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Hi Friends!

Yesterday was Secret Recipe Club Reveal but today I’m back with a full recap of my amazing weekend at Blend Retreat in Boulder, Colorado!

I left super early Friday morning, flew through Dallas and arrived in Denver around 11am. I was one of the first to arrive so I hung out at the airport for a while before meeting up with one of my roommates for the weekend- Sarah. We had a really exciting afternoon lined up! After meeting up with a few bloggers I already “knew” from reading their blogs, Courtney & Alyssa, as well as a few new friends- Bobbi & Brittany, we were picked up from the airport in style.

That’s right. Maddy and Alex, the founders of Love Grown Foods, picked us up in Elby, The LOVE bus. Isn’t it awesome?! Maddy got super excited when she heard some of her LOVE bloggers were coming to Denver so she offered to pick us up and take us on a couple of tours. We got to see their office- check out the ping pong table! They built all the furniture themselves. We learned some fun stuff about Love Grown Foods and the whole office smelled like cinnamon raisin granola. It was heavenly. Then we saw their old production site, a super small manufacturing space attached to their office. It’s currently almost empty because they just recently outsourced their production to Fresca Foods. Maddy and Alex also hooked us up with a huge box full of some of their favorite local food products. I cannot wait to try them all!

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The next stop on our journey to Boulder was touring the Fresca Foods facility! So many awesome products are produced here: Love Grown Foods Granola, Lara Bars, Justin’s Nut Butter , 34 Degrees Crackers and Boulder Ice Cream just to name a few. We saw their research and development room, their recipe testing room and then headed to the back to see the actual production rooms! We saw Lara Bars being packaged and got to taste one right of the line. It was AMAZING. So much better than when you buy them in the store.

We also so the LGF room. Maddy and Alex told us about how they used to make all the granola themselves, mix it by hand and seal all the bags with the help of their parents. It’s so amazing to hear how much they’ve grown. They’re two of the most passionate people I’ve ever met and you can tell they really pour their heart and soul into their business! So proud to represent them as a Love blogger.

Here’s some more pics Maddy snapped of all of us:

As an added bonus, THE Justin, of Justin’s Nut Butters, just so happened to be on-site at Fresca Foods while we were there. We got to meet him, chat with him for a while and he gave us a tour of his production room. It was amazing. He’s also built his company up through a lot of hard work and dedication. In fact, it’s growing so fast that the whole reason he was there on Friday was because they were installing more equipment so they can keep up with the demand for his products! We even got a picture with him 🙂

After our tours were over, they drove us the rest of way to Boulder and dropped us off at Blend! The Blend Retreat was held at Chautauqua Park. It was beautiful! We checked in at the lodge and met our amazing hostesses- Lindsay, Katie & Janetha, got t shirts and MORE food. So.much.swag! It was incredible. I could barely carry everything to the cabin! Sarah and I had just enough time to say hi to our other roomates- Maria, Jen & Jess and change before it was time to head to the cocktail hour and dinner. At the cocktail hour I got to meet some of the other bloggers I was looking forward to seeing at Blend, including Laura, Tina, Heather, Jill and so many more!

Following cocktails, we had a sit down dinner. Dinner meant meeting even more new friends like Amy (she’s pregnant and totally adorable), Dena, Heather, Katie, Amanda and more! I had the vegetarian pasta and then we had mini cupcakes for dessert from a local Boulder company. We got to vote on what flavor we wanted, and then Lindsay, Katie and Janetha each picked a flavor. I tried s’mores, chocolate peanut butter pretzel and one with lavender. After dinner, we headed back to our cabins. Everyone was exhausted after traveling all day and we had an early morning ahead of us!

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early for bootcamp at 7am. It was sponsored by Fit Mixer who gave us some great aminos to drink before and after our workout. Tina & Lindsay took us through a bootcamp workout and it was tough! We used resistance bands and I definitely worked up a sweat! We ended with a fun game that involved splitting us up into teams and seeing which team could do the most of a variety of different exercises.

After bootcamp we headed to breakfast. It was sponsored by Xagave and it was AMAZING! They had so much good food…tons of fresh fruit, oatmeal, Chobani, so many different toppings, almond butter and muffins baked with xagave. Everything was delicious and I was totally stuffed by the end. I also met Julie, Katie, Susan and some others I hadn’t met on Friday. Side note- Xagave is one of my new favorite companies. I’d never tried agave nectar before but I really love their product! Actually, all of the sponsers of this event were amazing. I was introduced to a bunch of new products like Fit Mixer, Xagave, Green Mountain Coffee and Cheribundi….and some of my all-time favs were there as well- Chobani and Love Grown Foods!

