My Favorite Things...

Good morning. It's my favorite day of the week! I have a lot of random things to blog about, so hopefully this post does not end up being too random. I'll try to stay organized.

Travel Plans
It's been a year and a half since our last plane trip so Eric and I are excited for our upcoming adventures. A week from Sunday (on Valentine's Day) we are leaving for Arizona. When we arrive, we are renting a car and headed straight from 2 nights in Sedona, 2 nights at the Grand Canyon and then back for 3 nights in Scottsdale. We already have our hotels, but I need your restaurant and things to do recommendations for those 3 locations- so send them my way!

We are also in full planning mode for our honeymoon. Eric and I are going to Hawaii- Big Island & Maui. We were planning to make a pit stop in San Diego on the way out, but we just decided to switch it to San Francisco. We will only be there for a day and a half, but we are hoping to fit in a full day Napa wine tour and a Giants vs. Mets game at night. I love trips :)

Trying Out a New Gym

I belong to this awesome group called Groupon, that basically gets companies/restaurants to lower their prices if they can promise a certain number of people will use/buy their product. If you live near a city that does Groupon and you don't have it, join now because it's amazing.

The other day there was a deal for 24 day passes to Healthworks for $24. A lot of the Boston Bloggers I read go to Healthworks and rave about a weight class called Body Pump, so there was no way I was turning down such a great offer. Plus I figured it would be fun to try a different gym sometimes.

Yesterday I decided to go have my initial appointment at the Cambridge Healthworks, which is closest to my work and house. I'm very familiar with Porter Square, but thanks to my GPS I found a short cut and made it to the gym and home in record time. I don't think it too much longer than my normal gym takes, amazing. After my initial set up, I went to go do my first work out. I'm planning to normally take classes there, since I can work out at my own gym but there was nothing I wanted to wait for on Friday afternoon so I just did a normal work out instead.

My first impressions were:
1. They take your license and then give you a card to slip into the lockers. Then you get a key to put around your wrist. At first I thought this was awesome, because then I don't have to bring my own lock/remember my combination/carry my bag around (which is what I normally do). But then I left my key in my machine and had to walk back up 4 flights of stairs to get it. Also, I can see myself leaving without my license one day and being really pissed. So, I like this feature but don't love it. Or should I say, this feature would work better for people with brains...
2. The locker room is really nice, and big.
3. Did I mention you have to walk up 4 flights of stairs before your work out? No need for a warm up at this gym!
4. I don't know if someone told me this or if I just made it up, but I thought Healthworks was supposed to be kind of a ritzy, real nice, gym. That may be the case at other locations, but I thought this one was pretty comparable to my Y. Though, I do go to a pretty nice Y...
5. They had a lot of great weight equipment and more dumbbells that I have ever seen in my life. I had no problem finding a spot where I could do my work with dumbbells and the big ball.
6. I thought I would really like the all-women aspect, but to be honest I barely noticed. I think I was just so happy to have space to lift, I could've cared less who was around me. Plus there were guy trainers, so it's not like it was really only women. And some women that looked like guys...

I am excited to go back and try some classes. Any other bloggers out there that are Healthworks members?

Breakfast

I woke up and did Saturday morning spin class this morning. When I got home I was in the mood for a delicious Saturday-type breakfast. I decided on baked oatmeal. I wanted to use a pear, but they were not ripe yet (is it just me or do pears take FOREVER to get ripe?). I used an apple instead, I am obsessed with Honeycrisp apples right now.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup plain soy milk
1/2 of an apple sliced thin
cinnamon to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients together. Pour into an oven safe dish. Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes. Enjoy :)

Personally, I think this may have been even better with some brown sugar on top. Eric and I are out, but if you have some add it on top after cooking for 25 minutes, and then cook 5 additional minutes.

This breakfast was SO simple and delicious. It tasted a lot like my oatmeal muffins, and a bit like apple crisp- though I think it would've tasted even more like apple crisp with some brown sugar.

On the agenda today is some house cleaning, some blog updating (need to update my tabs at the top) and then hopefully doing something fun, not sure what yet :) What is everyone up to today?