Costa Rica Day 7

We were supposed to take a boat to a nearby white sand beach. Unfortunately, it was too windy and the trip was cancelled. We ended up staying at the resort all day.

Since we had nothing to do, we sat at the swim-up bar and waited for them to open. I had like 3 halves of a drink (every time I'd start a drink, a bee would fall inside it and I'd have to get another one) and then I felt drunk. It wasn't even lunch yet! 

I ate a small lunch and then fell asleep by the pool (for four hours!).

By the time I woke up, I was super brown and it was almost time for dinner. At dinner, we said good by to our favorite server, Jimmy. 

After dinner, we relaxed in the hot tub for a couple hours. Then we went back to the room to pack up our stuff. We had to be strategic in our packing because we were very close to the 50lb limit. We went to be sometime after midnight. We had an amazing trip, but I was actually looking forward to coming home and sleeping in my own bed. 

Costa Rica Day 6

On Friday we rented a car and drove to see some of the beaches. Our resort is kind of out of the way and secluded so it was nice to get away. I'm glad we waited until the end of our trip to rent a car and venture off without a tour guide. 

The roads were easy to navigate because there no traffic or busy freeways. 

Our first stop was at a super market. It's always fun to see what every day life is like in Costa Rica. We picked up some snacks and Costa Rican beer. 

The first beach we stopped at was Tamarindo. I really wanted to come here because my co-worker recommended the banana creme pie at Noguis. The pie was definitely worth the drive! 

Next time I come to Costa Rica, I'll definitely spend the majority of my time in Tamarindo. The town was so laid back. When we first arrived, some guys sitting in a tree were like, "Do you guys need any weed?" 

Nope, I need banana creme pie! :P

The next beach we went to was Conchal Beach. We almost didn't stop here because we realized we would have to drive through some sand to get to the beach. I didn't think our little rental car could make it in the sand. We ended up chancing it and I'm so glad we did. This beach is beautiful. We spent over an hour walking along the beach looking at shells.

After that, we went to Flamingo Beach. Sharlene loves flamingos so we had to go just to say that we went.

After that, we went to Coco Beach for more shopping.

We got a little lost on the way home because the roads were so dark. We did eventually make it home in time to eat dinner and sit in the hot tub for a few hours before bed.

Costa Rica Day 4

Today was amazing! We went on an excursion that included horseback riding, zip lining, a water slide, lunch, a mud bath, and a soak in the natural hot springs. We were exhausted by the end of the day!

I didn't have my camera for most of the action activities but we did buy a CD of photos I'll have to look at when I get home. We even needed helmets for the water slide!

Most of the ingredients were organic and grown on the farm where we ate! This was the best spaghetti ever! Throughout the trip, I got the best meals because I ordered the vegetarian meal. 

Mud bath selfie. Sharlene and Nova decided not to do the mud bath. I really enjoyed it and I felt like my skin was so soft after!

After the mud bath, we got to relax in the natural hot springs. The water was so clear and beautiful that we spent the entire time taking underwater pictures of ourselves. 

When we came back to the resort, all we wanted to do is nap by the pool. 

We caught Sharlene taking a selfie and thought we would get in on the action! LOL.

Vegetarian Camp Food

Hello! I just got back from spending four glorious days relaxing at Lake Casitas! It was so nice just doing nothing at all!

This is now my second camping trip as a vegetarian. I tried a couple new things including spaghetti, grilled cheese, green beans, and grilled peppers and onion fajitas (not pictured).

Spaghetti
I cooked the whole wheat spaghetti noodles at home and stored them with olive oil un a Plastic container. All I had to do is cook the veggies in some butter and then add the spaghetti to the pan to warm it all up. I sprinkled parmesan cheese on top after it was cooked.

Grilled cheese
For lunch, we made grilled cheese with sliced fuji apples and red onions. I used cheddar cheese and French bread (although the bread really tasted like sourdough). This lunch was super easy, but seemed gourmet. I loved the crunch the apple slices added. I'll be making this more often at home!

Green beans
I cleaned and cut the green beans at home so all I had to do was dump them in a pan with butter, garlic, and parmesan cheese. Again, super easy. Luckily, I'm growing this kind of bean in my garden so soon I'll be able to make these at home with home grown green beans!

S'mores
One day I had a s'more for lunch! Why not? It's vegetarian! Hahah. We like to make fancy s'mores by using Reece's peanut butter cups or Ghirardelli chocolate squares.

Roadtrip with the grandparents

Last week I took my grandparents to San Jose for my little cousin's 8th grade graduation. Traveling with old people is... challenging. I imagine it's a lot like traveling with children. When I'm driving by myself to San Jose, I prefer to stop only once or twice with each stop lasting less than 10 minutes. With my grandparents, we made 4 stops on the way to San Jose. One stop was about 45 minutes for lunch! If they had their way we probably would have stopped at every mission along the way. 

There is, however, one perk to traveling with oldies... handicap parking! 

vip parking

I had fun while in San Jose. We spent most of our time eating. If we weren't eating, we were thinking about eating or planning our next food stop. 

the foodies

On my last day in nor-cal, I was able to sneak away and spend some time in SF with Sarah, Willie, and Connie. Connie selected a restaurant for us to try that just happened to be the number one restaurant I've been dying to try for like two years! We took public transportation (yay!) to the Mission District of SF. I finally got to experience Gracias Madre  and their 100% organic vegan Mexican food. Yumm. 

chilaquiles from Gracias Madre

It was a fun three days with the cousins. Congrats to Connor! The youngest cousin is now in high school! That makes me feel oooold! Pretty soon I'll be needing that handicap parking ;)

the grad and me

San Jose, CA

I'm going to drive my grandma to San Jose next weekend. I'm looking forward to getting out of town, spending time with family, and (of course) eating lots of delicious food. 

