bye, bye Boston

Hi guys!

I am one tired, yet very happy blogger.

Happy to have been able to attend the HLS, and meet so many wonderful women, happy to be back home, happy to be part of such a wonderful blogging community.

This morning some of the girls met up in the lobby for a group run.

You know a girl is a true runner when she is wearing moleskin.

Or a Garmin.

I waited while the Garmin girls were getting a signal.

But the rest of the group took off!

Yeah, waaaay to fast for me. I definitely am not an 8:30 runner, I found that out.

There was a small group of us that settled into a 9:30/10:00 pace and ended up taking an urban route.

It was all good when we met back at the hotel, equally sweaty.

Runners + blogger central!

After everyone cleaned up we headed out for brunch.

Finagle a Bagel = awesome!

That is the Incredible Slicer Machine, that many of us were enamored by, although no one caught an action shot. It was cool though. Take my word for it.

Everyone grabbed bagels and headed to the Common for a little picnic.

Such a great group of girls + one guy!

 

Whole wheat sesame bagel + peanut butter.

Fresh fruit!

Iced coffee.

My little personal picnic space.

I scarfed down my eats, and headed off to meet up with my friend Jason, who moved to Boston a few years ago. We had been facebooking a meet up, and managed to squeeze one in today.

We went on a quick tour, as I only had a few hours left in that wonderful city.

We hit up Chinatown first,

then made our way to the State House.

Quincy’s Market.

And then, for Mama D’s sake, I visited the Old North Church. Mama D. is such a history buff, and for some reason I think of her when I think Paul Revere.

Mama D., those are for you.

I also caught some skyline shots.

 

See that fountain? I was tempted to run through it. Apparently air conditioning is not considered a necessity in New England, though it should be. Especially on 80 degree August days.

Then we hopped on the T and rode back to the hotel where I gathered my peanut butter luggage and checked out. I also met Meghan in the lobby for a little apple cake and Barney Butter exchange. What? More nut butter?!?! Yes. No excuses.

We hopped back on the T and rode over to Jamaica Plain to pick up Jason’s car, since he had so kindly offered me a ride to the airport. I was seriously thankful, because the idea of a bus or another taxi was not appealing.

While in Jamaica Plain, we grabbed some lunch.

Yes, I had ice cream for lunch. No shame.

 

So many choices!

I zeroed in on the Mint Chip hard yogurt pretty quickly and my mind was made up.

SO GOOD! Mint chip is my favorite ice cream, and this froyo did not disappoint. It was some of the best ever. I wanted to stay, so I could eat it every day.

Sadly I had a JetBlue flight waiting on me to go back to Charlotte.

Bye-bye Boston.

Hello clouds!

Due to a storm in Charlotte that apparently was moving north, we did not have much time without the seatbelt light off. It was ok though, a girl can endure anything for and hour and a half.

If she has Pop Chips.

and ProBars.

Plus Women’s Health and DirectTv.

We landed at a perfect time, cause as I walked out with my bags, Mama D. and the pops pulled up to collect me.

I shared my treats with Mama D. on the way home.

Seriously, Megan’s Apple Cake is the best ever!

Home sweet home. So glad to to be back, so sad to leave my new friends! Good thing I finally met Kath! We don’t live very far from each other, so we definitely have to start running together some. If I can keep up with that workhorse, that is. Lady can run! I found that out today!

I also just found out that I have not had a vegetable all day. I think I will go scrounge in the fridge and see what green and leafy mess I can find.

Watch out spinach!

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#HLS

The Healthy Living Summit was a blast!

Thanks again, to Kath, Tina, Meghann, Caitlin, Jenna and Heather for making this all possible.

Amy and I started the day by putting on our running clothes and taking pictures in the mirror.

Then we went back to bed.

No really, we went running along the Charles. It was fabulous, and so nice to have a running partner. I was having to work to keep up to Amy! We met Kath, Meghann and Caitlin while out, but they were going the opposite direction and probably faster than we wanted to go as well.

After 45 minutes, we were sweaty and in desperate need of showers before the Summit festivities began. I snagged the shower first, being that I am like ten times the sweater that Amy is. Like a sweat fountain, I am.

