"I'm gonna pump YOU up!"

This weekend we ventured to Columbus, Ohio to check out the Arnold Classic Sports and Fitness Expo. The expo is centered around different types of sports. They had areas for gymnastics, kickboxing, karate, boxing, board breaking (not sure of the official name), figure competition, and strength competitions. And in the middle of all that there were many vendor booth set up to try sample of various fitness nutrition products.

Tosca Reno, the queen of Clean Eating, was there...

Some guys got ego boost having the photo taken with girls in tiny outfits...

Other guys got ego boosts by having their "before" picture on their shirt...

Matt got his picture with Lee Haney- an 8 time Mr. Olympia...

I got to ease sore quads with "The Stick"...

Jay Cutler, a former Mr. Olympia...

After morning of walking all the isles we decide to take a break and head outside in search of a great place to eat lunch. We came across Betty's, and since we were sitting at the bar decided to start our meal with a drink.

I decided to throw caution into the wind and got a "PB & J" Cocktail. It contained peanut-infused Finlandia vodka, grape simple syrup, and grape soda. My taste buds were so confused, it was definitely an interesting drink!

The Surly Girl turkey wrap was full of flavor (and Gorgonzola cheese)...

A tasty meatloaf sandwich for my husband...

During lunch our two women next to us mentioned "interesting" ice cream at Jeni's- including chipolte ice cream- so we had to give it a shot. I did try a taste of the chipolte which was another taste bud confuser, but in the end I settle on a very chocolate choice.

The husband and I share a two scooper, one for him and one for me...

After all the eating we headed back to the fitness expo to make another round through the isles, and we came across Kai Green another professional body builder- the line for his autograph was quite long so we just snapped a picture.

Do you recognize this man? Think about it, think of the color green, shirts ripping. Did you get it yet?
If you guessed Lou Ferrigno, the original Hulk, you were right!

After visiting passing through the booths we decided to check out some of the actual sports going on around us including youth boxing. It was quite intense, and there was even a grandma judge that seemed to really be enjoying the match.

Men and women chopped their way through stacks of boards, quite impressive...

After a fun day of walking through crowds we met up with a friend for dinner at Bodega, starting things off with a round of beers. They had my favorite- Youngs Double Chocolate Stout- so I couldn't say no! We also ordered up a cheese plate...

And with cheese we also needed a hummus plate...

We spent a couple hours eating, drinking and catching up- it was a really great end to the day!

Does that sound like an interesting weekend? Well maybe it isn't your cup of tea, but it definitely worked for us. Plus we got some free stuff and we purchased a few things, which I'll tell you more about tomorrow.

What was the best thing you ate all weekend?

For me it was a tie between the Surly Girl wrap and Jeni's ice cream....

Weekend Away...

This weekend my husband and I went on a road trip to check out the Arnold Classic Expo in Columbus, Ohio...

We drove...


We viewed...


We enjoyed a few beers with a friend...


More details to come tomorrow, but for now I must sleep!

ABCs of me...

Everyone knows their ABCs, but do you know the ABCs of me???? I don't normally participate in these "surveys", but I thought it made for a fun way of letting you know more about me! I saw Natalia over at A Side of Simple, and a few other bloggers so I figured I'd just go for it.

A = Age: Just around the corner from 30...I can see it coming at me fast!

B = Bed size: Queen, our King took up to much room!


C = Chore you dislike: Cleaning the bathroom.

D = Dogs: We had dogs growing up, but we don't have one now because I feel like we are on the road too much!

E= Essential start to your day: Hitting the snooze button...at least twice!

F = Favorite color: Green, any shade.

G = Gold or silver: Silver, but I will wear both together too.

H = Height: 6', and with heels I'm really up there.


I = Instruments you play(ed): The flute, but I definitely I don't remember how to play anymore.

J = Job title: Wife. Friend. Personal planner.


K = Kids: None yet, but someone day I hope to hold the job title of mommy.

L = Live: Buffalo, NY

M = Mom’s name: The Lady that doesn't stop...or Bev.

N = Nicknames: Jen to most, but Aunt Jenny to my niece and nephew.


O = Overnight hospital stays: I don't remember any, so I guess 29 years ago when I was born.

P = Pet peeves: People that say "good morning" and "good night" to Facebook, I just find it odd.

Q = Quote from a movie: 'Nobody puts baby in a corner'- Dirty Dancing; I couldn't come up with anything else and I recently came across the movie on TV.

R = Righty or lefty: Righty

S = Siblings: One older brother, one younger sister, and one (much) younger brother.

