Thanksgiving Recipe Round-Up

My plate from last year's feast. All vegan, all delicious.

Happy Thanksgiving eve! In case you haven't noticed, I love me some food, so I thought I would compile some of my favorite recipes for this holiday that centers around it. So if you're one of those crazy people who hasn't ventured to the store yet, here's some ideas for you. :)

What I'm actually making:
We're headed to my uncle's house for Thanksgiving this year, so I'm only bringing one thing: vegan stuffing. Stuffing has always been my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal, so I had to find a suitable replacement once I stopped eating meat. This stuff more than meets expectations: it's moist, flavorful, and so tasty. Plus there are a few other veg-heads on my mom's side of the family, so I like to bring a veganized favorite.

Vegan stuffing
1/3 cup Earth Balance
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup chopped onion
5 cups soft bread cubes (I usually use a loaf of French bread)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
1/4 cup (or more, I make sure it's good and saturated because I like it moist) No-Chicken broth (this is great stuff, made by Imagine. But you can use vegetable broth, too.)

In a skillet, melt Earth Balance. Add celery and onion and saute until tender. Toss in remaining ingredients and bake in a greased casserole dish for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

What I've made in years past and loved:

Sweet Potato Apple Bake - from Aunt Stephanie, not sure of the original origin
2 large sweet potatoes
1 1/2 cups apple juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3-4 coriander pods
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup raisins
4 tart apples (like Granny Smith)

Peel potatoes and cut into 1-inch cubes. Mix salt and spices with apple juice. Combine juice mixture with popaties in a lightly greased 9x13" pan. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes. While potatoes are in the oven, peel, core and dice the apples. After the 50 minutes, add the apples and raisins to potatoes. Stir, cover and bake for another 30 minutes. Remove cover and bake for a final 10 minutes.

Green Bean Casserole - from my sister Lindsay, not sure of original origin
1/4 cup margarine
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups No-Chicken broth
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 14.5-oz. cans of French-cut green beans (or you can use frozen, which I prefer)
1 2.8 oz. can French-fried onions

In a medium saucepan, melt margarine over low heat. Add the flour and whisk it continuously for 1-2 minutes until it forms a roux. Add the broth, soy sauce, and garlic powder, whisking continuously for 1-2 minutes until thick and bubbly. Add oil and nutritional yeast; whisk again until smooth. Pour sauce into small casserole dish, add beans and stir to coat. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Add onions and bake for 10 more minutes until browned and bubbly.


What I'd like to make:
- This Sweet Potato Pie recipe from Joy the Baker looks divine. I don't love pumpkin pie, so I think this would be a great alternative. I might end up making it this afternoon, but that would mean going to the store and I'm not sure I'm willing to take my life in my hands.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday filled with friends, family, and food. My gym is hosting a 90-minute Turkey Blast Off kickboxing class tomorrow morning, so I'm hoping to get a good workout in before the feast. Happy Thanksgiving!

Lazy cookies

These no-bake cookies are super simple, take less than 10 minutes to make, and I typically have all of the ingredients on hand. I call them my lazy cookies, since I make them when I am too lazy to make anything more complicated. Follow these steps and you, too, can  be enjoying delicious treats in no time!

First, gather your ingredients.

The oatmeal means they're healthy. ;)

I like to measure everything out ahead of time, because once these get cooking, it goes quickly. Also a good idea to lay out your waxed/parchment paper surface in advance.

Patiently waiting their turn.

Put the first four ingredients in a saucepan.

Sugar, cocoa, Earth Balance and almond milk.

Bring to a boil, stirring often.  Boil for 1 minute.

It might be time to wash my apron. Possibly.

Add the rest of your ingredients and combine thoroughly.

I'm not a big fan of oatmeal (as a breakfast food), but this I would definitely eat.

Drop by tablespoon (or an ice cream scoop with a release, if you're super lazy like I am) onto waxed paper. The cookies will set as they cool. 

The finished product. They're not so shiny once they set.

Not only is this recipe easy, it's also adaptable. I made this batch for my friend who has dairy sensitivities, so I used Earth Balance (vegan margarine) and almond milk instead of their traditional counterparts. She's also not big on wheat, and I thought these flourless cookies would be easier than dealing with chickpea flour or what have you to make her some treats (which is not to say they are gluten-free; she just tries to avoid wheat when possible so these are acceptable in her case. Those with gluten allergies should definitely investigate further). There are variations of this recipe all over the internet but I have no idea where I got it, so my version is below. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Chocolate No-Bake Cookies

1/2 cup margarine
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups oats (I used quick oats)
2 teaspoons vanilla

Put first four ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in rest of ingredients and drop by tablespoon onto waxed paper. Cool to set.