Much better:

 

Yes, more ghetto mirror pictures. We love those things.

All dressed up and no place to go.

Oh wait!

I heard something about a breakfast bar.

A breakfast bar that I did not take pictures of. That’s ok, what matters is that they had Oikos.

I snagged a honey, because that is my most favorite greek yogurt evah. Evah, evah.

Plus there was something else I had been dying to try.

Mix my granola! I made sure to grab plenty, and I was glad. I did not run out like Amy and Meghan.

They also had coffee (staple!) and fruit.

After breakfast, we moved into the conference area

for icebreaker games, nutritionist Janel Orvut, and none other than Zesty Cook! I must say, of the morning speakers, Zesty was my favorite. He gave a great talk, and I feel like I learned a lot.

During breaks we were sure to browse the bake sale table.

There were lots of wonderful goodies up for sale. By far the favorites were Angela’s Glo Bars and Matt’s buns (he had a wonderful note accompanying those things; I would have bought them just for that. Hilarious.) I had my eye on the sweets though. Cakes and chocolate were a plenty.

Also a lot more photo ops:

Amy, Meghan and I. Us three stuck together pretty much all day. How lucky was I to have two such great girls to hang with?!?!

Caitlin and I. I think she caught me trying to steal one of her gingerbread cookie men. Who me?

After Zesty, we broke for lunch. Good thing, as twitter was ablaze with hungry food bloggers.

The lunch bar was pretty much cleaned out by the time I hit it up. I somehow got in the end of the line, so once again, no pictures of the buffet.

It was a fabulous array of sandwich ingredients though.

I managed to make a wonderful lettuce sandwich, with a side of lettuce.

Actually, it was a wonderful tomato and fresh mozzarella sandwich, but the tomato and mozzarella are hiding, so it looks like a lettuce sandwich.

The potato salad was wonderful.

I am pretty much a sucker for all things potato.

Fruit; always a good thing.

My combined array of eats.

My combined array of eaters.

Then I hit up the ol’ swag bag:

(just took that picture in my room, in case you can’t tell.) For more a more detailed recap of all it entailed, hit up Megan or Meghan’s blog. They did a pretty great job describing it. If you don’t want to get jealous, do not click those links.

Anyway, in the swag bag I found a delicious surprise!

Dried pineapple! One of my favorite dried fruits EVER! I finished that off for dessert. Lucky me, I also won two $10 gift cards to use on the Peeled website.

After lunch, we heard Regina Beilder, an organic dairy farmer speak. She did a great job educating everyone on the importance of organic farming, and how important it is to know where your milk products are coming from.

She passed out a little Q&A sheet, which was filled with great facts!

After Regina, we had some ladies with body + soul magazine talk to us about the importance of natural beauty products.

I really like the magazine.

It was filled with great tips, and was a special edition sponsored by Stonyfield Farm.

Afterward, Caitlin did an Operation Beautiful presentation where she passed out note cards and had us write one thing we loved about ourselves on the outside, and one thing on the inside. Apparently I love myself a little too much, because I was the last one done.

Then, much excitement ensued, as it was time for snackage.

I picked up a POM juice at the juice bar and paired it with some swag apricots.

Unfortunately the juice just wasn’t doing it for me, and I substituted some Brazil nuts from OhNuts.

Very much hit the spot.

After, the snack bar, we had some closing stuff, including a great fitness talk, where all the girls spoke about their special area of fitness. I learned a lot, as I usually do combos of yoga, strength and cardio.

Then Amy, Allie, Sarah and I headed up to our rooms to store our swag and sample our bake sale buys.

After sampling the wonderful Marathon Runner’s Apple Cake from (yet another) Megan, it was time to go.

TO WHOLE FOODS!

When I met Allie, a Boston native, last night she promised to take to me on my very first Whole Foods outing.

Produce! So much lovely produce. I wept a little, cause I could not take it back with me.

The salad bar that I have always dreamed of.

Yogurt. So much yogurt.

