2009 March 22

One of the great things I like about Derek is he believes in getting the most out of his weekend and spending as much time outside during a beautiful weekend as I do! He also doesn’t mind my obsession with exercising and grocery stores.

Today we decided to go outside and explore all things Tampa. First up was the Tampa Bay Trail for a little roller blading action.

Safety first.. Helmet check!

And we’re off!!!

Actually I have very cheap ($20) roller blades from Target so trust me I did not get anywhere very fast. We did a nice and easy 4 miles and just enjoyed the trail and the beautiful day.

The Tampa Bay Trail was a gorgeous trail with canopy trees that ran a good distance from the road. There were even great trail passes that went over the major roads, so I had no fear of crossing a busy intersection.

And they had COLD water stations along the way.

I give this trail an A+ and can not wait to explore it further in the future.

I build up a little appetite on the trail, so enjoyed a Simple Harvest Trail Mix Bar while we made a pit stop at Derek’s apartment to change and pick Abbie up.

Out next stop on our Tampa exploration involved an Organic Farmer’s Market I had googled during the week.

The Sweetberry Organic Farm is a 100% organic farm that opens up to the public on Sunday for a weekly Farmer’s Market.

I have to say I wasn’t very impressed. It was a little pricey $$ for my taste and very Peace, Love and Rock n Roll (If you catch my drift). But it was fun to walk around and explore. They even had a stage with Guitar Hippies singing about saving the earth. Rock on Hippie Dudes!

After the farmer’s market it was time for lunch which led us to exploration stop # 3 – a new place for lunch.

We headed to Hyde Park and randomly selected Daily Eats for our dining experience.

The menu had a big breakfast base, which I had been all for if I hadn’t had a big breakfast earlier and was in the mood for something lunchy. I decided to pick on of their bowl options.

I ordered the BBQ Bowl which had Rice, Lettuce, Chicken, Mango, Red Onion, Tomatoes, and Carmelized Onions topped with a Mango BBQ Sauce. Yum!

I really enjoyed the BBQ sauce with the Mango, it gave the BBQ sauce the additional sweet flavor I look for in a dish like this. The bowl had a lettuce base which made it almost like a salad. It was very yummy and the perfect lunch portion. I happily finished the whole bowl.

With our bellies semi full of lunch we Derek and I left the car parked and explored Hyde Park on foot. We ended up at Greenwise where we found out Sunday is ultimate sample day. Even after a full lunch I found it hard to control myself to not sample every delicious piece of food they offered. I stuffed myself on various samples of Cookies, Pizza, Cheese, Wine, and Bread. Needless to say I felt very gluttoness afterwards and stuffed to the gils. I really need to learn self control around samples! Derek was just as naughty as me and we each managed to some how waddle back to the car.

I did manage to make it out of Greenwise with a couple of treats.

I fully intend to enjoy this beautiful pretzel for lunch tomorrow.

As much I enjoyed exploring Tampa the day was getting late and I have work in the morning. I said my good byes and made the hour and a half drive back to O-Town.

I had missed my 30 Day Shred yesterday, so as soon as I walked in the door I was determined to shred it at level 2. I really got into it and even had my downstairs neighbor knock on my door and ask me if I was pounding the floor because it was really loud in her apartment..lol.. That’s the first time I got repremanded for exercising to hard.

Finally around 8:00 I became hungry again and heated up some left over Nutty Vanilla Sweet Potato + Kale Soup with Buffalo Tofu.

Then I could not resist the two other goodies I managed to pick up at Greenwise today.

A Bite Size Cannoli and Strawberry Tart. Their dessert section is like heaven its hard to resist! I wanted to buy one of Jenna’s Vegan Cupcakes but they didn’t have any .

Its been a very filling day and I need to rest up from the exhausting weekend. Another great weekend to kick off another long week at work. Joy!

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Good Sunday Morning!

I attempted really hard to sleep in this morning, but Abbie is set on a 5:30am schedule and pleaded to be let out at that time. She let me sleep 2 hours longer after that, but then it was a take no prisoners operation to get me out of bed at 7:30. Oh well, at least I slept in later then I normally would any other day of the week.

In an effort to stretch some tight muscles from my 12 miles run yesterday I woke up to Gentle Hatha Yoga #2 on yogadownload.com. It was very refreshing and just as gentle as they claimed. I didn’t really want to put too much effort into anything this morning so it was the perfect download.

After my gentle yoga I decided to give Polly’s new Yoga for Triathletes a try. I loved her ab work in the beginning, I am going to have to try those moves on my own! It was another great yoga session with Polly.

Derek and I have been throwing around ideas for breakfast and he mentioned having multi-grin Eggos and strawberries that we could eat. Not one to just have Eggos with strawberries (what’s the fun in that?) I asked him if he had eggs and said we could make waffle sandwiches. He gave a funny face and said “Come again?” I then told him we needed to expand his horizons with this breakfast treat.

While cooking up the brekkie we snacked on this big bowl of fruit salad.

You can learn so much from people and their breakfast choices. Derek had never thought to mix eggs with waffle, fruit with eggs or even had made homemade waffles before (Eggos do not count as homemade waffles people). I, of course, grew up with a Dad who would always top his homemade belgium waffle with a fried egg and I always took it a step further by adding fruit on top of the combo as well. Trust me the combo works!

Derek did not have Strawberry Preserves so I substituted with Fresh Strawberries and a bit of Grape Jelly in my Sammy.

I really enjoyed the fresh strawberries in the combo as opposed to just the preserves. It was very fresh and really good.

On the side I had even more fruit salad.

I could easily eat my weight in fruit salad if given the opportunity.

So what did Derek think of the new sandwich? He liked it! He said he would never think to make a waffle egg sandwich, but he would be happy to have it again. I told him he can liven it up with syrup, bacon and that he really needed to invest in strawberry preserves because grape jelly just isn’t the same.

Now we’re heading out to a trail to Roller Blade. Should be fun!

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