Getting my Elf on

I've been slacking a little bit on the health front lately. My motivation is MIA and I have been eating all of the carbs, mostly in the form of baked goods. And since the holidays are nearly upon us, the availability of treats is only going to increase. So I'm trying to switch things up in order to get back on track.

Starting today, I'll be participating in the the Elf for Health holiday challenge hosted by Lindsay and Elle. In a nutshell, there's a daily health-related challenge, and you have a "buddy" to correspond with for encouragement and accountability. Today's challenge is "go meatless" which is painless, since I already do that every day. But I'm excited to see how I do with the other challenges and to have the support of health-minded pal.

Registration for this round has closed, but if you want to take part, you can register for the second round anytime before December 6. Hopefully this added component will do the trick and get me excited about staying healthy again!

High Five for Friday

1. I met Aisha Tyler on Saturday! I listen to her podcast every week and I'm a little bit obsessed with her. She's so smart and funny and down-to-earth. We went to her standup show Comedy Works and afterward she hung out in the lobby, chatting and taking pictures with everyone. I could barely keep my shit together and stammered "Uh, I love your podcast! And your book! You're so funny!" Not my most eloquent conversation, but she took it in stride and was totally gracious. Love her.

2. My sister had a surprise birthday party last weekend and it was super fun. We played Bunco, and I ate way too many snacks, got to hold my friend's adorable daughter, and caught up with some of my sister's friends I hadn't seen in ages.

3. I made it to work on time (early, even!) after it snowed on Thursday. Commuting in the snow is THE WORST. One day last winter, it took me three hours to get to work (you'd think Coloradans would be good at winter driving given the amount of snow we get, but that is not the case). But I randomly woke up at 5 a.m. yesterday, so I did yoga, got ready, stopped for a pastry, and still made it to work by 7:30 a.m. So I'm hopeful that snow and I can get along this year.

4. These burritos. I got the recipe from my co-worker's daughter and T. Bob made them for dinner on Monday, and they are delicious. Not soggy like other zucchini-based burritos I've had. Still have no idea where to find chayote, though. Let me know if you figure that out.

5. I am in love with Joy the Baker's new webseries, Bonkers Awesome! Her curiosity and demeanor are so cute, and it's really cool to take a behind-the-scenes look at bakeshops. And I'm totally envious of her style. Awesome, indeed.

Have an excellent weekend, y'all!

As usual, linking up with Lauren for High Five for Friday!

Things I Used to Love: Sex and the City

My Sex and the City memorabilia. And yes, those are VHS tapes. My obsession
with this show began long before I had a DVD player.

Someday I swear I'll do one of these that isn't about a TV show, but today is not that day. So we're throwing back to the turn of the century to discuss Sex and the City! In case you've been living under a rock for the past 15 years, Sex and the City was an HBO series based on a book of the same name by Candace Bushnell. It followed the lives of four single ladies living in New York City, focusing primarily on their romantic entanglements.

The show premiered when I was 14, and I loved it from the start. Carrie Bradshaw really personified what I wanted from my adult life: a writer who lives in New York City who is super fashionable and does fun things with her awesome girlfriends while dating every type of dude under the sun? That's the stuff teenage dreams are made of. I also liked that the lives of the four women (Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte) were so intertwined. They were always there for each other, whether it was meeting for a boozy brunch or supporting each other after a breakup. And I loved how frank the ladies were about sex; women talking about sex without being ashamed or secretive was a pretty novel concept to me at that age. 

Fans of the show would often discuss which character they most identified with: "I'm a Carrie" or "I'm a Samantha." When I was younger, I thought was a Carrie (as most ladies did, let's be real), but my strongest match is definitely Miranda: she's practical, honest, and a little bit cynical, but she softens after her life takes some turns she didn't necessarily expect. And she got to make out with Blair Underwood, who is the definition of good looking, so not a bad match on the whole.

By the time the show ended in 2004, I was in college and my views on life and dating were a little more down-to-earth. I still wanted to move to New York and be a writer, but I was very no-nonsense in my dating life. The ladies' constant analysis of how to behave with their men and whether they had done the right thing kinda drove me nuts. If you're wondering what your partner is thinking, just ask them. I'm way too straightforward to play those kind of games. But the friendship between the four women kept me sucked in, and I hoped that I would develop a group of lifelong gal pals like those ladies.