I headed to a more travel friendly aisle. The nut butter aisle. I stocked up on fresh ground peanut butter, White Chocolate Wonderful, black bean salsa, Justin Butter and preserves.

I also did not take any more pictures, because apparently it is illegal.

Whole Foods is conveniently located right next to boYo.

I chose mango, topped with pineapple and coconut.

This guy made it for me. He likes food blogs. Or just wanted to be on one.

Holy yum, delicious, fuzziness!

After froyo, we hightailed it back over to the hotel to meet the other girls for the Fisherman’s Feast.

It just so happened that we were late, so Allie and I headed over alone.

ummm, the temperature had risen, and I was glowing. So attractive.

We passed up the lovely looking chocolate dipped stuffs,

for yummy spinach stuffed stuffs.

We also found the other girls.

Megan and I.

Megan, Kelly and I.

I love these girls! They are just as nice as they seem in their blogs. It’s so great to put faces to names, as Kath said earlier.

The whole group headed to Mike’s Pastry after the festival and tastings, for more tasting.

Meghann, Megan, Kelly and I split a strawberry shortcake,

while others shared cannolis.

Thus ended a great day, and now my feet are aching and my eyes are tired. Must get some sleep before the 7:30 run in the morning.

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Love…

Boston.

Lovely architecture, lovely city.

Love…

Flowers.

+

Starbucks.

Love…

Ghetto mirror pictures with Meghan.

Love…

Cheesy grins and new friends.

Me + Meghan.

Roomie (Amy), Megan, Kelly and Meghan.

Why is my name not Megan/Meghan/Meghann? Or Kelly’s? Or Amy’s?

Megan is a food blogger name.

Yes, that is me and Meghann. Yes it is.

 

Table shot. Leg shot of me.

Aimee, Meghan, Rose and yes, me again.

Meghan and Leslie, twitter addicts. Me? Just a picture addict. With a baby bit of a twitter addiction. Maybe.

What? Me again? Camera whore. That’s Leslie over there beside me. Love this girl. Love her.

Love girls from New Jersey and girls from Wisconsin. Also I might be fixing to lose my dress.

Love fun signs.

And finally, love food blogger food.

Fried Risotto ball (!!!), salad with lovely things like SPINACH + CRANBERRIES!, pizza with arugula (two nights in a row never hurt anyone) + veggies, veggies, veggies.

Love the HLS! Thanks for all the hard work, Meghann, Tina, Jenna, Kath and Heather!

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on solid ground

Check out the view from my hotel!

Loves it, love Boston, the 68.975 minutes I have been here.

More on Boston later.

First let’s start this post the way I started my day.

run

run

run

run

run

run

run

run

run

That’s how many miles I ran, before hitting up a cool shower and stack of pancakes.

Highly delectable peanut butter oatmeal pancakes w/ mashed naner.

I ate them with a fork, and a cup of coffee.

Breakfast of champions, and I’m not kidding.

I tossed some snacks in my carry on:

As well as a highly essential Women’s Health for my reading pleasure. I also brought along The Shack, so I could finish it in flight.

Cecily packed all her gear up too, but Mom wouldn’t let her come to Boston. That’s ok, she wanted to go to Alaska anyway.

I was jumping out of my skin with excitement, ready to go.

We got to the airport in plenty of time, although my neurotic self was certain we wouldn’t. If I were Mama D, I would have given me a good spanking. I am sure I was being irritating.

The flight was uneventful, which is good. Unlike Meredith’s flight to Cozumel which had a fuel leak. I did not even notice any turbulence. Of course I was deeply buried in ‘The Shack’ and would not have noticed. I’m almost done, full review coming after I get home, cause I will be sure to finish it on the flight back.

I breezed through checkout and the baggage claim, and took a taxi to my hotel cause I had no clue how to get around this town. Ummm, I will be taking public transportation back to the airport. I just need a map and a lesson in using it.

My room is GREAT though!

I pretty much breezed in and made myself at home, as you can see.

Alrighty mateys, I am off to explore this awesome city with my roomie, who just popped in while I was typing this. She is really cool so far, I feel lucky!

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