The Oscar's

Anne Hathaway did a fabulous job hosting the Oscar's! I just love her. She is poised, funny, put together and stylish. I liked this dress best. Which one did you like?

Photos from Girls Weekend

We had a fabulous time at Rachel's cabin in Sun River this weekend. There were many feet of snow and lots of giggles throughout the weekend. I think the highlight was hot tubbing--running to and from the hot tub in our bikini's and bare feet in zero degree weather was quite the experience! Check out some pics of our fab trip. It's always so good to spend time with the girls.

Rachel after we finished the huge puzzle

All the girls in Bend. Me, Laura, Rachel, Kristy and Stacey

Puzzle/chit-chat time

The beautiful cabin

The master bedroom Stacey and I shared. I LOVE the decor

Girl’s Weekend!

me and my girlfriends..yes, you are not mistaken...I am the one in between twins!

This weekend I am escaping town for some much needed girl time! Sun River is calling our name. My girlfriends and I are heading to a friend’s cabin outside of Bend, Oregon. We are looking forward to good times in the hot tub, playing board games, gabbing for hours, doing impromptu photo shoots and cooking up some good food. While the others will probably enjoy some good wine, I’ll be sipping on my cranberry juice as part of week 3 of my detox. No biggie though—my friends are so fun I won’t even miss it. It’s expected to snow buckets in Sun River this weekend so we will be cozying up in the cabin but potentially heading outside to take some beautiful photos or go sledding. I think we will pass on the skiing/snowboarding this time but we won’t even miss it since it’s been so long since we all got together for a full weekend! I’m so excited! What are your plans this weekend?

we are always ready for a picture!

Fake-out treat!

Since I’ve been on this detox/cleanse this month, I have had virtually no sugar in my system. Meaning no treats whatsoever.  No cookies, no chocolate. No cheesecake, no latte’s. I’m surprised that I haven’t had more cravings, but it hasn’t been too difficult. Getting through the first few days is the toughest, and then its not that bad. The hard part is being tempted when around other people who are indulging. Luckily, a friend of mine introduced me to a delicious recipe that tastes sweet and like a treat, but in fact has no sugar and no gluten! It is cranberry almond biscotti, and I’m sharing the recipe with you on the off chance that you decide to do a cleanse like I am doing. Or, just make them anyway, because they are so yummy I will eat them when I am not on my detox as well!

Cranberry Almond Biscotti

1 1/4 cups Almond flour (you can get it in bulk at New Seasons)

1 Tbsp Arrowroot (you can get it in bulk at New Seasons)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp lemon zest

1/4 cup Agave nectar (also sold at New Seasons, and other stores)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup sliced almonds

Mix the almond flour, arrowroot and zest in a food processor. Mix in agave until it forms a ball. Add cranberries and sliced almonds and mix in with your hands. Remove and form a log with the dough on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Slice and serve! If you want it to be more crunchy like biscotti, bake again for 12 minutes after slicing. I preferred them softer, since it was more like a cookie! This makes about 14 slices of biscotti, but I doubled the recipe so I could give some to my boyfriend. He loved them.

Right after they came out of the oven

Sliced and ready to eat! yum!

Detox Diet

This month my boyfriend and I are doing a detox or “cleanse” of our bodies. Now, this is not one of those over the top “starve myself and lose a ton of weight” cleanses. This one is basically just eliminating foods from our diet that may have been clogging up our organs and may be unhealthy in the first place. This is the end of week 2 and I feel great! Here is the breakdown:

Week 1:  Eliminate caffeine, sugar and alcohol. Drink a lemon drink* each morning before you eat.

Week 2: Eliminate caffeine, sugar, alcohol, wheat and dairy. Drink a tincture before each meal (purchase at New Seasons)

Week 3: Eliminate caffeine, sugar, alcohol, wheat and dairy. Drink 4 ounces of raw cranberry juice per day (the no sugar added kind)

Week 4: Eliminate caffeine, sugar, alcohol, wheat and dairy. Drink a mixture of water and Himalayan sea salt daily.

*Lemon drink:

Juice of ½ lemon

1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

1 tsp. honey

Dash of cayenne pepper

The eliminated foods actually leave us with plenty of options. We have been eating a lot of fish, brown rice, beans, vegetables, quinoa, fruit and hummus with hemp chips (found at Trader Joe’s). Shane made Yumm! Bowls the other night, which is a replica of a dish from a restaurant that makes yummy bowls of rice, beans, avocado, tomato, salsa, cilantro and a special sauce that we purchased so he could make them. He even made me a bowl for my lunch the next day! 

The benefits: I feel so healthy. Fueling my body with only healthy choices has left me with plenty of energy even though I have not had caffeine for two weeks now. I don’t feel tired during the day at all. I never get that yucky “I’m SO full” feeling that I used to get after a big meal, even if I eat a big meal of the foods I mentioned above. I think the wheat and gluten were weighing me down before. No more food babies for me! I also have not had one stomach ache since I began, which is something that I used to get regularly and I suspected it was because of dairy. Once I begin to incorporate those foods back into my diet, I think my suspicions will be confirmed. However, now that I have been eating this way and love it, I will probably continue to limit wheat, dairy, sugar and caffeine.

Hello Day Off!