Carrie and co. have appeared in a few places since the show wrapped. The first Sex and the City movie came out in 2008, and I enjoyed it. I thought it tied everything up and put a nice little bow on the series. The second one, though, was pretty terrible. Like I-didn't-finish-it bad. It was so campy and over-the-top, it seemed like they lost the heart that had grounded it as a TV series. Totally unnecessary. Last year, I started watching The Carrie Diaries (a CW series based on other Candace Bushnell books about Carrie's high school years) and I kinda like it. Especially this season, as they've introduced Samantha to spice things up a bit. But the tone is not similar to that of the original show.

I still have a lot of love for this show, but not enough to compel me to rewatch it. I think it was really important to me at a certain point in my life, and it's better to leave it that way than tarnish my opinion of it by revisiting it now. But if you don't have these fond memories and want to watch it, Amazon has the complete series for less than $90. There's also a de-sexed version in syndication, but I think you should see it in its full (frontal?) glory.

Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies

These cookies are one of my go-to recipes. I found them during my vegan days and made them frequently, as I love the peanut butter/chocolate combo and most commercial products (Reese's, M&Ms, etc.) are not vegan. But these are a great substitute. The chocolate cookie is flavorful and soft, and the filling really does taste like a peanut butter cup. Definitely a crowd-pleaser.

I made a batch last week to take to my sister's surprise party. She's not really a cake person (hard to believe, as a blood relative of mine), so I usually make her cookies or some other confection for a birthday treat. The surprise was successful, and I had a great time playing Bunco and catching up with friends (but sadly failed to take a single picture).

But back to the cookies. They don't have too many ingredients and they bake for less than 10 minutes, so it's pretty easy to whip them up.

Mix up your dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then cream the Earth Balance (or margarine/butter, if you're into that kind of thing), sugar, brown sugar, and peanut butter:

Nice and smooth.

Then we add our dry ingredients and get that nice chocolate-y dough:

It may have an almost grainy consistency at this point, but that's OK.

Make your filling, then roll it into small balls (or large balls, baker's choice. But smaller ones are easier to cover). Make some bigger balls with the chocolate dough.

Note: Use brand-name peanut butter. I'm not usually very brand-loyal, but I used the grocery-store brand it was oily as fuq. Hence the glistening hands.

Make your large ball into a patty, then place ball of filling in the center.

Truly professional cooks store their cookie filling atop a baking soda box. Pro tip.

Fold the edges in to cover the filling and roll between your palms to smooth it out.

Fold those edges in until you have what resembles a chocolate clamshell.

I like to flatten the cookies a bit before baking, because they don't really spread much on their own.

I'm sure there's a tool for flattening cookies, but I find a glass works just fine.

Bake for 7-8 minutes and voilà, cookie central.

The finished product. You can see flecks of filling peeking out.

I usually just call these peanut butter chocolate cookies. I actually thought I was using the Peanut Butter Pillows recipe from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, but the ingredient lists are different and I cannot find a link that has the recipe as I wrote it down. So we shall call them Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies, since I took them to a surprise party and the cookie itself contains a surprise peanut-butter center. Without further blathering, here is the recipe:

Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies

Dough:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 egg replacer units (I use Ener-G)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup vegan margarine (I use Earth Balance)
1 tsp. vanilla

Filling:
3/4 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar

Combine flour, cocoa, and baking soda in a medium bowl. In large bowl, beat sugar, brown sugar, margarine and peanut butter until fluffy. Add vanilla and egg replacer, beat well. Add in flour mixture gradually until blended, and set aside. In small bowl, combine filling ingredients and blend well. Roll into 30 balls. Wrap balls in dough mixture. Bake at 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes or until cookies are slightly cracked. Makes 30.

The Mile

The Mile and I have long, terrible history. I never really liked gym class growing up, but I was generally OK with standing in the outfield while we played kickball or rolling my scooter around the gym for Capture the Flag. But then Presidential physical fitness testing would roll around, and with it came The Mile. And you can't hide from The Mile. I would dread its approach, suffer through while psyching myself out and hyperventilating when I got a stitch in my side, and collapse in a heap at the finish after about 15-20 (mostly walked) minutes. Not my proudest moments.

