First Day Of Second Grade

Today was the first day back to school, she was so stoked this morning, which was awesome :) Getting to see friends from kindergarten and first grade, having a classroom on the second floor, new teacher... All sorts of reason for excitement!
We had dinner with friends tonight, who have a beautiful garden.. FULL of basil! They were nice enough to send a ton home with us. Now I have a sort of basil bouquet on my kitchen table filling my house with its amazing aroma. I decided to make blueberry basil milkshakes tonight with some of it, I had one at a restaurant once and it was amazing. My version came out pretty great too ;) milk, vanilla ice cream, malt, frozen blueberries and of course the fresh basil.. I will definitely be making more :)

Back To School Banana Bread

Second grade starts tomorrow!!! I can hardly believe it, she's growing up so fast. Even looking at pictures from last year to this year, the difference is shocking. Its a great reminder to take as many photos as possible though, and try to capture all the moments I can. She's so excited to be back in school though, my little social butterfly :)
Today she baked a loaf of fresh banana bread so she'll have a yummy breakfast for her first day back. Tonight we had chicken and sausage chili from the crock pot. I seriously think the crock pot is becoming my new favorite kitchen appliance ;). It is so convenient and the meat is always so tender and flavorful. :)

Camping in the Rain

So we went camping Monday up at Jefferson Lake. Its gorgeous up there.. Except that it rained the whole afternoon and most of the night :-/. It was freezing cold and I was way underprepared. Coming home to not having to cook was so nice though. I just pulled one of the meals out of the freezer and threw it in the crockpot :) as much as I love cooking and being in the kitchen playing with different foods and new recipes the convenience factor of pre-preparing meals is awesome. Last night it was potato soup and tonight chicken and dumplings; both of which came out deliciously :)

Planning Ahead

So there's a ton of crock pot recipes to be found on pinterest, which is awesome because with out air conditioning the last thing you want to do in the summer time is turn your oven on, and the crock pot offers a nice alternative to stove top cooking. So in looking at these recipes on pinterest I came across a blogger who prepares meals ahead of time and freezes them so all she has to do is pull out a bag and throw it in the crock pot and dinner is done.. Which is a fantastic idea. Plus, you don't get all the chemicals and preservatives that are in the pre-packaged meals in the freezer section of the grocery store. So yesterday I got super motivated and searched recipes online, went grocery shopping, then came home and spent 4 hours in the kitchen prepping meals for *2* whole weeks. Today I pulled the first bag out which was steak fajitas, and it came out pretty good :).

Older me.. New shoes :)

I was given a gift card for a sporting goods store for my birthday to get a new pair of running shoes. So truthfully, I was kind of stoked because I've actually never been to a sporting goods store to get a nice pair of running shoes. In the past I've just gotten whatever nikes or new balance shoes I could find at Ross for relatively inexpensive, because I'm kinda cheap and couldn't really justify spending big dough on shoes that would just be used for running and probably get all dirty anyway. Trying on different styles of shoes was really nice, the differences between models are really noticeable. I wound up deciding on the nike free run +3. They're super fun neon orange.. Like so bright, they could glow in the dark (not really ;), and they're a minimalist shoe which means they're designed to be close to barefoot running. Which is pretty cool, I think, because although I love a cute pair of heels, I prefer to be barefoot whenever possible (yeah I'm a Florida girl ;). Anyway, the other cool thing about these guys is the Nike + app, which was preloaded on my iPhone but I'm not to tech savvy and didn't really know what it was, so for an extra $19 I got this little electronic insert thing that fits into the sole of your shoe and syncs wirelessly with your iPhone or iPod and keeps track of distance, calories burned, etc. VERY COOL.
So, hopefully with new shoes and the impending big 3-0 in a couple years I can find new motivation to get out there and run as often as possible to stay in shape ;)
Off to make another delicious salad for dinner then hit the pavement for an evening run :)