T = Time you wake up: Typically 6am on the weekdays and 7am on weekends. Gone are the days of sleeping until noon, I feel like it wastes a day.

U = Underwear: Yes, please.

V = Vegetables you don’t like: I used have a long list, but now I'm pretty willing to try anything and I usually end up liking it!


W = What makes you run late: My husband! Just joking...

X = X-rays you’ve had: I get annual x-rays of my teeth from my dentist, then all the sudden I need fillings- it's my favorite thing! (again I joke)

Y = Yummy food you make: I'd say most anything in the dessert department, but especially anything in chocolate chip cookie family.


Z = Zoo animal favorites: Elephants, or maybe the Gorillas I could just watch they play all day!

Any there you have it! That's small glimpse into the ABCs of me...

Anyone have exciting plans for this weekend???

Social Butterfly...

Matt's birthday weekend really brought out the social butterfly in us both!

Friday I organized a bunch of Matt's friends to meet at a bar, which I brought him to. He was so surprised to see everyone gathered together and we had a great time!

Most of Saturday was spent with our friend Sabrina. I chatted with her in the warm house, while Matt took over her garage to do oil changes on both of our cars. It was probably about 10 degrees on Saturday, but luckily Matt had a friend with a propane powered heater to take the chill off.

After hanging out with Sabrina all day we decided to visit with two of our other friends, Jon & Emily, for some game night fun. We played Sorry!, Uno, and Crowns- it was quite a fun night. We were having so much fun it was 1am before I knew it, and I'm normally in bed by 10pm.

Sunday was equally as social with church in the morning and then hanging out with our friends, Kristy & Shawn, unexpectedly when Matt returned the propane heater. They have a cute little 1 year old that warmed up to us quickly and we just couldn't leave the cute little guy. By the time we made it home it was 5pm, and the preparations for the week were taken care of.

Coming tomorrow...Cookbook Challenge #3. It was a last minute decision, but it smells so yummy!

How was your weekend? Did you make any yummy treats?


Pretty pretty please don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less then, perfect
Pretty pretty please if you ever ever feel
Like you're nothing you're perfect, to me
-Perfect, Pink

Lazy Sunday Morning...

Yesterday was a productive day of grocery/Christmas shopping...



Left side is a bunch of baking related groceries, while on the right are the typical groceries we consume during the week. And then I did my first cookie test, a new cookie with cranberries and white chocolate. The verdict was positive but it needs a little bit of work according to the husband. (Although he hasn't stopped eating them yet, so they aren't too bad.)


After a long day of working around the house we went out for the evening to enjoy a movie and dinner. We had a nice relaxing time, sometimes it is fun to get out of the house.

This morning we continued out laziness with a late breakfast of pancakes. Matt made me chocolate chip pancakes, and he went for strawberry topped pancakes.




And now that we've spent all morning lounging around we need to get to work around here because we have another outing planned for tonight! Bowling is $1 per game on Sunday so we'll be meeting our friends for some fun.

Have a good day!

Whirldwind Weekend...

It was another weekend of nice weather here in Buffalo, and yes, temperatures in the mid 40's still count as warm at this time of year. We got lots accomplished around our house and also helped out a friend.

Saturday we (read: mostly Matt) installed a garage door opener for one of our good friends, which took a while, but was very successful. It took about about six hours to get it perfectly up and running - pretty good for the first time. I think Matt is secretly hoping he might be able to use our friends garage to "tinker" with his car this winter, since we don't have one (a garage.)

After wrapping up the installation, we decided a quiet movie night at home was in order, so we headed to Wegmans for dinner and a movie. Matt got a sub, while I headed to the salad bar. At first I had a pretty lame looking salad, but I decided to think "out of the box" and created this:



It contained mixed greens, chopped eggs, onions, carrots, bean salad, tabbouleh, and then I grabbed a couple piece of Chinese Lemon Pepper Chicken (because you can't be healthy all the time!). last stop was tot the Redbox. We had a nice, relaxing night.

Sunday was another nice weather day so we worked around our house, and again we used the divide and conquer method.

Matt's accomplishments:
-insulating our pipes in the basement
-blanketing the hot water heater
-installing a storm door
-beginning to frame out the exterior of our new door

I accomplished:
-grocery shopping
-baking chicken
-baking brownies
-making spiced nuts
-baking cookies (Yum!)
-packing lunches
-making sweet potato gnocchi!



The house smells very yummy right now! jealous aren't you?!

Wish Granted...

Everyone that requested their car be washed- wish granted! But can we wait until the weather is warm again???

