Running with the Roosters

Hey there, guys! Happy Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful, glorious weekend! Mine was awesome and I’d love to tell you all about it. Let’s jump right into a recap, shall we?

On Friday evening when I got home from work Fabio had a nice little surprise for me.

A rose!! I have no idea why he got it for me, but I thought it was the sweetest thing!! It was definitely a good way to start off the weekend What a sweety, that guy!

Not long after I arrived home, I had to quickly change and head back in to D.C. for a bachelorette party! As I mentioned on Friday, this was my first time at a bachelorette party and I wasn’t really sure what to expect. We were told to wear all black with turquoise accessories and to arrive at a French restaurant in Dupont Circle called Bistro Bistro by 8:15. Fabio was kind enough to drop me off and I arrived right on time. Yay!

When I got there I found the private party set up in the back of the room, and I was told that Grae (the bride to be) had no idea that we were all going to be there. What a fun surprise! We had to wait a little bit longer for everyone to get there, so in the meantime I chatted with the other girls who were there and sipped on a glass of white wine. I didn’t take any pictures of the dinner because I was busy talking to the girls and didn’t want to seem rude!

Eventually Grae arrived and was shocked to see us all there. The look on her face was priceless! Once she said hello to everyone, we ordered our food (I got a delicious spinach lasagna with zucchini), drank lots of wine, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner. It was great!

After dinner we headed to the hotel. The girls stayed at a hotel in Dupont (I forget the name- woops!) that was highly recommended for bachelorette parties. I was shocked that when I walked in the decor was full of red and black….e.g., sparkly red floors, black leather furniture, animal print accessories, etc. It was perfect for the party! (Very…er…swanky I guess you could call it lol)

We went up to Grae’s room where we made her open up all of her lingerie and guess who got her which item. We also enjoyed some cake and decked her out in all her bachelorette gear!

Her ensemble included a sash, boa, crown, and scavenger hunt list! The list included funny tasks that Grae had to complete such as, “find the oldest guy in the bar and dance with him,” “dance on top of a bar,” “take a picture with a cop,” etc. The list was so funny!

After we were done with gifts we headed out into Dupont for the night! We wound up going to Mad Hatter, Cafe Citron, and Front Page. All of the bars were really fun and Grae managed to complete a lot of items on her list!

Here she is dancing on a bar!! Haha!

Around 3:00 a.m. I decided to call it a night and I shared a cab back to Arlington with Jenna, one of Fabio’s other coworkers who I bonded with throughout the night. It was a fun evening but I was so happy to be home!

The next morning I woke up early and immediately got to work being productive. There were about a million things I wanted to get done including vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry, dropping some clothes off at Goodwill, etc. Before I got to any of that though, I turned on Dogs 101 (as I’ve mentioned, it’s a Saturday morning routine lol) and whipped up some pumpkin biscuits! I followed this recipe but subbed pumpkin for the sweet potato.

They turned out delicious (probably because there was so much butter in them haha) and Fabio and I each had one with an egg, an egg white, and a slice of turkey bacon. Awesome breakfast!! I definitely recommend this recipe

After breakfast we completed the aforementioned errands and then took Jack to the dog park! His toy of choice this time was a giant purple ball. That silly dog…he doesn’t even play with it; he just shows it off to the other dogs lol.

The Fabio and I stopped over at a mattress store to try out a few mattresses. The mattress we have now is one that I bought used from a girl in college. It was perfectly fine for living in a college house, but now that we have been sleeping on it for 2.5 years, Fabio and I were thinking it was time for an upgrade. Plus, we saw this convenient deal on Living Social:

A queen size memory foam mattress for only $400?? You’ve got to be kidding! Especially since its full price online is $1,600.

Although Fabio and I thought it was a great deal, we wanted to do our research first. We looked online to read ratings of the mattress and stopped by the mattress store to explore a few other options. After looking around for a while and talking to the sales guy, it became clear that even with their Veteran’s Day sale, we wouldn’t be able to buy any queen-size mattress for that price, and definitely not a memory foam one. What a bargain!

So, ultimately we decided to take the plunge!! We bought the memory foam mattress! Yay!!

This is the first major purchase that Fabio and I have ever split, but I think it was a good choice! We are so excited for it to arrive (with free shipping!) in a few weeks

After running all those errands, we went home to relax before going back out for the night. We headed into Fairfax for one of our friend’s birthdays and we had some fun playing beer olympics!

We had to choose team names so Fabio and I chose Jack Attack (of course!) lol.

Some of the games we played included beer pong, civil war, flip cup, and you got served, which were all my favorites in college. So much fun! (Note: Fabio only played a couple of games and then played with water since he was driving us home. I was more than happy to drink his share haha).

At the end of the tournament we wound up getting second place in double overtime!! It was sad that we didn’t win, but we had a great time

We eventually drove home, and crashed. We were exhausted!

On Sunday morning I went for a quick two mile run since the weather was so beautiful.

I felt like I could have kept running forever, but Jack was with me and he usually tires out around 2 miles. Oh well, next time!

When I got back inside, I showered up and then Fabio and I had a repeat breakfast from Saturday. The biscuits were still so good!

