{Long Recap Post}

Good morning Cupcakes!

WOW! It has been awhile since I've had time to write a blog post. Today's post is going to be a long recap post of things going on in my life recently. 

A couple weekends ago, I was able to go home to my parents' house. Both of my sisters were home that weekend, so we had some much needed family time.

I also was able to go to my boyfriend's grandma's birthday party. Here are two of the little cousins. I love little kiddos and babies :) 

One snack I love for traveling or on the go: Epic Bars. I bought this one from the Vitamin Shoppe.

Here is one of my half eaten breakfasts. It was 2 slices of low sodium ezekiel bread with 1 egg white muffin cup which had spinach and green onions. 

The next weekend I was able to travel to my undergraduate campus... PURDUE! I miss this place! It was so nice to be back and walk around campus. I have so many wonderful memories from this place. I took my sister's dog for a long walk on campus while she studied and took a test. My fitbit told me I walked 8 miles that day!

These are just some pictures from campus

We ate at Chipotle and I got a salad with chicken, fajita veggies, green salsa, and a side of brown rice. 

Another find from Vitamin Shoppe: D's Naturals Fluffbutter. It was bomb!

I am on a salad kick right now...

I was able to be home at my parents' house during Cinco De Mayo and we ordered mexican food from a local mexican restaurant. I ordered chicken fajitas (light on the oil). I eat the fajitas without the tortillas. 

Another thing I am loving at the moment, is freshly cooked dinners. Throughout graduate school I have meal prepped every week. This means I eat the same food all week long and sometimes it does not taste very fresh. I cannot wait to graduate and be able to cook dinners every night for my boyfriend and I. This was chicken with mushrooms and asparagus.

This is the view from my parents' front porch.

I am currently in California visiting my boyfriend. This will be my last visit before moving here. I get more and more excited every day to start my life here. When I got here on Sunday, we drove to the beach (Coronado). The sand on the beach had sparkles in it! 

 I made chicken, veggies, and sweet potato fries for dinner one night. 

We also love to go hiking. Here are some pictures from our hike yesterday. 

This morning I made waffles with my new waffle maker. I posted the recipe on my instagram if you are interested: @toriswholelife . I have a protein dip for my waffle as well!

Hopefully I will get some more awesome pictures while I am in California. I want to do a full travel recap post after this trip, so stay tuned for that. I am also going to do a BBG recap post after this trip. I will be half way through my BBG 12 week journey. 

Later Taters

"It's a beautiful day, don't let it get away."

{California Adventures}

Hello cupcakes,

All I have to say is... WOW.. California is awesome! Words cannot even do it justice. I am going to try to walk you through some of the cool things I got to do while I was there.

The first morning, my boyfriend drove us to Oceanside to get breakfast out over the ocean.

There were so many people surfing!

The beach was beautiful and the people were all so friendly. This was as we were walking on the pier towards the restaurant.

And here is the cute little restaurant. It had a cute 80's style diner feel. It was kind of weird because as the waves were coming in you could feel the restaurant sway slightly.

Here was my bomb breakfast. I got egg whites with spinach, tomatoes, and mushrooms. It came with an English muffin and fresh fruit.

Next, we drove to Torrey Pines. I think this is a state park if I remember correctly. The view was amazing! It was cool because you could walk out on this cliff and it overlooked the ocean.

My foot was a little sore still from getting released from my walking boot (not even a week before my trip). We had to take it a little easy, but I cannot wait to hike around this area more!

There were little walking paths every where!

After site seeing a little bit, I had my boyfriend take me to a vegan doughnut shop called Donut Panic. Here were the donuts we got...

The guy we talked to in the shop gave us a free cake doughnut to try. The cake doughnut was my boyfriends favorite!

After getting doughnuts, we drove to some other towns. This place was a little more mountainous. Oh and we also picked out a couch!

Here was my breakfast one morning: Gluten free oats with egg whites, 1 egg, & coconut oil.