I put off taking gym in high school until my senior year, and then I was the only upperclassman grouped in with the state cross-country champion and several other athletic 14-year-olds. I started training outside of class, not wanting to make a total fool of myself for once. So I went to the track a few times a week in the dark of night and ran a mile. But I am sweaty sweater, so even though I knew I could run a mile, I phoned it in to avoid smelling funky and having terrible hair for the rest of the day following my second-period run.

Flash forward a decade or so, and I'm past the point of caring about the sweat face. I will be grosser than the burliest dude at the gym when I'm done working out, but at least I worked out. I've been running intervals (30 seconds jog/30 seconds walk) on the treadmill lately, and it's been going pretty well (no knee pain, no feeling like death afterward). So it occurred to me that I should try to face down The Mile. I figured it couldn't be that bad; even with walking half the time I was doing a mile in less than 15 minutes, so I figured I could just average my walking and running paces and crank that baby out in a reasonable amount of time.

Well, logic pulled through and I ran a full mile on Saturday morning, for the first time in ... 11 years? My time was 11:35, which I realize is not impressive, but I think it's probably my PR. I walked it out afterward and am feeling pretty good now, except for the lung thing. You know, when your heart rate gets really high and then it stirs up all the crap in your lungs and you feel like you have the worst cold for a few days? Yeah, that is happening.

Despite the coughing issues, I'm pretty excited about this new development. I've always wanted to be the type of person who goes for casual runs, and I feel like that's at least in the realm of possibility now. I'm toying with the idea of signing up for a spring 5K, just to have something to work toward. I think this is the start of something good.

High Five for Friday

Nashville image found here.

Happy Friday, y'all! I don't know why, but sometimes the shorter weeks (I had Monday off for Veterans' Day) seem even longer than the normal ones. So I'm happy the weekend has finally arrived. Here's some things I'm loving this week:

1. I came home from work on Wednesday night to find a rose from T. Bob, just because I'm "a nice wife." Pretty sure he's the nice one.

2. I've been running intervals on the treadmill lately, and it's going surprisingly well. In the past, it's always made my knees hurt, but so far I am pain-free and loving it.

3. Nashville. I don't know if it's my love for Connie Britton or my affinity for saying y'all, but I am totally hooked on this show. It's so soapy and filled with the drama. Even the music is great, and I'm not a big country fan, so that is saying something.

4. I used the long weekend to do laundry and clean up around the house, which was a long time coming. Having some order restored at home (not to mention clean clothes to wear) has been so nice. I really shouldn't be applauding myself for cleaning my house, but hey, small victories.

5. If it has to get dark at 5 p.m. now, at least I have beautiful sunsets to stare at while I'm sitting on I-25 every night.

Linking up with Lauren for High Five for Friday!

Things I Used to Love: Freaks and Geeks

I haven't shared a Thing I Used to Love for the past few Thursdays, so I thought I would get that ball rolling again. This week's target: Freaks and Geeks.

If you're not familiar, Freaks and Geeks is a TV show that ran for one season (1999-2000) on NBC. It centered around the Weir siblings and their lives while attending high school in Michigan in the early '80s. Lindsay is struggling to reconcile her good-girl past with her desire to be true to herself/maybe rebel a little bit with her "freak" friends (Seth Rogen, Jason Segel and James Franco), and Sam is just trying to survive as an underweight freshman with his "geek" pals (Martin Starr and Samm Levine).

It was created by a then-fairly-unknown Paul Feig (director of Bridesmaids) and he produced it with Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, etc.). In addition to Apatow's go-to gang of actors, it featured several now-famous guest stars (Rashida Jones, Shia LaBeouf, Lizzy Caplan, Ben Foster, etc.).

The show aired my sophomore year of high school, and it was my jam. I was generally a geek, but fancied myself a freak, and I was envious of Lindsay's fearless attitude while identifying with her mathlete past. Ratings were not great, so NBC would preempt it and then show it on Friday nights (where TV shows go to die), and it's possible that I sneaked upstairs from a basement party to watch it in my friend's living room one weekend. Yes, I was that cool.

There's an epic episode where the geeks swap out the keg at Lindsay's party with a non-alcoholic one, including a great moment where Millie (pictured above) shows up and sings "Jesus is Just Alright." It was my goal throughout college to throw a (secretly) non-alcoholic kegger to see how people would act, but I never made it happen. Someday, people.

The Halloween episode, featuring Martin Starr dressed as the Bionic Woman, was also amazing. Or the one where they find out one castmember is a closet disco-dancer. So many great moments. Then there's this exchange, the last line of which I quoted to my stoner crush for the rest of high school:

Lindsay: I don't smoke pot.
Nick: Come on, what's the big deal? It's from the earth, it's natural. Why would it be there if we weren't supposed to smoke it?
Lindsay: Dog crap is here, and we don't smoke that. 

