Tired Morning

Good morning! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I woke up this morning exhausted from the weekend's activities. I'm normally not a snooze person - I hop out of bed right when the alarm goes off - but when the alarm buzzed at 5:40 AM this morning for my morning workout, I laid into that snooze button for a good 45 minutes. So much for kicking off the week with a sweaty cardio routine! Eh, sometimes you just need more sleep. This weekend may have tired me out, but it definitely was a fun one.

Saturday we took advantage of the beautiful weather and fresh snowfall by taking Riker sledding for the first time. Normally a snowy Saturday would mean a warm, special breakfast in this house, but we wanted to hurry up and hit the park early so I kept things simple and quick with a typical yogurt bowl.

I topped plain, nonfat Greek yogurt with fresh strawberries and a little honey. That picture is actually recycled from work last week (as you can probably tell by the phone cords and desk), but it looked pretty much the same. I also had a Kashi granola bar in the car for a little carb & fiber action. Then it was sledding time!

We met up with Matt's parents at a park near their house, which has a sledding hill that was already packed with kids. Unfortunately Riker was a little tired so didn't enjoy it as much as he probably would've had he been well rested, but he was still a trooper and went down the hill with us a bunch of times.

After sledding we went home for lunch and packing, then dropped Riker back off at the grandparents and headed down to Atlantic City for the night. My friend Heather was celebrating her 31st birthday, and we had a crew of about 20 people at Borgata for the festivities.

Always a great time with these girls! Matt and I actually went down a little early to sneak a "mini date night" in before we met up with the whole group. We haven't had an evening out alone in a while, so when Matt suggested we go early and steal an hour to have cocktails and appetizers just the two of us, I was totally game.

We were hoping to find a seat at the bar at Wolfgang Puck since neither of us have ever been, but the place was packed. Same with the lounge at Bobby Flay Steak. I remembered there being a large bar area at Fornelletto, where we went for my birthday dinner last year, so we took a shot heading there and sure enough, we were able to find two seats. I loved the atmosphere here; the dining room is formal, but the bar area is filled with communal tables and it's lively and fun, with super friendly waiters and delicious "bar food."

We started with a roasted beet and carrot salad over arugula with avocado, almonds and homemade dressing, and it was fantastic. We also ordered the mussels cooked in white wine and garlic with crispy kale, which were equally delicious. I didn't think I was into mussels, but I was wrong. So good, and way less "fishy" than clams, which I am not really a fan of.

The broth was clearly the best part. I dunked my bread in there multiple times until all that goodness was soaked up. For our entree, we shared a goat cheese and wild mushroom pizza cooked in a wood burning oven.

I only had one small piece since I was getting full, but it was awesome. The mushrooms were woodsy with great texture and the crust was super thin and crunchy.

And then we were off to meet up with the gang for a little bar hopping and a whole lot of dancing. It was such a fun night!

We arrived back in town yesterday around noon, and spent a good part of the afternoon relaxing at Matt's parents' house with Riker before making our way home and settling in for the night. I spent my last waking hour getting started on book #2 of the Divergent series, Insurgent, until my eyes couldn't stay open a second longer. I'm probably looking at another early night tonight, too.

Now time to get started on that work thing. Happy Monday!