I just got home from dropping Bonnie and Andrea off at the airport, and I am so sad that the weekend is over. We had such an amazing time!
On Thursday, Caitlin (my Ragnar SoCal teammate) arrived from Boston; Bonnie (another Ragnar SoCal teammate) came in from Virginia; and Andrea (my Ragnar Florida Keys teammate) arrived from Kansas City. Bonnie and Caitlin obviously knew each other already, but Andrea met them for the first time. We all have quite a bit in common, and it was fun chatting. Between the four of us, we've lost a collective 630-ish pounds!! So crazy.
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Caitlin, Andrea, Bonnie, and me |
I won't detail the entire five days they were here (they came in Thursday and left Monday), but here are some highlights of their visit.
On Thursday, we right to La Pita for lunch after I picked them up from the airport. Bonnie and Caitlin had never been there before, so I was excited for them to try it. Bonnie is vegan, and La Pita has a lot of vegan options, thankfully. Lunch was delicious!
We got settled in at my house, and then walked to the local bar for drinks and Keno. I introduced them all to Keno, and then I happened to win my four-spot! I always pick the same numbers: 11, 25, 33, and 64. All of my numbers were pulled, so I won $72 (I'd paid $20 for the ticket). It's fun to win, because then I got to pay for the whole table's tab and it technically didn't cost me
anything ;)
On Friday, I planned to host my wine club meeting, so we spent the day prepping for that. First, we went for a walk at the state park, because it was gorgeous outside--72 degrees! Then we bought the groceries for Winers. Andrea and Caitlin are amazing at baking, so they made yummy cookies. Bonnie and I put together dozens of skewers of things--antipasto, pound cake with strawberries, cheese and fruit, etc.
About an hour before Winers started, I saw that I got several messages from guests who canceled at the last minute. I was super bummed, because I had spent a lot of money and time putting everything together. Only four people from my wine club showed up (I was expecting 12), so we had a ton of leftover wine and food. BUT, we had a lot of fun! I just don't think I'll be hosting Winers again after all that.
Unfortunately, Caitlin had to leave on Friday night, because she coaches Girls on the Run and their practice 5K was rescheduled for Saturday morning. Again, a bummer, but she really didn't have any other options. She took a late flight, so she was able to be here for a little while during Winers.
On Saturday, Bonnie, Andrea, and I went up to Detroit in the morning so I could take them to Eastern Market. Eastern Market is a HUGE farmer's market that is open year-round on Saturdays, and a couple of other days during the summer. There are vendors that sell food, plants, crafts, etc. Bonnie was hoping to find some vegan baked goods, because that's not something that she can get easily (if at all) at home. The weather change was ridiculous from the day before--Friday was 72 and sunny, and Saturday was 32 and overcast/drizzly.
We walked around Eastern Market, and if it wasn't so cold, we probably could have spent all day there; but as we were walking, down came freezing rain! We got to see the whole market before the freezing rain, thankfully, so then we left to get lunch. There is a restaurant in Detroit called Detroit Vegan Soul, and I was excited to take Bonnie there. She's been vegan for two years (vegetarian much longer), but she'd NEVER been to a vegan restaurant before! Taking her there was one of my favorite parts of their visit, because I've never seen a grown woman so excited about anything. It's fun to see someone that excited!
I'm obviously not vegan, but I do love to try new things, so I ordered the "catfish" dinner--it was tofu that was breaded and fried like catfish, along with potatoes and a corn/broccoli medley.
I thought it was just okay. I really liked the cornmeal breading, but the tofu itself didn't have any flavor. The side dishes were good, though.
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Andrea ordered the "Soul Platter"--collard greens, mac and cheese, beans and rice, and sweet potatoes. |
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Bonnie got a "bacon" wrap (the bacon was made from coconut!) and yam chips |
All of us agreed that the food was just so-so, but we really liked trying it. The restaurant is adorable, too!
After that, we headed to Greektown Casino because Bonnie had never been in a casino before. She lost a quick $5 in a slot machine ;) We had some time to kill before going to Jerry's sister's house for a Pure Romance party, so I took them on a quick tour of Detroit via the People Mover (it was way too cold to walk around). Then, we stopped into Astoria Pastry Shop in Greektown to get baklava for a treat to have later.
Neither Bonnie nor Andrea had ever been to a Pure Romance party, so it was really fun to take them to Laura's! (Laura is Jerry's sister). Laura hosted the party, and Jerry's cousin was the consultant. The party was fun, and we were giggling over the products like the mature women we are ;)
We were pretty exhausted when we got home that evening. For dinner, we just ate some of the things we bought from Eastern Market (tamales and chips with guac), and then we watched a couple of movies while we drank margaritas in our pajamas. (I'd bought all three of the girls some Cookie Monster pajama pants. I wish I'd have thought to get a picture of all four of us in our pajamas while Caitlin was here.)
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With our margaritas and PJ's |
Sunday was the Kona Chocolate Run 10K that we were supposed to do, but the weather was miserable! None of us thought that running in the cold snowy weather sounded fun (the "feels like" temp was 13 degrees because of the wind!). So, we stayed home and had a pretty low key day. We went out for Mexican food for dinner (a super early dinner!) with Jerry and the kids. Then, we watched Shameless in our pajamas and had more margaritas (a lot of margaritas were consumed this weekend! ha). It was a very fun pajama party weekend!
This morning, Bonnie made me one of her delicious sandwiches. She's introduced me to several things I wouldn't normally have thought to try. She makes a sandwich on this amazing bread called Dave's Killer Bread...
I'm normally not a big bread person (unless it's freshly baked and has something spread on it), but holy cow, this bread is heavenly! Bonnie's favorite sandwich consists of this bread, sliced avocado, a very thin smear of Just Mayo (a vegan mayonnaise), red onions, Mrs. Dash Chipotle seasoning, and spinach. It was delicious, and I have a feeling I'm going to be eating it a lot now.
Remember how I said that my tastes have changed recently, and peanut butter is repulsive for some crazy reason? Well, I've also had an aversion to sweets for the first half of each day. The thought of having a sweet breakfast makes me feel nauseous. It's so strange! When we were at Eastern Market, I wasn't even
tempted to taste samples of all the sweets and baked goods. Once evening rolls around, however, sweets are great again. (I have no idea what caused this--I suspect it's from the fish oil and/or vitamin D supplements I started taking about a month ago.) Anyway, this sandwich actually makes a great (savory) breakfast.
Today, it's back to the normal routine. I already miss my friends! But I am so glad that we got to have such a fun visit, and I hope we can do something like this annually.