And so it goes..

Feels as though the time keeps flying, I leave for LA tomorrow! Been so busy with work, went to Long Beach for a long weekend, Nick's teacher of the year dinners in DC and at Mountain View, and now our trip to Thailand has crept up. So thrilled.

So far my veggie garden is booming & have some beautiful herbs planted thanks to Mrs. Martino as well as a wine grape plant..

My favorite recipe since my last posting was the sweet potato pizza I made, amazingggg. I ate half a pizza it was so good! Normal pizza dough, a pureed sweet potato for the sauce, then roasted sweet potato, onion, kale, and feta cheese on top baked. It was incredibly original and delicious, for sure a pinterest recipe find I'll be keeping.

Here's a link to the pinterest recipe as well, I made mine with feta instead
Recipe

Tomorrow we leave for Los Angeles, to stay with Abbie for the night at her apartment. Then it's off to Beijing, then Bangkok =]
I am learning how to use instagram so I can upload pictures easier, working on my google map so I can better show my travel locations, and burning some books in cd to my zune and deciding which books to bring along with me! I have the Tina Fey book on tape, "Shit my Father Says" and "The Happiness Project" which are topsellers, "The Lost Girls" and then my "Meditations from the Mat" book to bring along with me to entertain me on these incredibly long flights...

So until tomorrow, and some blog updates in LA and my other stops with some photos to accompany..

a link to my travel map..
Map

Spring

Can't believe it's already been a week since I made my post! Maybe a 2x week blog posting should be added to my goals list.. =]

This week has been a good one, Nick's final lacrosse game last Sunday was a rainy one, but an awesome last game! Lost in the last moments though. Now weekends can be weekends with sleeping in and lazy delicious breakfasts & coffee. Not to mention it's been getting warmer so got to make my first coffee smoothie of the season. I'll share here, it's super easy!

Chocolate Coffee & Banana Smoothie

First you'll need to brew some coffee, just normal measurements. One of my must haves are coffee ice cubes over the summer, just brew coffee and place into some ice cube racks for future ice coffees and smoothies. Cool the rest of the coffee.

Depending on how much you want to make mix about..
*2-3 cups of cold coffee
*coffee ice cubes
*a frozen banana
*about 1/2cup of milk or yogurt.

That's the base! And from there you can add syrups, peanut butter, chocolate powder, or whatever type of flavoring you like. I put sugar free white chocolate syrup and a scoop of our chocolate protein powder. Yum!

Another new favorite is Frozen Banana Ice Cream

It's healthy creamy ice cream goodness made purely with banana and milk, incredibly cool and easy!

Peel bananas and keep them in the freezer so you can make some whenever you get a sweet tooth =]

Cut up two frozen peeled bananas and blend in food processor with 1/4 cup of milk or yogurt. Pulse the blender until it's creamy, with my Ninja it only takes 30 seconds or so but depends! It's delicious plain, or with chocolate almond milk. I like to add the chocolate protein powder to this as well, super tasty!

Throw in some fresh or frozen strawberries, blueberries or flavored yogurt.. can never get old!


I've done some reading this afternoon in my Meditations from the Mat book before I nap for my nightshift, this stuck with me:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Good quote. I've done lots of what I like to call "research" the past two weeks; I mean watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show on Netflix =] I've been paying attention to where he's traveled, and getting a firmer idea on what locations I want to see, and what my next travel moves will be.. I love to travel and explore new areas and learning how others live, it's a huge world out there! However have to remember that most importantly one has to be open minded, & with this, a change in locations isn't always needed for new discoveries..

For now, a nap before work. & tomorrow some new recipes to try, like homemade sweet potato gnocchi!