I got quite the workout washing our cars last weekend! I was basically doing squats for two-three hours straight, I could barely walk on Saturday evening. Later that night we went out to meet some friends at the bar, we played a few trivia rounds with the local bartender, then when we left my quads were so tight I had to lift my legs into the car! It was quite pathetic, and funny at the same time.

Don't worry I recovered by going bowling Sunday night. I'm not your typical bowler, I don't have any "proper" form. I basic lunge and warrior pose my way around the lanes, but it helped me to loosen up and stretch out my legs. Luckily I had no problem this week getting my all my workouts and cardio in, and now that it's Thursday night I'm looking forward to the weekend. One more day of work!

There's going to be lots of baking going on in my kitchen this weekend, I just have to resist the urge to taste test everything. Wish me luck!

Beer and Football....

Since my last post we have been very busy folks. Obviously we had our normal weekly activities, but we also took on the challenge of creating a cake for my brother-in-law's 30th birthday. And in our little world we don't just make a simple rectangle or circle, we go big or we (don't) go home! Which means if we are going to drive 2.5 hours one way to deliver a cake, it better be worth the trip.

My BIL, Paul, is a big football fan and isn't one to turn down an ice cold beer so we decided to use that for a theme. After many hours of decorating, we had a six pack of beer sitting on the 30 yard line- which was so appropriate. Check it out!





My hubby is responsible for the decorating of the cakes, and he does a great job and takes it very seriously. I'm responsible for the baking and gathering materials. It is a long process to create a cake, but it is worth it when the recipient really enjoys the creation!

We only spent the day at home, then headed back to Buffalo so that we'd still have Sunday to get stuff done at the house. So I shopped, cooked and cleaned; while Matt painted, installed fixtures, and other home improvement duties. One day wasn't quite enough, but we'll continue next weekend.

We still have lots of stuff to get done around here before we can consider the first floor "finished" but really is a home really ever "finished"?

Where did the weekend go?

It's been a busy weekend around our house...

Matt was able to continue taking down the walls in the basement, and now it's one big room. All the framing had to be taken down as well because of water that leaks in with each rain has caused rotting wood. Next up Matt will be building a workbench area for himself.

While Matt was busy in the basement I took to the dining room that was in need of some love after serving as our interim kitchen and construction storage area. I repaired some dents and dings on the walls then repainted the entire room. We went with a slight change in color, it's now 'Chocolate Truffle'. If I can't eat chocolate everyday at least I can look at it!

Before, painted with Chocolate Sparkle:


After, painted with Chocolate Truffle:


(Sorry my camera still isn't up to par!)

Matt is currently working on framing our french doors and insulating them better, so hopefully next weekend it will be finished with the furniture back in.

In other news today was the first day of yoga!



Sabrina and I had planned to attend a free class at a local studio that I am planning to join for the month, and at the last minute Matt decided to come along too!

We had a great one-hour session of stretching and posing our way to healthy. The instructor was great and easy to follow through the moves. It was also easy to adjust each pose to your personal abilities. So for the next month I will be attending classes about 3 times a week, and each class is a different type of yoga so I hopefully it will help me get focused and give me exposure to multiple type of yoga.

The rest of Sunday was spent getting ready for the week by grocery shopping, making chili, making lunches, and making our dinner for tonight. Alright off to enjoy some meat loaf and brussel sprouts. (Yes, I eat brussel sprouts- I can't believe it either.)

Weekend Away....

I've been away, but now I'm back and found sometime to fill you in on what I've been up to. Let's start with this picture to give you a hint.



Obviously you noticed it was an outhouse, so hopefully you guessed that I went camping. Last weekend was a girls only weekend, and we all headed up to Brenda's family camp (thanks Brenda!). Don't worry though we didn't have to use the outhouse pictured above. Her family has two beautiful cabins that had indoor plumbing and electric- well most of the time but we'll get to that.

We arrived very late Friday evening, took a few wrong turns, and ended our night with some homemade pizza and a glass of wine. Prior to going to bed we were warned that the power might be going at 8am due to the local crews needing to do some work. Sure enough at the strike of eight in the morning the power went out and the fire alarm went off. Let's just say it woke everyone that was planning to sleeping.

We were hoping that the power would come back soon, but in the meantime Brenda's mom took to the grill and made us all a hot breakfast of eggs and sausage. A few of us went into town to pick up some hot coffee because we had no way to brew it ourselves. After breakfast we had planned a day of spa activities that required electricity, but we made it work. Where there is a will there is a way!

