Zumba, Profiteroles, and Dark Skies

I think it's a general consensus that weekends go by far too fast! I kept pretty busy this weekend and I was also pretty productive - finally tackled some things that were on my to do list for a few weeks now, like deep cleaning the bathroom and sorting through my mail and junk drawer. There were some fun things mixed in though, too!

On Friday night, I went to my Aunt Sandy's after work to go with her to Zumba. She has been doing Zumba for I believe two years now, and has asked me to go with her several times. I haven't spent time with her in awhile, so I decided to go along. I haven't tried Zumba before, but I know a few people who really enjoy it. My take on it? It's something I would try again, but I don't see myself becoming a Zumba fanatic. We went to a 90 minute class that was pretty packed. For the first 10 minutes, I was not really enjoying myself, mainly because I don't like to appear like I have no clue what is going on - and in this instance, I certainly had no clue what was going on! The regular Zumba goers clearly knew some of the familiar steps and movements. I had difficulty seeing the instructor on the stage; particularly her feet. It was hard to anticipate what was coming next. Finally I just decided to have fun with it and just make sure I kept moving. Some songs were fun and had you work up a sweat, others were more slow paced and seemed to have small, simple movements. Overall, I was happy I tried it and it was nice to spend time with my aunt. I know she really likes the class, and I'm happy it's an exercise she enjoys.

On Saturday, I woke up feeling pretty sore all over - I'm not sure if that's a result from my boot camp on Friday morning, Zumba on Friday night, or a combination of both. My boyfriend Dan and I went to the gym together in the afternoon and I did a combination cardio workout of stair climbing and running, along with some arm weights and abs exercises that I've learned from the boot camp I go to. It really makes me happy that my boyfriend loves to work out. He's a great motivator on days when I need an extra push, and overall he is just so supportive and encouraging. 

Dan and I at a fun run on Fat Tuesday.

After the gym, it was time for us to have a date night - our schedules have been really crazy the last couple months between his job and my two jobs. Back in January, I won a $200 gift card at my company's annual New Year's Kick Off party to Pinstripes, a nice restaurant that also has bowling and bocce ball -- score! It turns out you have to book your bowling way in advance - three weeks or so - but we still wanted to go there for dinner. We at there a few months ago for free thanks to some dinner vouchers the Pinstripes staff dropped off at offices in the area, and it was fantastic. This time, it was just as delicious! Saturday was a splurge day for sure. The meal started off with a generous basket of soft bread sticks with some yummy dipping oil - to me it tasted like a mix of pesto, garlic, and olive oil.

I know they say that if you're trying to eat well, you should send the bread basket back at restaurants, but I can never (and probably will never!) do that. I had about 5 or 6 of the bread sticks. Whoops! Like I said - it was our splurge night! Then we each ordered a bowl of soup (I had minestrone, Dan had chicken dumpling) and shared a jumbo crab cake. No picture of the crab cake to post, but it was melt in your mouth delicious. Then it was time for my entree: baked meat lasagna, which consisted of spinach pasta, meat and marinara, and mozzarella cheese. The lasagna was incredible. It had a little peppery kick to it too.

Dan ordered a pasta dish too, consisting of chicken and goat cheese in a more creamy sauce. We were pretty full from our bread, crab cake, and soup, so we only ate about a quarter of our meal. That was fine with me, as I love having leftovers! We made sure to stop ourselves from becoming too full, because I insisted we save some room for dessert. I saw profiteroles on the menu, and I absolutely. positively. love. profiteroles. Dan never had them before, so I was even more excited to introduce him to the tasty pastries stuffed with ice cream and covered in chocolate and caramel sauce. Sounds good, right? Well just take a gander at the photo below:

I have few words to describe how delicious these are! Everything about them was perfect. I'm drooling just staring at this picture. They were heavenly!

After dinner, we headed back home for a little bit until it was time to go to theater near me to see Dark Skies. If you were thinking of seeing this movie...please don't. Save your money. Save your time. I'm a sucker for alien movies (goes back to my 8 year old self being obsessed with aliens for a good year or so), and I was excited to see this one. Unfortunately, Dan and I walked out of the theater wanting the last 90 minutes of our lives back. The story line was weak. The only creepy part of the movie was at the very end, but by then you just wanted it to be over so badly that you didn't even care about seeing the aliens. We were very disappointed, but that's the risk you take with movies sometimes.

That brings us to Sunday. I spent a good portion of the day cleaning and doing laundry. After I post this blog, I plan on making a double batch of black bean burgers for the week, along with some sweet potato fries. Today was my rest day from the gym and I'll be back at boot camp tomorrow. Last week was really good as far as working out goes:

Sunday PM: 30 minutes on stair climber

Monday AM: 45 minute boot camp session

Tuesday AM: 30 minutes on stair climber

Wednesday: Rest day

Thursday AM: 45 minutes on stair climber

Friday AM: 45 minute boot camp session

Friday PM: Zumba

Saturday: 40 minutes cardio (20 stairs, 20 treadmill), arms and abs exercises

Share with me - how was your weekend? Hope you all enjoy the rest of your Sunday!