18 Things

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

Hi there!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Mine was both exhausting and fun— there was a sleepover, waffles, delicious dinner, a dance show (last one EVER), and I turned 18 somewhere in there.

Linking up with Katie!

So here are 18 things about my weekend during which I became a legal adult:

1. Moves

After school on Friday, I headed to the gym (there are 3 days left in my membership!) for a workout.

5 min. arc trainer + supersets:

10-12 pistols each leg + 15-20 Bulgarian split squats each leg
20 hamstring ball roll-ins + 30 Bosu lunge hops
20 lunge pulses + 20 single leg bridge pulses each leg

Plus core work!

2. Dance company dinner

At my favorite Japanese restaurant! I got the roll combo with eel avocado, yellowtail, and tuna rolls. They’re all my absolute favorites, so you better believe I finished that whole plate. No sushi left behind.

3. Dance company sleepover

‘Twas a crazy night with 14 girls sleeping over, but it was a blast. We signed T-shirts, screamed Frozen songs at the top of our lungs, and played Cards Against Humanity. Successful sleepover indeed!

4. Epic breakfast

Waking up at 9 AM after going to bed at 3 AM was not ideal on my birthday, but making breakfast (best meal of the DAY) for my best gals was worth it. My super-mom did most of the work though. We have enough waffles and cereal for the rest of the year I think.

The only thing I really did— gluten free banana pancakes.

Approximately 1/5 of all the waffles we made. {We froze all the leftovers.}

Part of my breakfast: pancakes with Greek yogurt, peanut butter, and maple syrup added later. Heavennnnn.

Thanks so much, mom and pop, for being such generous hosts to all my dance friends!!! It has been requested that you start a hotel service…but I think you’re already there.

5. A nice nap

‘Nough said.

6. Beautiful weather all weekend

Like, perfect.

7. Wonderful Mass with my family

It’s the last week of the Easter season!

8. Awesome birthday texts from my friends

9. Phone call with the brother

So happy that I got to talk with Mr. Penguino.

10. Eighteen burpees

…ya know. I ♥ burpees, so it just seemed appropriate.

11. Amazing birthday dinner

I chose to go to a Latin restaurant called Sonora that my parents had raved about in the past, and it was the BOMB. We all shared a few tapas, a couple entrees, and of course a couple desserts.

Salmon ceviche

Quinoa, goat cheese, roasted eggplant empanadas with a chocolate molé sauce. WHOA.

Dad’s halibut with quinoa gnocchi (!!!)

Mom’s stuffed chicken with some sort of green potato mash

Pork tacos

Cheesecake with dulce de leche ice cream and guava sauce

Chocolate jalapeño bread pudding with dulce de leche ice cream. This was awesome.

12. The waiters sang happy birthday to me really quietly

I was kinda hoping they would have fireworks and a mariachi band though.

13. Best birthday presents ever from Daliza

Cutest collage ever.

Uhhh how cool is this?! She drew the little mascot on there and everything!

The goodies in the box.

Daliza is one of my best friends ever, and this gift meant the absolute world to me. I swear it’s not just because she gave me sunflower seed butter. 😉 I can tell that she put so much effort and thought into it and I appreciate it from the depths of my nut-butter-loving heart. Thank you so much, Daliza!

14. Woke up automatically at 7 AM yesterday morning

My internal clock hates me -_-

15. Watched CrossFit Games while eating breakfast instead of trying to go back to sleep

Bad idea. I was so tired for the rest of the day.

16. Last dance show with my dance school EVER

That sounds more emotional than it was. Yesterday was the show for the younger dance classes in our dance school, so we did perform shortly, but we mostly just helped out backstage. It was a long day.

Alison + Allison. Sons.

17. Ate a snickerdoodle

Thanks to my friend Rachel who brought a bunch for us to eat yesterday! Snickerdoodles are my fave.

18. Thanked God

For this weekend and every single person that made it so dang special.

Hello, adulthood! I’m {sorta} ready for you!

So tell me:

What is the best birthday gift you ever received?

Three things you did this weekend!

Behind the Scenes #4: Christmas in NYC, Food Tour, and Game Night

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

Hi guys!

I hope you all had a joyful and blessed Christmas (or a lovely day off if you don’t celebrate)! My family and I certainly lived it up. Our celebrations have included a lot of these three things: laughter, prayer, and FOOD.

