Happy Weekend all! Thank you all so much for checking in on me and for all the messages (my favorite tweet #whereitheworld is @danicasdaily” ~ like Where’s Waldo?! lol. I missed all of you so much too! I cannot begin to tell you all how much I missed my daily rambling, cooking in the kitchen and then sitting down to catch up with you all each day. All is well with us ~ life just turned a bit crazy and I couldn’t keep up with anything. My work deadlines were pretty intense which didn’t leave me any time to post, to workout, to cook…..you name it. I know I may take a day or two off here or there off from posting and recently trying to balance my workload it has been more often than not. I can honestly say for the first time since I first started blogging that this was by far the longest unplanned break I’ve ever taken. Fingers crossed (without jinxing it again!), I am hoping to get caught up on life and get back into my routine of sharing all my daily adventures with you all this week.
For all those wondering….here are a few highlights from the past two weeks.
During stressful weeks, I totally look for ways to find Inner Peace aka….Trader Joe’s Inner Peas! You know you laughed ~ Yes, I am still as corny as ever.
Have you all tried these baked Inner Peas from Trader Joe’s yet??
They are only 3 points+ a serving.
And you get a whole lotta peas per serving. They totally taste like crunch potato chips to me with hints of pea flavor. The Husband won’t try them because they are peas, but, I bet he’d agree 
.
Speaking of The Husband….he made me eggrolls for breakfast on his days off….he said the sauce looks better in pictures on top.
I am pretty sure I’ve eaten two watermelons in the past two weeks too!
HIs presentation 
One of my favorite days last weekend went in this order ~ Coffee, a wine pairing event, Root Beer Floats, shopping, visiting a store where you learn to make cheese and Barbecuing with our friends.
For the record, grapes are so bitter when they are not ripe.
The Wine Pairing event was in Zin Country at St. Jorge’s Winery. This place is beautiful.
There were 4 pairings with 1 white and 3 red wines…..each wine tasted better with the food!
The first dish up ~ Bruschetta with goat cheese on a grilled baguette with mixed cheeses and truffled almonds. This was paired with their white wine.
My favorite pairing by far was with this salad!
Arugula with prosciutto, parmesan, figs, macadamia nuts and arugula with a balsamic reduction and olive oil drizzle…ummm, it really was a tasty as it sounds!
The third dish was a homemade roasted vegetable pasta. I actually think the wine they served with this dish needed food to make the flavors stand out. It got better with each sip and bite.
The last dish was sliders with slaw…..probably my second favorite dish, but, I am totally impartial to all things mini.
We drove around to check out a few of the other wineries after the event ~ I couldn’t resist snapping pictures. I love how extravagant some wineries are and the stories of how they came to be.
These are by far the coolest wine bottle holders I’ve ever seen ~ they are all hand made.
Dessert ~ real deal root beer floats at a local diner.
We strolled around downtown Lodi checking out the antique shops (for The Husband!) and the kitchen store/cheese shop for me.
This is the place where they make homemade cheese ~ Have any of you ever done that? It sounds fun but seems like a lot of work.
We finished the day with Bellini’s
Oh, um, and more wine!
Paired with beautiful steaks! I made the salad and brought the wine of course!
The other super cool thing that happened this week ~ I earned my 50 miles walked badge despite not having as much time to workout as I’d like! LOVE ~ Flex!
I have so much stuff to catch up on ~ My email is insane, all of your messages, The Next Food Network Star, My Magazine Stack, My New Recipe Book and the 3 new books I bought! Soon…..
Tomorrow we head out to meet my parents to celebrate Father’s Day at my Uncle’s new restaurant, then, the rest of our day is free. So fun ~ I cannot remember the last time that I had a free day ~ I cannot wait.
QUESTION OF THE DAY:
What is one fun thing you have done in the last week or so?
Night all!
All I can say is glad you’re back…and I’m drooling 🙂
Glad all is well! Those wineries are just beautiful!
Welcome back. I missed you a lot. Glad all is well. Looking forward to hear from you. Will try the inner peas. They look great.
Have a great week. You and The husband. :-).
Glad you are back!
We tried the peas at Costco yesterday. I realized at the till I forgot to go get them.
Yay! I’ve missed you Danica!
Hi Danica so nice to have you back I agree life sure does get in the way sometimes! Oh well. I sure am interested in your newest love Flex I have not been able to find it at my neck of the woods yet but I am totally on the hunt! We will have target store opening soon so I’m hoping! So long for now have a great week. Nancy canada
HI Nancy,
I absolutely LOVE my FitBit Flex! It does everything I’d want in a band and more. It tracks calories burned, miles walked, steps taken, how well you sleep – it’s waterproof you can wear it swimming) and has really great online graphs, etc. to see you progress. It syncs up with the Free My Fitness Pal app so that is fun to track your calories against it as well. There are cute motivational messages it tells you each day when you are close to reaching your goals, you can “compete” against your friends to see who gets the most steps and it has a digital light display to let you know how close you are to reaching your goal. Oh and there is even a silent alarm ~ it’s definitely motivational.
You can order it online at amazon.com, fitbit.com and like you noted above, find it at Target or Best Buy too.
Good luck ~ I cannot wait to hear what you think.
Danica
Glad you are back. Was very concerned that you were not feeling well… What a busy
schedule you are keeping… It’s Monday, have a great week…..
So glad you are back! I was having withdrawal…………..
Hi Dannica,
Thanks for your blog. It’s awesome! I love that clearly, you love food and life and you seem to get the best of both. Can you tell me more about the FitBit? I think I’m buying one today and want to know how you calculate the info you collect into activity points. Thanks and best to you and hubby!
Nancy Hunter
HI Nancy H.,
To start off with answering your question for Activity Points, you will still have to manually add that to the Weight Watcher’s E-Tools Activity Tracker as FitBit does not sync up with Weight Watchers just yet.
That being said….I absolutely LOVE my FitBit Flex! It does everything I’d want in a band and more. It tracks calories burned, miles walked, steps taken, how well you sleep – it’s waterproof you can wear it swimming) and has really great online graphs, etc. to see you progress. It syncs up with the Free My Fitness Pal app so that is fun to track your calories against it as well. There are cute motivational messages it tells you each day when you are close to reaching your goals, you can “compete” against your friends to see who gets the most steps and it has a digital light display to let you know how close you are to reaching your goal. Oh and there is even a silent alarm ~ it’s definitely motivational.
You can order it online at amazon.com, fitbit.com and like you noted above, find it at Target or Best Buy too.
Good luck ~ I cannot wait to hear what you think.
Danica
I’m glad you made it back for a post, I know life is just a little difficult at times. I see this week hasn’t been much fun.