day 6

Our last day in Ireland, and it was our anniversary! We spent the day driving across the country, I believe it took us 3-4 hours. Here are some more amazing views:

So we got back into Dublin and our hotel was near a stadium, where they were playing some sport haha. The entire area was closed off, and there was a crazy amount of traffic. I had to get out of the car and go up to some cops in order to ask them if they would let us down the street where our hotel was. Needless to say it was a pain in the butt to get to our hotel, but it was worth it. We got a really sweet deal, for a king size suite, with bathrobes, and free drinks. We went to dinner at the hotel, and got some wine and celebrated our 1 year anniversary.

It was the perfect way to end the most amazing trip!

Busch Gardens!

2011-07-31T21:51:00.018-04:00

We went to Busch Gardens on Saturday with my sissy, cousin, and our friends Brandon and Erin! We had such a great time! I warn you there are a lot of pictures in this post haha, perhaps to make up for the lack of pictures the last few days.

Another one of my 101 in 1001 knocked off of my list. I took my sister to an amusement park, we had never gone together before.

hehe look at how cute they are :)

Also some more adorable people.. haha

I did not eat this giant cake, but I thought it deserved a picture, it was HUGE, please refer to the Elmo cupcake behind it for a size reference.

This is what I ate for lunch:

More cuteness:

After Busch Gardens we went to a place called Pierces Pit, most delish BBQ ever!

Aaaahhh what a great day, we topped off a great day by going to the movies and FINALLY watching part 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! O.M.G. was it awesome! I wouldn't mind going to see it again!

______________________________

Sunday morning we woke up and headed to Cracker Barrel for some yummy brunch. I failed to take pictures, because well I was hungry and I didn't think about it haha. We were so full the rest of the day that we didn't really want to eat a big meal for dinner, so when we went to Trader Joe's we picked up this little number:

It was the perfect amount of food for us! And it was really good. The spicy California Rolls with Veggie tempura were my fav. We will most definitely be getting this again!

Alright folks that is all for the weekend. We would like to thank Brandon and Erin for being such wonderful hosts :) We had a great time, and cannot wait to see you guys again!!!!!!

New Car and Lunch with my Family Friday

2011-07-29T19:32:00.038-04:00

Hello friends!

Sorry I have been really behind on blogging, things have been really busy over here! Let's start with Thursday:

I had physical therapy again on Thursday and just when I think I am improving, I realize that my range of motion is still horrible. I had one of the physical therapists stretch my shoulder out today, and she was trying to see what my limits were, and let me tell you I was in pain. I have therapy three times again next week because my shoulder is still very sensitive. I am hoping with another week of physical therapy I will start feeling a bit better.

On my way back from therapy I stopped at a little deli called Pica-deli for a sammich:

This was SO GOOD. There was a poppyseed dressing in there, that made this pita Amazing! I will most definitely be going there again!

After work we all headed over to the dealership to continue our car shopping adventure. I am happy to say that I found our new family car:

We really got an amazing deal on this car, and it is just so freaking cute. I really like the way BMW's drive so I couldn't stay away from them. I can't wait to drive it to work on Monday!

________________________________________

Friday:

YAY today was lunch date day! My entire family came to lunch today (minus Erik *sad*).

We took them to Vapianos! My mom and I really love this place!

Aren't my mommy and her sissy so cute :) eeeek I love it! Alright folks, we are getting ready to drive down to Richmond to say with our friends Brandon and Erin, so that we can all go to Busch Gardens on Saturday! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Car Shopping...

2011-07-27T22:32:00.001-04:00

Car shopping has got to be one of the most stressful forms of shopping ever! ugh. I can't decide what I want, and I feel like no matter what car I choose, a week later there will be a car on some dealership lot that will be a better deal than the one I bought. That being said, I went to a dealership and looked at a few cars, and couldn't find one I liked so the search continues.

Another problem I have is that I don't know when I will be getting my check from the insurance company so even if I did find one I liked, I can't really pull the trigger on it. Okay anyway on to food!

Has anyone ever tried these:

well don't. Ok well I didn't like them one bit, perhaps they would be better on top of some rice, but I tried them plain and yuck:

I was really hoping they were going to be good too. ah Oh well. I ate about a third of the package before throwing it out. I hate wasting food, but the smell of it was making me sick. I had this for lunch instead:

awesome! I know this is probably horribly bad for me, but I needed sugar and this is all we had other than coke and root beer (yuck).

Our friend Luke is in town for a wedding this weekend, so we took him out for a pre-birthday dinner. We got Pho! Duh. Instead of getting the chicken Pho I got the # 31 which was noodles, grilled chicken, cucumbers, carrots and lettuce.YUM. I think this is what I will be getting from now on. It.is.so.good. Sorry I didn't take a picture of it, but I am sure you will see it debut on here soon, (prob next week, Luke is obsessed with Pho).

Alright well, that is all for me today. Bedtime, more car shopping tomorrow!

Happy Birthday little Ella!

2011-07-27T07:00:00.000-04:00

This is our little Ella when she was just a few days old. O.M.G. I always forget how cute and little she was! When I go back through puppy pictures it really makes me want to get another puppy!

This is hands down one of my favorite pictures of her, haha. It showcases her personality so well. hehe. Today she turns 2, and I can't believe it! Time flies when you are having fun!

my my where does the time go? She is still just as sweet as she was when she was a shy little baby. AH I love her! hehe.

Yesterday, I found out my car was in fact totaled *sad*, so I went down to the body shop to get the last few things out of my car:

Oh man look at what they did to my poor baby. I like to remember her like this:

Stupid old lady. Please listen to me when I say, if you have a grandmother who is over the age of 70 and is STILL driving, please take her licence away! You might and probably will save someone's life! On my way back from the Auto Body place I stopped by Subway and grabbed a Spicy Italian:

yummy! After work, my sister and cousin and I went to the BMW dealership and test drove an X3. I loved the way it drove. It was very similar to my 325... I need to also test drive an MDX to see which one I like better. We decided to get an SUV, because we figured it would be more practical in the long run. Who knows I might change my mind before I actually buy the car. Man I forgot how stressful buying a car actually was.

Alright well that is all for now, I hope everyone has a great day!

Totaled!

2011-07-26T11:08:00.000-04:00

I received a call from the auto adjuster from my insurance company and he told me that my car is in fact totaled :( :( :(

Now starts the painful/exciting task of car shopping... eeek..... wish us luck!