The show was certainly hilarious, but it also had heart. I liked that it made characters multi-faceted; they showed each kid's background and offered an glimpse of how they became who they were. Even mean girl Kim Kelly (Busy Philipps, who is the funniest on Cougar Town) had a softer, vulnerable side.

Unlike past subjects of Things I Used to Love, I absolutely still love this show. It has aged well and still resonates with me. I'm just not quite as obsessed with it as I was sophomore year, which is probably for the best. You can buy the series on Amazon, or if you want to borrow my copy, give me a shout. Thank Christ it's nearly Friday!

the best-laid plans ...

I am a planner, to the core. I pick out my outfit the night before, book vacations six months in advance, etc. I just feel like everything goes more smoothly if I can prepare for it. I can usually go with the flow as long as nothing too far out of the ordinary happens, but I like to have a general idea of what's coming at me at all times.

This is particularly true when it comes to health and fitness stuff. My best weeks are ones where I can shop/do food prep on Sundays, and there are no obligations standing in the way of my regular workouts. Any added stress or changes to the schedule, and lord knows what's going to happen, despite the best of intentions. I've gotta to stick to my routine.

But shit happens, and life doesn't always go according to plan. Things are a little out of the ordinary for me right now, and I'm struggling to find a new routine that fits my current schedule and still helps me reach my goals. I freaked out initially and had a lot of thoughts like "Oh no, I'm going to go back to how I was. Whenever I get stressed out, I can't keep it together." It seems so easy to throw in the towel and go back to eating a box (a bag? a package, let's say) of Oreos because I'm hungry and stressed and they're delicious.

But after a few days (and more than a few Oreos, let's be real), I had an epiphany: I will only go back to how I was if I decide to do so. Yes, there are things in life that are out of my control. But how I react to them is totally up to me. So I'm trying to keep it together, despite my pattern of falling apart. Yes, I'm stressed and hungry and not in the mood to eat my usual healthy snacks. So maybe I should have an apple to curb my sweet tooth and take some deep breaths. And remember that what I want now should not take precedence over what I want most.

Workouts are easier than food, because my body seems to crave exercise after doing it regularly for a while. If I take a few days off, I'm stiff and lethargic. So I'm trying to get it in wherever I can – walking on my lunch break, doing pushups during commercials, and going hard when I do get to the gym. Making whatever I can do count, basically.

I'm also trying to strike a balance between not caring at all and caring so much that it stresses me out. I'm sure I will have slip-ups (see Oreo incident above), but I'm trying not to dwell on my indiscretions. I just have to take it day by day and do my best. Do y'all have any tips for staying on track when things get crazy?

High Five for Friday

It's Friday, and that means it's time for another High Five! Here's my list for this week:

1. Green Tea sweats - I'm not big on matching sweatsuits, but these are SO comfortable (and the pants don't have anything written across the butt, so I find them acceptable). The beginning of this week was pretty dang chilly, and this is my favorite hang-around-the-house outfit for winter weather. The pants fit great (I tend to have trouble with drawstring pants as I have no hips/booty to hold them up) and the faux-fur lined hood is super warm. Cozytown.

You, too, could be this comfy!

2. Tuesday night comedies on Fox - I don't watch Dads, but Brooklyn 99, New Girl and The Mindy Project are all hilarious in unique ways. Good times.

3. Pre-mixed alcoholic beverage pouches. They're like adult Capri Suns, without the hassle of trying to jab the straw into the top. Just buy, freeze, and drink. I've had a few flavors from a few different brands, and they're all pretty tasty.

They know how to highlight their best features. 

4. Crock-Pot meals - I actually meal-planned this week and used my slow cooker to make a black bean and rice soup for lunch, and a "Chinese hot pot" (not sure what that really means, but veggies and tofu, basically) for dinner, so I didn't have to cook ALL WEEK. Crock-Pots rule.

5. Turbo Kick - Due to working from home, some knee pain and vacation, I've been missing my regularly scheduled workouts. Monday night was my first Turbo class in two weeks, and it was awesome. And sweaty. But still awesome.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

The dangers of pinterest: Caramel-Stuffed Pumpkin Cookies

Chewy cookies with a gooey caramel center. What more do you need in life?