One night we met up with my friends to do a wine tasting. One of our friends took some pictures of Cory and I...

The wine tasted so good! I loved trying all the different kinds. We started with more dry wines and moved to red wines and ended with sweeter wines. All together we got to try 6 different kinds. Here is a picture of us girls!

Here was our selfie as we were driving to the wine tasting.

One night after Cory was off work we went and had Mexican food. This was hands down the best Mexican food I have ever had! We ordered table side guacamole as an appetizer and the waiter made it fresh right in front of us! Sooo good!

We also split the fajitas. It was so cool because the waiter poured tequila over the fajitas and lit it on fire right in front of us. It came with shrimp, chicken, and steak!

My last day there we drove to meet some of our friends near Manhattan Beach. Here was our car selfie for that day...

That afternoon we were all starving, so we walked to Hermosa Beach which was actually closer than Manhattan Beach for us.  We ate at a really cool place called American Junkie.

I ordered shrimp tacos and they can with chips and salsa. 

After eating lunch (at 3pm haha) we ended up going to the beach closer to where our friends were staying. We brought a football with us! We also got to watch the sunset on the beach. I will share those pictures in another post. After the sun set, it started to get colder and we were not dressed appropriately. I had on a dress. So we decided to walk back and waited for our other friends to join us. We got to catch up with all four of them & it was a blast! 

Cory and I had a little drive ahead of us, so we decided to take off around 8pm. To get an idea of where we were at, here is a map. We were at Hermosa Beach and we had to drive back to Vista. It took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes. We stopped at In & Out Burger for my first In & Out experience 

Since I cannot have dairy, I ordered a hamburger and shared some of Cory's fries. When I got the burger, I realized it had their sauce on it. I did not know if it contained dairy or not, so I ended up just eating one side of the bun and the burger. The tomato, lettuce, and other half of the bun had the sauce on it. Next time, I will know what to order though. I am going to order double meat, no cheese or sauce, and protein style. Protein style means instead of buns, they wrap the burgers in a huge lettuce leaf!

We ended getting back to Cory's apartment around 11pm and I had to be up at 5am to get ready for my flight back home. I was pretty sleepy!

Here was a picture from my plane ride back to Indiana. The time changed on Sunday and I had to travel east, so I ended up losing four hours. The jet lag is starting to catch up to me. 

Overall, this trip was a blast! I cannot wait to go back and visit in May & eventually move there at the end of July! 

If you have never been to California, you must go!

Later Taters

"It's a beautiful day, don't let it get away."

Frozen yogurt and airport survival

Good morning!! 

Last night I was really craving ice cream and since I am lactose intolerant... It's been awhile since I've had some! I got on my phone and searched for frozen yogurt places in Charlotte that served a dairy free option. TCBY looked like it was the most promising. Cory and I headed there for some dessert! 

Here was my yogurt! I got dairy free coconut (made from silk coconut milk) and topped it with a sprinkle of coconut and pecans. The other flavor I tried was chocolate almond (also made from silk coconut milk). I topped that flavor with a sprinkle of almonds. Both flavor a were very good, but the coconut was my favorite! They had cute little separators at this frozen yogurt place. They were so cute! It also helped me stick to smaller portions. 

Here was Cory's frozen yogurt. He had all sorts of things. I think he had like four different flavors in there. 

I had to snap a picture of him! Today is his birthday!! If anyone knows him, wish him a happy birthday! 

Today I am traveling back to Indiana. I am flying so I thought I would do an airport survival post. I only pack a carry on because I do not want to pay the extra baggage fees and let's face it, I'm pretty low maintenance and can get by without much. I also packed an empty water bottle to fill up once I got past security. I packed some snacks. 

I packed the granola I bought yesterday at Luna's living kitchen.

I also packed the fruit bars I bought at Trader Joe's. 

I knew I would need some protein, so I picked up some edamame at the airport. 

Back home to good ol' Indiana! I have another vacation coming up on Saturday! 

Later taters! <3