Birthdays and Brunches with Bloggers

It’s already Sunday. This weekend has flown by! But, I have a long one since I have a day off tomorrow for MLK Day. 🙂

So, Friday was my mom’s birthday!

Dad and Mom in Florida, Feb. 2010

Friday night we celebrated with cake + an edible arrangement!

Isn’t it pretty? My favorite are the chocolate covered strawberries!

I also had a small slice of cake.

I hope my mom had a fantastic birthday! Happy birthday Mom, I love you!

Anyway–Saturday morning I had to get up bright and early to head to yoga. I purchased a Groupon for 50% of yoga classes at the Pilates Principal in Latham. Our class was at 8:30. Courtney and my friend Katie from work joined me!

The class we took was Ashtanga Yoga. The instructor was so nice and helped us throughout the class if we were having trouble with poses by making adjustments. It was fun and we had a great time! Some yoga classes I’ve been to have been really serious–but this one was more light hearted. We were laughing and talking a little bit during class. I think it might be the best yoga class I’ve been to. The poses weren’t super hard, but I felt like I got a workout and I felt like I stretched my muscles really well. I definitely feel it today!

During class I successfully completed Wheel pose!

Wheel, source

I failed at Crane this time. I’ve held crane pose for a few seconds in the past–but I guess my arms weren’t strong enough yesterday!

Crane, source

After class Courtney and I headed to Spill N the Beans coffee house in Troy for some brunch.

I ordered a vegetarian omelet sans cheese with spinach, tomato and peppers with a side of rye toast.

And some vanilla oolong tea!

Also tried sweetening the tea with Stevia for the first time. The taste reminded me of Splenda. After weaning myself off sweetners it was weird to have a tea that tasted sweet! It was good, but I probably won’t use it often.

After Courtney and I parted ways I headed to Chris’ to run some errands, which included a stop at Fleet Feet. Chris needed some smartwool running socks! He had been getting blisters during his runs, so I told him to get a pair of smartwool, since they are awesome for running. I got a pair of pink ones myself. 🙂

I also had to invest in a new 13.1 bumper magnet since mine mysteriously disappeared off my car.

After running around, we came back to make dinner and watch the Steelers game. Chris is a HUGE Steelers fan, since his parents live in Pittsburgh. And I have to say that game was entertaining!!! I’m glad the Steelers won!

This morning we both went to the gym since Chris had an 8.0 mile long run to do. It kind of made me sad since I would have been in the middle of half training by now. Today I would have ran 9.0 miles. 🙁 I stuck to the good old arc trainer today, for a 45 minute interval workout, which had me working up a sweat!

Today I had another brunch date with Emily!

We had been planning to go to Jake Moon since it is not far from where we both live and we both love their food. Jake Moon has some of the best breakfast I’ve ever had.

Since I had an omelet yesterday I decided to go with the banana chocolate chip buckwheat pancakes and a scrambled egg white on the side (for protein!). The pancakes were amazing! Jake Moon never disappoints.