I know that a lot of people, including me, have post-Christmas blues, but the 12 days of Christmas have just started! Go buy your loved ones two turtle doves and partridge in a pear tree today. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding them, right? 😉 Plus, there’s still New Year’s to look forward to!

Well the last few days have been packed with fun, so I’m going to take you behind the scenes to check out the shenanigans (and my random thoughts about them)…

Hooray for Amanda’s Thinking Out Loud link-up!

1. This year was our first Christmas in New York in about four or five years. We’ve been in either Canada or Florida for the past few years, so it is wonderful to be staying home with just the four of us this Christmas! I actually told my dad before we left for Canada, “I miss having Christmas at home in New York.” Well, I guess my wish came true! Just not quite in the way I would have expected…

2. Christmas at home meant an obligatory trip to NYC to take in the Christmas experience! We decided to go down on Christmas Eve to see the tree and do a little “food tour.” What is a food tour you may ask? You see, we went on this crazy food adventure with our family friends a few Thanksgivings ago, in which we just stopped by a bunch of restaurants (mostly dessert places) to try different things. I remember we ate at a Mongolian restaurant for dinner and then went to several places for dessert: a famous cheesecake place, Pinkberry, a chocolate cake place, and Rice to Riches (rice pudding). It’s excessive, spontaneous, and oh so fun to do once in a blue moon. We also just have a little bit at each place too, or else we would probably explode.

This year’s experience: (I’ll show you just what I ate. I’ll spare the extra pics of what everyone else ate!)

Shared yen-ta-four soup with mom at Wondee Siam for lunch

Rockefeller Tree!

[Insert down time at Barnes and Noble]

Cereal milk soft serve at Momofuku Milk Bar— I had always wanted to try this place! The cereal milk tastes like what it’s called. It might be meh to some, but it was totally up my alley.

Okay this is not mine. It’s Ben’s dessert at Ben Ash, which was a completely spontaneous drop-in. The biggest ($10!!!) piece of red velvet cheesecake EVER. I kept telling him not to finish it because I worried about his health. He didn’t 😉

Visit to Times Square, since we’re too wimpy to go for New Year’s. In our defense, we like to be able to move around and go to the bathroom freely, thank you very much.

Last stop of the night: the best Halal food in the city. We always go to the most popular location, which is at 53rd and 6th. There is always a super long line! I shared a chicken and rice plate with mom. Hit the spot like no other.

At least we were walking all day, right? 😉

3. My family didn’t really do formal gifts this year, but each one of us treated the family at one of the above restaurants. We also just counted any gift given in the month of December as a Christmas gift. Some may say that’s no fun, but it worked for us this year! I also made a card with coupons for my family:

I do most of these things already, but the coupons will allow my family members to ask for the favors on demand. Uh oh.

And Ben made me this cute card:

Lots of jokes in this card. Thanks, Penguino!

4. You’d think we would be tired of food by Christmas day…Nahhh. The second part of my gift was making lunch for the family after Mass:

Baked French toast and a set up of all our leftovers to make brunch tacos

5. Catch Phrase is the best game ever. All four of us played it last night, and we totally got an ab workout from laughing so hard. Even though we only have the junior version, it’s still fun!

An example of what was said:

Ben: “What is this? (does robot) Domo arigato.”

Dad: “Mozart!”

……No.

But he got it right after that. 😉

6. I’m currently playing Connect Four with Ben and I could not be worse at it. I just lost the first game in about 2 minutes.

Just kidding, I just won with FIVE in a row. BOOM.

…And I just won again! I don’t think I’ve ever won this many times in my life! Seriously.

7. I made granola bars randomly yesterday, following this recipe loosely. To be honest, I really just wanted to use up a some of my salted almond butter. It’s not that I don’t like it, but I just don’t enjoy it nearly as much as my other nut/seed butters. However, they certainly made these granola bars mighty tasty.

8. I should really start my homework today. *dramatic sigh*

9. I think that’s enough from me. May your days be merry and bright, folks. You rock. ❤

“And the Word was made flesh…” —John 1:14

So tell me: What did you do for Christmas? What is one of your favorite things you gifted to someone else? Have you ever played Catch Phrase before?