Hey everyone, I need to hit the road. It is 5:00 PM and we still aren’t gone…we’ll see how far we get tonight. It’s been a GREAT trip (despite Cate and I both catching the stomach flu). I AM looking forward to being home. To all my Utah friends…sorry I didn’t call ANY of you…I was too busy playing Guitar Hero II.

Here’s my menu for the week. Who knows if I’ll stick with it. My dad will be with us for the week, so maybe he can do a little cooking… 🙂 Please post your menus!

MONDAY:
– On the road

TUESDAY:
– Getting home…cooking not happening

WEDNESDAY:
– Whole wheat spaghetti & tomato sauce
– Caprese salad & french bread

THURSDAY:
– TJ’s Orange Chicken with rice
– Veggie Stir-Fry

FRIDAY:
– Hawaiian Pizza

SATURDAY:
– Eat out? 🙂

SUNDAY:
– Pot roast
– Mashed potatoes
– Veggie

The Soup Kitchen rules. It’s been around FOREVER, with good reason. If you ever make it to SLC, take a trip to this little spot. My favorite items: SOUP (tomato and clam chowder are my faves), the take-as-many-as-you-want breadsticks (garlic are SOOOOO good), and the scones with honey and butter for dessert (not to be confused with english scones, these are like navajo fry bread). For those of you out there who haven’t been to Utah, you will see from my pictures that The Soup Kitchen also offers a local favorite – FRY SAUCE. All the burger places around here have this stuff – I personally think it is GREAT. It’s pretty much ketchup and mayo mixed together with some seasonings. It tastes better than how I’m describing it – I promise!

I didn’t get a chance to go to The Pie Pizzeria on this trip, but this is another dive-y type food joint near the University of Utah that is mighty fine. I could just order the Cheese Pull-A-Part and be happy. Now that I mention it, I’m getting a little sad I’m not eating those pull-a-parts right now. To get SO CLOSE and be denied…ah, the agony.

Seeing a trend? My vacations are full of all kinds of healthy food…Dunford’s Chocolate Cake donuts at Utah-local ‘Dan’s’ grocery stores are the BEST. There really is no other donut quite like this. They put all other donuts to shame, especially the ones with that waxy chocolate icing.

The Provo Bakery provides one of the yummiest baked treats in Utah…Orange Rolls. I seriously made myself sick eating these. It was worth it.

Yesterday we celebrated my niece’s birthday with a good old-fashioned 2-year-old-style party. The girls had a blast and I’m so glad we were able to be in town to party with the Abster.

Pat (mom-in-law) and Jess (sis-in-law) made yummy sandwiches and Jess ordered Abby’s birthday cake from Channing’s Bundt Cake Factory. The cake was decidedly delicious – yum, yum. I will say this…when Cuyler (Jess’ hubby) brought home the cake, it was not decorated at all. Cuyler had to go back to the factory to get it birthdayified. We aren’t sure who is to blame – Channing’s for forgetting to decorate or the dad for not checking before he left (you know the mom wouldn’t forget that step!). Despite the mix up, Channings took care of it and the cake turned out great!

Happy Birthday, Abby!

We had Sunday dinner at my Aunt Sue’s. It was DELICIOUS and healthy, which my body was very happy about. Sue served up some marinated and grilled chicken (click here for marinade recipe), baked potatoes topped with my grandma’s sour cream (heaven!), caesar salad and a crudite platter. For dessert she blended up some homemade berry sorbet in her Vita-Mix (I cannot WAIT to get one of these, one day – they are the BEST and you can get them at Costco occasionally for less money).

I love going to Sue’s house…her kids watch and play with Cate the whole time. LOVE IT. 🙂 Thanks Sue and family!

13 is a lucky number and I’ll tell you why…I don’t have to plan a weekly menu! Woo-hoo!

If you have a menu for the week please post it! I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, post WHATEVER menu you have! Especially this week as I offer no ideas. (Quick thanks to Jessica and Jenny for faithfully posting menus every week!) And you can click here for past weeks’ menus.

What’s the best possible way to wake up the first day of your trip, especially after it took 2 hours longer than it should have to get to your destination? To a delicious waffle breakfast, complete with bacon, pumpkin chocolate chip bread and orange juice! Yes – this really happened!

Cate and I took a pit stop in St. George, Utah Friday night and stayed with my Aunt Barbara & Uncle Mark. It was so fun seeing them and so nice waking up to breakfast. Here is the waffle recipe and Barbara informed me that Costco has this awesome Belgian Waffle maker by Waring for $50! A steal!

Thanks Barb and Mark!

Tomorrow Cate and I take to the open road and when we do we will be well-stocked. My goodness – when I got out all of our car snacks for the big photo shoot, I realized I got enough food for 4 or 5 roadtrips. At least I’ll be able to keep Cate happy!

You can see it’s an even balance between healthy and completely nutrionless food. Cate is SO EXCITED. Ever since I bought the “treats” on Monday she can’t WAIT to drive in the car for 11 hours. Fancy that.

While I may be going on vacation (if you can call a busy trip with family and some work on the side “vacation”), the blog is not. Keep visiting!

See ya on Route 15!

I know, yoga isn’t food…but yoga is all about holistic health, and health is related to eating, right? Anyway, I love yoga and I love this website and just wanted to share it with you: Yoga Today. They do FREE 1-hour yoga classes EVERY DAY…and you can have them automatically download to iTunes if you like. The instructors are great and I really have enjoyed the classes I’ve done. Great if you can’t make it to a real class but like having the guidance of an instuctor.

I feel like I need to mention food. Carrots are good for you. 🙂