Apple Pie

Today my parents and I made an apple pie. I have come to really love baking. It is nice to carefully work the ingredients put them in the oven and wait for something delicious to come out in an hour. I think I also really enjoy learning from my parents. It turns out I am horrible at pealing apples. 

One thing my family always does is reduce the amount of sugar and butter in recipes. I cannot speak for everyone but I can never tell it's is missing. Perhaps all it does is make me feel less guilty about eating dessert! 

I have to say I thought it would be more difficult to make but it was quite simple. I foresee more apple pie making in my future.

Merry Christmas

I had a very Merry Christmas. 

After the past year I feel so lucky that I get to spend the day with my family. I realize not everyone has the opportunity or even likes spending time with their family. We also have a tradition of making home made egg rolls for Christmas dinner. I leave you with a picture of our tree and wonderful dinner.

To anyone reading out there no matter what holiday you celebrate I hope you were able to enjoy it!

Santa to the SEA! (5k)

I was actually in town for a little bit of December before I got to go see snow. 

One of the very cool things I did was the Santa to the Sea 5k race. Maybe next year I will train for the Santa to the Sea 1/2 marathon. I got really lucky and one my age group with a time of 23:20! It's new PR for me. I think I had the home turf advantage because the race route was very close to the 10K I ran on the 4th of July this year. I also blame the cold. As much as I hate working out when it's cold outside I think it was to my benefit.

This race was also cool because they wanted you to give a donation to Toys for Tots. And they had a contest for costumes. Seeing Santa run is quite a sight!

I got a sweet hoodie for winning. Every finished received a medal. I highly recommend this race to anyone it is a pretty course right along the ocean. 

At the finish line, I got to try out some delicious snacks. My favorite were the new Jamba Juice coconut water and fruit drinks. I had a bad experience with pulpy coconut water but I highly recommend this as post workout recovery drink.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well this year I made my traditional thanksgiving pumpkin pie. It almost turned into a disaster. I was so excited to be making it. I thought I was all ready to put it in the oven and then I saw the condensed milk on the counter! So what did I do, I poured it back into the bowl and added the milk. It was so full, I managed to spill it when I put it in the oven. Within a minute my fire alarm was going off!

I waited for over 50 minutes in fear my stray from the recipe.

As you can see it turned out. Fun fact the brown spots are from when the outside bubble because the inside is complete.

This year I was lucky enough to drink some champagne and wine. Eat some pie and play Nintendo Wii games. All after my first Turkey Trot! I have to say I really enjoyed the turkey trot. I highly recommend that more people try it on Thanksgiving before eating all that food! I did my Turkey Trot in 24:08:8. It was a new best time for me! I definitely want to do another Turkey Trot. I also recommend the Wii post all the Thanksgiving food.

Happy Halloween

Sadly this year I had NO trick or treaters..

Last year I was on a plane so I have no idea if I had any trick or treaters stop by.

I heard about this cool idea called Trunk or Treat where a group of families park their cars in an open parking lot and the trunk becomes the 'front door'. It seems like a great and efficient way for kids to get their candy in a safe environment.

My only Halloween festivity was carving a pumpkin! It was a little weird to carve a pumpkin without my dad. I have not done this in several years so good news I still know how!

I hope all you got a treat. I know I like my chocolate covered raisins :)