Then we headed out to the store so I could get a few ingredients for dinner. On the menu: roasted chicken and vegetables! I had never cooked a chicken before and was quite excited and nervous to try it out.

On the way to the store we made a quick pit stop at the other dog park so Jack could play around.

Spoiled? Jack? Noooo…. haha

We tried to keep him from going in the water, but he was pathetically staring at all the other dogs swimming around so we gave in eventually. Woops. At least it was warm out and we had a towel in the car

Jack is such a water dog. This is the only picture I could snap of him on land because the rest of the time he was swimming around with another black lab What cuties!

Eventually we left, went to the grocery store, and headed back home! The rest of the afternoon was filled with football watching, book reading, and relaxing

While I cooked the chicken Fabio hung up some indoor Christmas lights for us. I just love having them up in the winter. It gives my apartment such a festive atmosphere.

Soon the chicken was ready!!

It was actually really easy and it came out delicious!! Plus now Fabio and I have plenty of leftovers to have for lunch throughout the week. Win!!

Fabio wasn’t really sure how to carve the chicken, so he watched a quick YouTube video demonstration haha!!

He did a great job

My plate:

It was safe to say this dinner was a success!!

After we ate we spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

Phew! Sorry for such a long recap. I guess I had a busy weekend!

Question of the day: Have you ever roasted a chicken? How about a turkey?

I was scared to roast this chicken but it was actually really easy. The worst part was taking out the giblets from the “cavity.” Gross!!

Warning: If you don’t like pictures of bugs or snakes, only read the first half of this post!

Good evening, everyone! I hope your weekend was fabulous! Mine was excellent; the weather was perfect and I had lots of fun spending time outdoors. And although I’m sad the weekend is over, I’m looking forward to this week because on Friday I will be heading down to the beach with some girlfriends. We have been planning this trip for months and I can’t believe it’s almost here already! Anyway, here’s a quick recap of my weekend…

On Friday, I mentioned that my friends and I were planning to go to Top Golf, a bar/driving range near us. We had never been before, but we heard from friends that it’s really fun. We are always looking for new things to do in our area, so we couldn’t wait to try it out!

When we arrived on Friday evening, the wait was pretty long (about an hour) so we went ahead and ordered some beers and food. I got a chicken panini with sweet potato fries which were delicious. The waitress also recommended a lemony beer to us, which we happily accepted. Later we realized she only recommended it to us because it was more expensive, so we stuck to Bud Lights after that. It was pretty tasty though!
Once we finished eating, it was our turn to golf! We headed upstairs to our two open bays (one for the boys and one for the girls) and set up our balls. Each player had twenty balls registered to their name. The balls had microchips in them so you could see where they landed in comparison with the other players’ balls. I was the worst on our team (surprised? Me neither), but luckily none of us were too competitive and we all just wanted to have fun. I would definitely go again!

Hanging out with Britt at Top Golf

After Top Golf we debated going out, but realized it was almost midnight! Time flies when you’re…golfing? Haha.

The next day Fabio and I had another Shakeology shake for breakfast (which finished off my sample wahh) and headed over to Great Falls Park with Jack for a long hike. We wound up going about 5.5 miles by the time we were finished and we were pooped! We did see a lot of wildlife on our hike including (you guessed it) birds, turtles, and snakes…oh my!

The snake was humongous! Probably at least four feet long if you stretch it out (I actually think it was longer but Fabio says I am exaggerating. Hmm). Now, I am not a snake person at all, so Fabio was shocked when I got up really close to it to take a few pictures. He and Jack (wisely) kept their distance.

Don’t worry, this was zoomed in. I wasn’t that close to the snake (mom you can calm down now…).

We also saw the dam that provides the water supply for most of the Maryland, DC, and Virginia area.

It was pretty cool. There were some other really cools falls in the park, but we must have chosen the trail that didn’t pass them. Once we got back to our car I wanted to keep walking just a little further to see if we could see the really big falls, but Fabio and Jack were exhausted.

Here are some more pictures from our hike!

The rest of our weekend was pretty relaxing. I thought I had to babysit on Saturday night, but at the last minute the family called to cancel (yay!) so Fabio, Jack, and I walked up the street to have dinner at Fireworks.

We split a small Margherita pizza and a small pizza topped with tomatoes, spinach, garlic, and balsamic glaze. I also had a fruity sangria to drink! Yum!

When we arrived home later we watched The Vow, which I enjoyed but not as much as I thought I would. Sunday was another beautiful day and we spent the entire day outside. Jack even got to go to his favorite dog park in the morning, where he swam with about 7 other black labs in a group that everyone was calling, “the black lab possy.”

Can you spot Jack?? He’s the second from the left

For dinner we had a barbeque with some friends. We had chicken drumsticks, broccoli, and brussels sprouts. For dessert took a walk to grab some FroYo (I opted for plain topped with mango, blueberries, and strawberries) and then we hung out on the couch blogging (me), watching baseball (Fabio), and sleeping (Jack). Perfect end to a perfect weekend!

How was everyone else’s weekend? Did you see any interesting wild life? I love all animals and am not too afraid of creepy crawly things…but snakes do make my skin crawl. Blech!