Christmas time recap

Wow, these couple of days have flown by! Christmas Eve, Christmas, and this last weekend, were great, but much too short. I apologize for not writing a post this whole time but really, I enjoyed my little break. Although, now, I'm definitely glad to be back to writing!

Here is a little recap of my holiday.

Christmas Eve, I got in a little exercise with a short 4.5 mile run, my P90X Kenpo (40 minutes of karate-like sweating), and the Ab Ripper X dvd. That night, we had my boyfriend's entire family over. There was 16 of us. Mama Samaan and Dad Samaan, ever year have everyone over for a five course dinner. The dinner was amazing. So good. We had the following:

Onion Soup (my favorite)

Salad

Smoked salmon salad

And then a buffet of slow roasted pork, mice (aka flattened beef rolled with bacon, not included on my plate), rice, baked brussel sprouts.

Homemade Tiramisu

Wine, homemade beer, and brandy, champagne, peach punch

And then opened presents from our Secret Santa's.

Christmas Day I went for another 4 mile run. That felt great after a few too many glasses of wine. I needed that kind of detox. Later, on Christmas, we went to my boyfriend's mother's side of the family for another big dinner. And after having to practically roll home, I got to go to bed early (9 pm)!

Saturday and Sunday were relaxing days. I got Mama Samaan the game Apples to Apples for Christmas and we spent a good three hours playing this with the family. This is a fun game. Definitely good with lots of people. We also watched Julie and Julia. Meryl Streep, you did an amazing job! I was actually surprised by this movie because it's all about a blog! It was funny to see how she gets so wrapped up in her blog and the challenge she places on herself, and that she feels as though she owes her readers something... like I'm sure most bloggers do, myself included. As a blog reader myself, I know that I look forward to checking, daily, for my favorite blogs to be updated with the details of their days. It's an interesting concept, documenting your live for others to read, but I enjoy reading and writing blogs.

And Saturday, the boyfriend and I took a little trip to Santa Cruz for a quick walk on the beach. I'm pictured with one of my Christmas presents from him (New running jacket... I love exercise...). And please, do not judge. I am not showered or wearing any makeup. Dirty and lovin' it. That's the way I roll.

I also got to do some healthy food cookin' to ward off the large amounts of not-so-healthy (but good) food that I had been eating. Dinner ala Lori included a simple green salad and Baked Root Veggie Scramble with Creamy Raw Sauce. Simple. Satisfying.

So what did you get for Christmas???

On Christmas Eve I went to get the mail and look what came for me...

Twin Cakes Goodies!!!

Believe me, I was excited!

The twins of Pure2Raw and creators of Twin Cakes Bakery were kind enough to send me a fantastic variety of their best sellers for their bakery. And let me tell you, I cannot wait for the day when I can order all of these goodies and more! Wow, they are all GREAT. Some of the things I got were Gingerbread Mac's, Brownie Bites, Kale Hemp Flatbread, and Pumpkin Seed Kale Crackers. And an incredibly nice note. Thank you. All of the samples were raw, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, and delicious. I'm getting hungry just thinking about them...

Twins, if you read this, thank you SO MUCH and I want to order more!! You made my week! And I must say, my absolute favorite thing I got from them were the Bok Choy Flatbread and the Collard Green Fiesta Flatbread. But then again, they all have so much flavor, I loved them all.