Today is President’s Day and I’ve taken the day off. Although my company has many corporate holidays, today is not one of them. I enjoyed MLK day off but to have today off I used a vacation day. Since my boyfriend has the day off, I thought it would be a great day for us to go golfing at a nice course. We are heading out to Pumpkin Ridge to play the Witch course. We’ll probably have lunch at the Clubhouse after 9 holes---they have an amazing menu at Pumpkin, where the LPGA has been held the past few years and where Tiger played in the Amateur Championship back in 1996.

We play Nike clubs and we both just got the new Method putter that came out last year. We are excited to try it out! He uses the VR Driver and I have the Machspeed Women’s High Launch driver with a pink shaft! My bag is super cute, too, and the houndstooth print matches my shoes and some of my golf apparel. See my new top below, which is going to be great for the cold weather today! Wish us luck!

Yummy breakfast

This weekend I made a delicious yet healthy breakfast.  

Here is the recipe!

Roasted Asparagus with creamy scrambled eggs on top (serves about 3 people)

½ lb asparagus

Olive oil

5 eggs

2 tbsp. almond milk

Salt & pepper

¼ cup chopped chives

Directions:

Wash asparagus and cut about 1 inch off the ends. Place on a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Place in the oven at 425 for about 30 minutes.

Wisk the eggs, almond milk and chives and place in pan on low-medium heat. Stir constantly, scraping the bottom of the pan. Scrambling the eggs slowly at this lower temperature produces creamy eggs.

Top the asaparagus with the creamy eggs and serve!

Wish I Was Here Wednesday

{Via}

I love playing along with Olivia over at For Me! I love Olivia's blog about her dreams, home fashion and her love story, and also her love of Etsy, which I have recently become obsessed with.

Where do you wish you were today? Write a blog post and play along!

Simple & Romantic

Last night's Valentine's Date was simple and romantic. Since we just recently returned from vacation we didn't do anything extra special as we have done in the past. Shane made the plans and left them as a surprise. I liked it that way--my day was filled with anticipation! He picked me up from my Northwest Portland apartment and drove us just a few minutes away to a Sushi place called Shigezo, where we were seated Japanese style on the floor! They had a table ready for us with our names on it and a curtain for privacy. The setting was quite romantic! We must have ordered enough sushi for a family of six.... and it was all delicious. I recommend the fried tofu, real crab role and salmon fried rice.

Sushi and fried tofu

Our personalized table



Shane peeking through the curtain



The roses and teddy that were sent to my office!

You can barely see my shiny diamond heart necklace that Shane gave me for Christmas..but its there! And it's gorgeous!


 

The Best Kind of Valentine

Being in my mid-twenties and the fact that I don't work with kids, I get very few real authentic Valentine cards each year. But this year I got the best one. My BFF handmade the below card with a sweet message on the backside. I love the cut-out dolls!

Did you get any sweet Valentine cards this year? Let me know!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Isn't this adorable?

My favorite part of today so far was when my BFF and I both texted each other to see if we had received each other's valentine's (She lives in Los Angelas) Neither of us had gotten them in the snail mail yet, but it was so lovely to know we had each thought of each other!

Shane made plans for us tonight but I am out of the loop. He knows I love surprises!

What are you doing to celebrate love today?

Highlights from Paradise

I promised photographs from our recent trip to Florida and our cruise to The Bahamas and Key West. Here are some of my favorites!

Southernmost point in Key West

Beautiful Birds of Paradise bouquet at the wedding

Shane with the bride, his beautiful cousin Katie

At the reception---a yacht sailing through Miami

Katie and Stefan

In Cococay, The Bahamas. SO. BEAUTIFUL.

Heaven.

Us with our ship, The Majesty of the Seas

On our snorkeling excursion

Beautiful Bahamas in the background

Pineapple cocktails by the pool

yum!

Rock climbing....on the ship!

In the dining hall

Our Cabana in Cococay. Most relaxing time of all!

Good Eats on the Cruise

There were SO many wonderful things about our vacation that I don't even know where to begin! The weather, the cruise ship,the food, the islands, the snorkeling, the sun bathing, the food, the people, did I mention the food? Royal Caribbean really knows how to feed you! We ate in the dining hall each evening and it was like going to a five star restaurant each night! My first post about our vacation will be the photos I took of our delicious food and desserts (the ones that I remembered to photograph!) I'll post some heavenly pictures of the beach and wedding we attended later!

 Crab Salad with strawberries

 Some kind of heavenly, rich chocolate cake

 Tiramisu

 Pineapple cocktails by the pool

 Eggs Benedict

 Strawberry Cheesecake

 Chocolate Crepes

 Chocolate Mousse

 Peach Cobbler

 Sea Bass (this was by far the best entree)

 Steak

Chilled Watermelon soup (they had a different fruit soup each night...delish!)

As you can probably guessed, we were well fed and probably gained a couple pounds! Now we are back to reality and have actually started a detox program where we eliminate sugar, alcohol, caffeine, dairy and wheat from our diet for one month. So far I have been doing it for 5 days and I feel fabulous. More pictures of the vacation to come!!

Blog Silence!

I'm sorry for the blog silence! I got back from my trip a couple of days ago and I am fighting jet lag as well as something called boat rock, which is where your body still feels like it's on a boat after getting off. Apparently my organs do not think we got off the cruise ship! Shane and I had an amazing time and I am so happy we got a wonderful week of vacation together. I will post some pics soon!