Let's talk about Pinterest. I'm not the most active pinner, but I like to go on ocassionally when I'm looking for a new workout routine or a yummy dinner recipe. Or at least that's what I tell myself. That ish is dangerous! I sign on with the best of intentions, then end up pinning desserts. Every time. My friend Mo is a great baker and always pins the most delicious-looking recipes; so when I saw she had pinned these Caramel-Stuffed Pumpkin Cookies, I thought it would be an awesome fall treat. But I'm trying to limit my sugar consumption, and this Chex mix was priority #1, so I had to table the cookies for a bit. So after weeks of waiting, Saturday was C-Day (aka Cookie Day. Which is remembered a lot more than once a year in my house).

The pumpkin flavor in these is very slight; I would say they taste more like snickerdoodles than any pumpkin cookie I've had. I think you could add pumpkin pie spice to the dough in place of some/all of the cinnamon to give it a more "fall" flavor. But the snickerdoodle flavor was definitely still edible. ;)

It was a bit tricky covering the caramels with the dough because the dough was super sticky.  But I knew I had to power through,  in the name of all that is sweet. First, I made a patty (I'm sure that's a technical baking term) of dough, then placed the caramel in the center.

Let's play a little game of Hide the Caramel, shall we?

I then folded the edges of the dough in to cover the exposed sides of the caramel, and rolled in between my palms to even out the coverage.

Action shot!

Coat them in cinnamon-sugar and these babies are ready to bake.

These are awesome eaten warm out of the oven (wait like 10 minutes to avoid molten caramel burns), or you can re-create the "fresh out the oven" effect by microwaving them for 11 seconds (my exact, scientific calculation. But I'm sure anywhere between 10-15 would be fine). I didn't try any of them at room temperature, but they apparently taste like a candy bar (per my mom). So probably still pretty good.

Check out that caramel stretch.

If you'd care to see what other dangerous behavior Pinterest is fostering in me, you can follow me here. Happy Wednesday, y'all!

Vegas: Neon and nuptials

I'm back to reality this week after taking most of last week off to go to Las Vegas. Vegas is a pretty frequent destination for me, so I try to find new things to do each time, in addition to the standard walk the strip/eat and drink a lot/sit by the pool that I do every trip. This time, we did something extra special, as we got to be witnesses at our friends' wedding.

All dressed up and ready to witness.

The wedding was at the Bellagio on Halloween, and after the sweet ceremony, we walked around the grounds while their official photographer took pictures (and we snuck pics with our phones). We went to a fancy tapas place where I may have had too much sangria, then hit up In-N-Out for a "grilled cheese" – really just a burger with no patty – and topped off the evening with a gondola ride at the Venetian. It was great fun, and I'm so glad we got to celebrate with them.

The happy couple - how cute are they?

We also tried a new restaurant, Hash House a Go Go. There are several in Vegas, but we tried the one in The Quad. I'd heard marvelous things about this place (and their giant portions were featured on Man vs. Food), and I love me a good breakfast, so I was pumped. Unfortunately, the food was just OK. The crispy potatoes were greasy and soggy, and there was no butter or jelly offered for my enormous biscuit. So, not amazing. They did have pretty great orange juice, though.

Mushroom hash from Hash House a Go Go. Not my favorite. But that OJ was on point.

Another new adventure this trip was a visit to The Neon Museum. Their boneyard is a collection of several signs from the Las Vegas of yesteryear, and it was pretty cool to walk through and see the old-fashioned signs and hear stories about Vegas history.

The Neon Museum sign

Only a few of them were actually restored, but the rest are lit up at night (when I went) or you can tour during the day. My guide was a history professor who had tons of knowledge about Las Vegas and its growth and development (like the origin of the $1.99 steak dinner, or the "family-friendly" Vegas era), which I found really interesting.

Some of the collection.

The last new thing I tried this trip was exercising. Not really new to my life in general, but I can't remember ever getting a workout more strenuous than a brisk walk on a vacation before. But I made time each morning to get my butt to the gym in the complex (we stayed at a timeshare place, which was super cute, though not cute enough to convince us to buy one) and get my sweat on.

Pics, or it didn't happen. I look thrilled.

I didn't do anything too tough, just 20-30 minutes of cardio and some ab work, but I feel like it set the tone for the day and helped me make some better choices instead of embracing the free-for-all mentality I usually have on trips.

Overall, it was a fun trip. And it was nice to be in 70-degree weather, especially since it's supposed to snow later today. I've embraced fall, but I'm totally not ready for winter at this point. What did y'all get up to this weekend?