Monday Swag

Happy Monday to everyone!

A quick post as I am playing catch-up at work today. Before I left the house this morning I packed myself a bag full of swag from the Healthy Living Summit. My snack drawer at the office is getting a major boost!

I am especially excited about the mini Larabar and the Smartfood cranberry almond popcorn clusters.

All packed inside of this super cute tote from Sabrina at RhodeyGirlTests. She did a great presentation on entertaining at HLS.

This morning I enjoyed an iced coffee with soy milk from Starbucks, housed in my new reusable cup. I am not the biggest breakfast person (yet) but wanted a little something, so I also had a banana.

Oh, and this is my desk. A mess after being away last week! Looks like a concert crowd ransacked it.

See ya later for a lunch / dinner post. It's a gorgeous, mild-temperature day in Milwaukee so I am hoping to catch a long run tonight as well.

Did you attend HLS this weekend? Aren't the swag bags awesome? What swag bag product / item are you most excited to try out? There is a certain Glo Bar that I am saving for a special occasion, haha.

Home and done.

Alright, I am gonna say it flat out, the Healthy Living Summit was incredible.

Great people, great activities, great discussions, great food. I have a ton to write about, here's a quick rundown of the weekend:

Friday

As part of the Summit I attended a tour of the Frito Lay plant in Beloit, Wisconsin. Never having toured a massive food product facility before, I kept thinking of how it might be like Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, with bloggers turning Cheeto Orange or getting carried away in a river of onion dip.

In reality, the folks at Frito Lay and Ketchum hosted an interesting presentation and tour that opened my eyes to the scale of their products and the good that they do in my home state. Did you know that at the Beloit facility, over 80% of potatoes used are purchased from local Wisconsin farmers? I did not. Also, within 8 hours of being shipped to the factory, the potatoes are processed. That makes for some pretty fresh chips, made with local potatoes! No wonder Classic Lay's are my kryptonite :-)

Saturday

Roomies Kayla, Heather and Jackie (her blog coming soon!) and I headed to the conference room for an awesome breakfast, hosted by Thomas' Bagel Thins, Stonyfield, and Quaker.

I fueled up on fruit, a whole wheat Bagel Thin, some Maranatha almond butter (of course they'd have this at the Summit!), and a Stonyfield honey mango yogurt. Oh, and an Adora chocolate for desert :-)

I decided it would be easier to eat in a bowl, so a yogurt mess ensued :-)

The Summit was packed with informative sessions, with topics across the board. I liked that there were two tracks so that attendees could pick and choose throughout the day.

I checked out:

- Fueling for Fitness with Rebecca and Heather

- Healthy Entertaining with Sabrina (love her!)

Lunch was pretty spectacular, especially the sprouted quinoa salad.

Kayla and I shared a mini-smattering of deserts: chocolate, lemon, and cheesecake heaven.

There was a morning Quaker break with granola bars, and an afternoon Athenos break with hummus (duh) and veggie-y snacks.

The roomies and I also took a walking break to check out Buckingham Fountain.

Me, Heather, Kayla, Jackie

Afternoon sessions included:

- Time-Management and Organization with Kath, Morgan and Sarah

- Yoga in an awesome old ballroom, with a very peculiar instructor. He wore Vibrams and talked really fast, as in auctioneer-style fast. Upwardintodownwarddoganddowntoplank fast.

And after things wrapped up, I tried ZUMBA at a nearby gym, hosted by the Fitnessista herself - Gina(!!!), Diana, and Sabrina. Having heard great things but being a newbie, I really loved the fun moves set to fast-paced pop and latin music. My tummy, a$$ and thighs are feeling it today!

The rest of my evening went like this: Post-Zumba champagne with roomie Jackie. Cause we're classy.

A decadent Indian dinner at Chicago Curry House, hosted by Gina. And yes, she's as awesome in person as she is on her blog!

Photo credit: Fitnessista

Some light ghost hunting at the hotel with Kristi and Jackie. The pondered crashing of a wedding. Photo magic in the vacant conference room instead.

Jackie and I decided to take a Midnight stroll down Michigan Ave., headed to BIG Bar at the Hyatt, and ended up sharing a margarita the size of a human head. It was glorious.

