Shopping Recap

I am back from a weekend full of shopping!!!  I had the best time visiting my best friend while we shopped until we dropped, literally!  If you'll recall this was a shopping trip to commemorate losing 50 lbs so I felt I deserved a little splurge.  Here is a full recap of the weekend (and what I purchased).

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Day 1, Saturday: I didn't get on the road until 1:30 because my son and I walked 2 miles in the Parade of Paws and thanks to very generous people, we were able to donate $305 to help the animals!!  That made my day! 

As soon as I arrived at my friend's house we walked straight to the nail place for pedicures, picking up her daughter along the way.  Afterwards we went to dinner at a great Mexican restaurant called Anna's.  I had a Southwest Chicken Salad and it was soooooo good.  I ate it all.  And by that I mean, even the fried shell bowl that I usually don't even allow at the table!  I also ate way too many chips with salsa, but it was vacation so who's counting?  Certainly it wasn't me!  I felt okay by this which surprised me, really.  I am trying to relax about counting points occasionally in order to make this my lifestyle and not just a diet.  I was truly surprised that it worked.  I ate fine all day so I felt like indulging for dinner was okay.  And since it was so tasty, it was a great time to indulge!  After dinner we walked to pick up my friend's daughter from a girlfriend's house and then walked back to their house.  All that walking in flip flops sorta made my feet hurt, but the exercise I was getting made it worth it!!

Day 2, Sunday: we got up and went on a 3+ mile walk which ended at Starbucks!!  Then we walked home.  After showering and getting ready, we went to the Coach outlet so I could use my coupon which was expiring THAT day.  We ended up spending nearly two hours there as I was having a hard time making decisions.  In the end, I found EXACTLY what I wanted and ended up with a new bag for work, a new crossbody purse, and a smaller wristlet.  (I pretended most of the weekend that my husband works and we have two incomes and therefore money to burn!)  Once done with that, we dropped off my friend's daughters at their grandma's and headed for the U Village--a shopping center near the U of WA campus.  We started with late lunch at a little Asian noodle place which consisted of lots of water, Diet Coke, Dan Dan Noodles and some kind of chicken salad.  It was sooooo tasty.  And again, I have no idea how many points.  We shopped around there for a couple hours, but with everything closing at 6:00 we were kind of rushed.  We went to a Juicy Couture store (sunglasses), a Life is Good store (hat), a Bumble and Bumble salon (hair spray), and a store called Fireworks (ear bud holder). 

From there we headed to Pike Place to visit the first Starbucks store.  I had been there before, but I really wanted to get a new mug to commemorate my trip.  We parked near Nordstrom were we stopped (perfume) and then walked to the market where literally Starbucks was the only thing open (2 mugs and coffee).  After that, it was back to the car to head home.  Once there we visited for awhile and then headed to bed!!

Day 3, Monday: my friend took one daughter to school before I was up, then we both walked the other one to school and then went to a little pond that was surrounded by a track so we could run 5K.  My friend was in front of me the entire time, but we both ran the entire distance.  This is when I noticed that she was singing along with her iPod which prompted our later discussion about music.  After we were done with that we walked to Starbucks for coffee and then walked home to shower.

We headed straight for Ikea and spent a long time walking through there as it is huge!  My bum leg was paining me which wasn't making me happy, but it was still fun to see the store again (straws, garbage can, two fake plants, a pot, bag clips, chocolates, little spoons, drawing book and tin cans).  From there we were going to go to lunch, but couldn't decide on what to eat!  We ended up at Starbucks eating almonds and having coffee.  We then went to Trader Joe's (chips, pretzel thins, bean dip, BBQ sauce, mini PB cups, reusable shopping bag).  What a cute store!  So far I have eaten some of the pretzel thins and they were excellent!

We went to Costco after that (shorts) which was big and required more walking and then made a quick stop at Target for a gift card--I waited in the car! Once done with that, we settled on Panera for dinner.  We should have eaten earlier!!  I was famished by that time and had polished off half a bag of the pretzel thins while waiting in the Target parking lot.  Panera was awesome!  I have heard about it before, but we don't have them here so I didn't know what all the hype was about.  I had vegetable soup, a tomato and mozzarella panini and a multi-grain baguette.  Yummy!  While eating dinner we decided to head to Bell Square for more shopping and frozen yogurt from a place called Red Mango.  We saw people the previous day at U Village with these yummy looking dishes of frozen yogurt but we were too full after lunch to enjoy it.  At Bell Square we visited Nordstrom, Lulu Lemon, Lego (Toy Story Lego set for my son), the Apple store and of course, Red Mango.  I had their signature yogurt with blackberries and it was so thick and creamy and yummy!  By the 9:30 closing time my friend had a splitting headache so we went straight home to bed.  Well she went to bed, but I stayed up and organized my stuff for the trip home.

Day 4, Tuesday: I woke up at 9:00 but didn't get out of bed until 10:00.  I didn't have anything to do except shower and get ready while my friend was getting ready to take a group of girls on an overnight to Great Wolf Lodge.  I stayed out of her hair while she did that!  They left at noon and so did I.  But not to go home, to go shopping at the Factory Stores in North Bend.  There I visited Eddie Bauer (clothes, clothes and clothes), Nike (soccer cleats for my son, t-shirts for my husband and son), Adidas (t-shirt for my son), Gap (clothes for me), and Gap Kids (clothes for my son).  I had a sandwich from Subway before finally getting on the road about 5:30.  I also stopped for gas and Starbucks before officially heading home. 

I arrived home about 9:15!

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Can you tell this was a fun weekend?  All about girl time, shopping, eating and exercising?  This is the first time that my friend and I have really exercised together.  Usually when we see each other she gets up to walk or run before I'm out of bed!  She's still a morning person and I will never be, but it was fun to get out there and burn calories together!!!

While I did not count points during the weekend, I do know what I ate and that I did not overdo it too much.  We really only ate two meals a day and breakfast consisted of only an egg on a sandwich thin, and one day I added an apple.  We also had Starbucks, but always nonfat and sugar free.  Plus we had all that exercise!  I am happy with myself and my efforts. 

Now it's back to reality.  I took most of today off, but will work tomorrow.  I wish I had taken the whole week off, I'm not sure what I was thinking there.  My son's last day of 2nd grade is Friday!  And then summer vacation.  My husband is still not working so he and my son will have a whole lot of fun during the summer while I am at work.  Luckily I will still only go in four days a week and we'll all have Fridays together.  I really hope a job comes along for my husband soon as I think he's getting a little bored, even if he does enjoy being home.  It will definitely be a transition for all of us when he goes back to work.