The main cabin had two massage rooms set up, and everyone else hung out down at the original cabin with the pedicures. Without power we had to improvise and get hot water by heating it on the grill. We were willing to go pretty far for some pampering.






Unfortunately we spent the entire day without power and were beginning to wonder if we would ever get it back, luckily around 6pm it came back on. We were so excited because it meant we could take hot showers and have a hot meal! We had a great time just sitting back, relaxing and chatting the weekend away. I highly recommend a weekend away.

Upon returning home it was back to the normal work week so I won't bore you with those details, but I will leaving you with some scenic pictures from the weekend.







Have a great day! I'll try to be better this coming week with getting posts up!

WARRIORS!!!

On Sunday Matt, Sabrina, Jill, and I made our way to Windham Mountain to take part in Warrior Dash. I assume you've read my original post, but just in case you haven't I'll give you a quick run down.

Warrior Dash is an event that in multiple locations across the US, and provides participants the chance to not only compete in a race but too get really involved in the race. Each participant must not only cover 3.23 miles, but also must dig deep and make it through 13 different obstacles. As our group learned it really ends up being more unlabeled obstacles along the way. This is unlike any race I have ever done, there are more people than you can imagine, and it's not only a physical- it's mental.

A lot of work goes into planning and executing this event in each region, so each event lasts two days with a group of at least 200 people leaving the start line every half hour. It was a crazy event, clean people, dirty people, food, beer, music-one great big party! Alright so onto the excitement...

Start of the day picture....


We got to Windham Mountain with plenty of time to check in, take in the sight, watch people cross the finish line, and try to get mentally prepared for the fun to come. When standing at the starting corral all you can see is the MASSIVE hill, and it gets intimidating.

Here's the conversation;
S: Oh my- look at the hill!
J: We can do this! Just keep your head down and keep going.
S: Okay, but I don't know.
J: We can do this!!!

Then the gun goes off, and our 12:30 group has officially started Warrior Dash. We start our climb up the hill- guess who the first person to walk is? Yup, me. I realize as we begin our climb it isn't a hill- it's a Mountain and I realized that as we rounded the first corner and it got even steeper. We climbed the mountain for probably approximately a half a mile!!! (No joke.)


Then we came up to our first obstacle the 'Knee High Hell' or basically speed stepping through the tires to the other side. We got through this, but I know I was barely breathing. Then we continued our climb up the mountain, then we came across the Warrior Walls. A series of three walls that were about chest high that you had to get yourself over- not too bad at all the biggest thing was to try not to kick the face of the person behind you or get kicked yourself.

Then we climbed another half mile up the mountain, at this point I just kept my hands over my head so I could breath. I don't mean to sound like a baby- but we were climbing a very steep part of a muddy mountain- it was intense (but doable). Then we came to the Tunnels of Terror- probably one of the easiest obstacles because you just had to crawl through a tunnel/pipe of approximately 3 feet in diameter. It was a little rough on the knees but not bad at all really.

Upon crawling out of the tunnel, we were finally cut a break- we no longer had to climb straight up. It was more of a zig zag down the mountain- with a few climbs along the way. As we ran across the mountain we made our way through uncharted territory referred to as the Black Forest obstacle. The important part was to pay attention to each step to avoid slipping on a rock or twisting an ankle in the thick, slippery mud.

Then as we rounded the corner there was the Slithering Swamp- you climb into icy cold water that comes up to your chest and then make your way to the other side to climb out. Although it was super cold it felt great on my burning from the climb up the mountain- maybe one of my favorite obstacles.

We continued weave our way down the mountain by Walking the Plank, running over a bridge, running down a small river, then we climbed up a cargo net then down the other side. Then we could hear the crowds of people, which meant one thing we were almost there!!!!

The last three obstacles were one right after the other. We first slid down an adult version of the slip'n slide. As I was headed down face first I realized there was a small pond at the end so I quickly covered my face, then after we all had to quickly stand up and get out of the way of the others come down. Next we ran toward the fire and jumped over two different rows of fire- it sounds scary to jump over fire, but it was actually quite fun. And you're soaking wet so you're really don't in any danger.


We were suddenly at the end with all the people cheering as you jump into the Muddy Mayhem and crawl your way across under the barbed wire. Then it was up and across the finish line.



Pretty incredible right?

What an adventure! We all completed it successfully with no injuries. Jill was the first from our group to finish up, then Matt, Sabrina and I crossed the finish line at about the same time. We haven't been given any official times but it took us about an hour to finish.

And here's our final group picture after all the fun!



Anyone want to join us next time???