Sunday:

Bright and early - hung with the roomies and headed downstairs to meet up for some EXERCISE. A ton of HLSers gathered to do either a 10k run, 5k run or walk. I opted to join the walkers for a beautiful jaunt along the Lake. Kristi and I extended our route a bit to cover ~ 3 miles in just over an hour. That's right, I got my Pikes Peak Challenge training done for the day!

Back at the hotel, breakfast was sponsored by Thomas' Bagel Thins, who hosted an awesome customizable cream cheese bar. I requested low-fat cream cheese with walnuts, honey, cinnamon and raisins. Tasted pretty damn good!

Also, eggs and fruit.

The rest of the day was spent checking out Chicago with Kristi and eating Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Mmmm.

Caught a train - and found myself back in Milwaukee! Done and Done! Was great to see Zak and the fur kids, I really missed them.

Upon arriving at home, I launched immediately into get-stuff-done mode:

- Car insurance renewal - DONE

- Utility bills - DONE

- Laundry from this weekend at HLS - doing now.

Not surprisingly, my laundry pile includes almost all workout clothes. I love that!

Tonight involves the highly anticipated Roast of David Hasselhoff. Can't. Wait.

Leave a Comment: Did you attend the Healthy Living Summit? What did you like the most? Any areas that you think could be tweaked for next year?

Chicago state of mind

I made it!

The Healthy Living Summit is nearly here, and I traveled to Chicago today via train. Gotta love Amtrak's Hiawatha service, I have zero complaints. The train was clean, the 'Quiet Car' was actually quiet, the only problem I had was that I didn't figure out the snack cart doesn't come down the aisle (you have to find it in whichever car it's stationed at). By the end of the 1.5 hour trip, I was hangry!

Once I arrived in town, I headed to dinner with Jem, Kevin and Rachel. We checked out Flacos Tacos in Printer's Place.

Cute! We ordered at the counter, found a spot, and waited for our food to come out. I was pretty parched from the train ride, so I ordered a blended strawberry margarita.

At first I thought that it was perhaps non-alcoholic, but about 20 minutes later I found that was clearly not the case! I was very happy to see my food once it arrived at the table.

I had the special, which were three mini-burritos served with rice and beans.

Each burrito was filled with "Chihuahua cheese, Mexican rice, pinto beans, roasted poblano peppers, grilled onions, lettuce, tomato, and a creamy vegan avocado sauce served in soft warm corn tortillas." I finished all but a couple bites of the burritos, and maybe 1/3 of the refried beans. Guess I was hungry!

After dinner we headed to Jem and Kevin's high-rise condo. They had to hit the road, so I now have the place to myself for the night. I decided to check out the balcony and breathtaking city views.

22 floors up!

It doesn't get better than this. Well, maybe if I had some type of chocolate.

Time to hit the hay! Tomorrow, as part of the Healthy Living Summit, I will tour the Frito Lay plant in Beloit, Wisconsin with a bunch of other bloggers. Should be interesting!

Colorado, here we come

At the wise age of 28 years old, I am comfortable enough with myself and that I can admit two things I pretty much suck at:

1. Packing for a trip... no matter how hard I "try," I procrastinate until the day I am supposed to depart. Procrastination further exemplified by this blog post, which I am doing when I really should be packing.

2. Unpacking. In this case, specifically unpacking my camera cord. I have no idea where it went after our recent move!

That's a damn shame since I've got a ton of great foodie photos to share with you. I guess they will just have to wait.

It's Midnight and I leave in 18 hours for Colorado Springs, CO. My sister lives there and is graduating with her Masters Degree in Psychology. Here's a recap from my last visit to CoS. And here's recap part 2. And some photos, why not?

Sisters atop Palmer Park overlook

Annie, contemplating the meaning of life (or is she pretending to be in a CREED music video?)

Baaaaad riding posture. Awful. But a beautiful ride.

A meester, blogging companion extraordinaire

See? Actual food on my alleged 'food blog.'

This would be a salad with vegan buffalo wings at TRiNiTY. Yeah, this was good.

Cowboys, a classy establishment which I hope to visit again this weekend.

This time, Zak and my parents are along for the journey, making it our first official vacation as the whole family. Awww :-) Plus, I haven't seen my sister since January 2nd so it's about time I meet up with her!

New Tonight:

Can I get a "heck yeah" from all of those food bloggers attending the 2010 Healthy Living Summit in Chicago? I bought my ticket tonight, can't wait to meet everyone and spend the weekend with you!