Vegetarian Camp Food

This past weekend, JR and I went camping at Lake Casitas to celebrate his 25th birthday! This was my first time going camping as vegetarian. Normally, I bring cheeseburgers for one night and chicken breast for the second night. This time I had to get a little bit creative. I wanted something easy (I only bring foil, a pan, and a spatula), budget friendly, savory, and filling (because JR is a meat eater). So, I bought a 10 lb bag of potatoes.

The first night we had baked potatoes. I poked little holes in the potatoes, wrapped them in foil and threw them on the grill! Talk about cheap, easy, and filling! We topped our potatoes with cheese, salsa, sour cream, green onions and butter. Yumm.

We saved one potato for breakfast. We chopped it up, and mixed it with soy chorizo and eggs. We turned this into breakfast burritos using the salsa, cheese, and sour cream. I highly recommend soy chorizo from Trader Joes.

My sister met up with us for the day. For lunch, we had sandwiches. Since JR and Kelsey are meat-eaters, I really wanted to prove that giving up meat doesn't mean you're stuck eating flat and boring grilled cheese sandwiches all the time. Eating like a vegetarian is delicious! I wanted our sandwiches to be special. I wanted the ingredients to be piled high. I bought some cheese rolls and croissants for the bread. Inside, we put spicy hummus, tomatoes, onions, spinach, lettuce, mushrooms, cheese and tons of avocado. Avocado is important because it really turns the sandwich into something special.

The second night we feasted on sauteed veggies. They came out delicious and definitely filling. We had zucchini, squash, red onions, white onions, green onions, green beans, mushrooms, carrots, garlic, and one slice of jalapeno. I had sliced and seasoned (salt and pepper) everything before we went camping so all we had to do was dump the veggies into the pan with butter and mix it around.

For dessert, we had s'mores made with Reese's.

Overall, I found that planning a vegetarian menu while camping makes my life a thousand times easier. For one, I don't have to worry about food contamination (did the chicken juices leak onto other foods while in the ice chest?). Also, I didn't have to worry about keeping the ice chest super super cold. One bag of ice lasted the entire weekend because I didn't have to worry about keeping meats cold. And finally, vegetables are cheap. I bought all my food for under $45.

Do you have any other ideas on simple vegetarian meals that I could make while camping?

Flagstaff 2011- Day Two

We slowly woke up and got ready for our day.

To start, we went to the coolest coffee shop/restaurant called Macy's. Everything looked sooo good, I had a hard time deciding what to order. I ended up choosing some fancy soy latte and vegan waffles from their amazing all-vegetarian menu! I loved that everything was vegetarian. Love love loved it!









After breakfast, we walked around downtown. We went back into a lot of the shops we went to the night before during artwalk. It was nice to go back when it wasn't so crowded. I bought a couple little things.

Christine had to be at NAU for the football game at 2:30 and we had lunch plans with some friends including a friend from high school, Justin (actually I've technically known him since preschool I think). We were really short on time, so we just sat with them for like 15 minutes and then went off to enjoy the game. Since we didn't have much time to catch up over lunch, we made plans to BBQ in the evening.

Christine is part of a club called Chain Gang so I sat with Cassie and her swim team friends while Christine fulfilled her Chain Gang duties.





Christine was able to save me a seat next to her so I went down to sit with the Chain Gang... right behind the football players. It was smelly! Also, number 69 had a mullet.



Christine was able to leave after the first quarter. Per the boy's request, Christine baked cookies as a contribution to the BBQ. So, we went back to the apartment and Christine did what she does best... baked cookies!





After the cookies were done, we stopped by a grocery store to pick up some other BBQ essentials. Then we were off to the BBQ.

Here's a pic of my cheeseburger with no meat. I did end up taking a 10 second break from being a vegetarian so that I could try a tiny piece of lamb. Hahaha. I just wanted to be able to say I tried it, plus it smelled really flavorful. I'll admit, it didn't taste bad!



Unfortunately I didn't take any more pics at the BBQ. We spent the evening watching Netflix, eating, and laughing. We left at about midnight.

I had such a fun day. I really like Christine's friends, Flagstaff, and of course, Christine. <3

Flagstaff 2011- Day One- Part Two

Sooo I finally arrived in Flagstaff where I was greeted by Christine and a little bit of snow!!!!

She drove me through NAU and then we went to her apartment. I met her roomie, Cassie. Then, we went to dinner at a restaurant downtown called Cuvee 928. I got vegetable kabobs. Yumm!





After dinner, we walked around the beautiful downtown area for Frist Friday Artwalk. I loved looking at all the cool boutiques, artsy galleries, and unique restaurants.





Then, after the artwalk, we went over to Christine's friend's house for a little bit. They were planning on going out to a couple bars later in the evening, so we decided to go join them! We went back to Christine's place and changed and then we took a taxi downtown!

Christine's friends are hilarious and easy to get along with. I had sooo much fun dancing, people watching, and enjoying 2 for 1 drinks!