A few of the sponsor companies actually sent employees to the retreat to spend the weekend with us and it was really cool to get to talk to them. I finally met Lindsay and Emily from Chobani, who I’ve been emailing and tweeting with for the past 2 years!

That’s Lindsay from Chobani. Isn’t she adorable?!

After breakfast, we headed back to our cabins to get ready for the hike. At 10am we all gathered at the trailhead and headed out on a 4 mile round-trip hike!

I was actually in the very front of the pack the whole time with Lindsay, Laura and Heather. Guys, this hike was NO JOKE. Probably one of the toughest hikes I’ve ever done. There were tons of rock stairs and super steep parts.

It was definitely the hardest workout of the day….but it was so worth it.

We hiked up to The Royal Arch and the view from the top was AMAZING! You could see all the way to Denver. And the weather was absolutely perfect.

By the time we made it back down, it was about 12:30. We headed back to shower and change and then I spent a little time in the lodge putting together the Foodie Penpals assignments. Foodie Penpals doesn’t stop for Blend! Then, a large group of us headed out to lunch at a local restaurant. I got to meet even more new friends like Kelly, Gina, Calee, Ashley, Lynne and Lauren!

I got an FYIPA and a grilled cheese with pesto, avocado and tomato, which I devoured in about 2 minutes because I was STARVING! It was so fun to sit next to Gina. I drool over her food pictures every day!

After lunch, we headed out to Avery Brewing. The hubby was SO JEALOUS! Don’t worry, I got him a t shirt. We tasted several beers and even got a special, short little tour. We sat outside and chatted for a while. I ordered some hummus and Heather got some sweet potato tater tots that were AMAZING. And I don’t even like tater tots!

Later, we headed back into town and went to Rio Grande- it was Cinco de Mayo after all. I was pretty wiped out by this point and still full from my hummus so I was chugging water, but lots of people enjoyed margaritas and food and mayyyyybe a few too many tequila shots for some people, who shall remain nameless 🙂 At dinner I got to meet Ashley…another amazing food blogger/photographer and Lena.

That’s Lindsay’s photo I think!

And that one’s from Ashley. Thanks ladies!

We headed back to the lodge after dinner and spent some time hanging out and munching all the extra food we had laying around from the sponsors.

Sunday morning brought another 7am bootcamp, led by Chobani…but I skipped out on that one in favor of an extra hour of sleep. My body thanked me. I walked 20,000 steps on Saturday! Chobani sponsored Sunday’s breakfast which was also delicious. Lots of greek yogurt, fresh fruit and bagels. I also tried a Mocha Nut Fudge K cup from Green Moutain and it was AMAZING. Probably my new favorite thing…and I didn’t even think I liked mocha. It was so good that I had two cups. I must find it in the regular coffee version since I don’t have a Keurig.

After breakfast there was a raffle and the hosts were sweet enough to make sure everyone got a prize. I originally won a giftcard for a new blog header design, but since I just had mine redone, I told them to give it to someone else! My new friend Brittany actually ended up winning and I’m so excited for her! I won a gift certificate for some Xagave products and I’m SO EXCITED about it!

After that it was time to head to the airport. My roommate Maria got a rental car and was sweet enough to drive several of us to the airport. It was a long day of traveling, but totally worth it! It was so awesome to meet so many of the bloggers I interact with every day online….and to meet so many new friends and find even more blogs to follow.

Huge shoutout to Lindsay, Katie and Janetha. They did an AMAZING job planning and organizing this retreat. It was an incredible amount of work and they made it pretty much perfect. All of them were absolutely amazing to meet in person. They are beautiful, sweet and down-to-earth, just like they are on their blogs and it was so fun to get to hang out with them. They each made an effort to meet and talk to every single person that was there and make everyone feel included in everything we did.

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There’s already talk of Blend Retreat 2013 and trust me, you guys will all want to be there…so keep you eye out for more info!

Group shot thanks to Lauren.

Oh, and if you think we went home empty-handed, you are incorrect. Check out all this swag!

I definitely had to check a bag on the way home!

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend!!

–Lindsay–<

Hi Friends-

Just popping in for a quick recap.

In case you missed the first part, click here.

In case you missed the prompts, here they are:

In case you’re interested in the second half, here you go:

17: something you don’t like- studying
18: hair- a hot mess like usual
19: orange- the boss
20: whoops! skipped this one
21: bottle- wine
22: last thing you bought- beer brewing supplies
23: vegetable- an assortment from the veggie drawer
24: something you’re grateful for- healthy grocery stores
25: looking down: at this dressing
26: black & white: Abner

27: somewhere you went- coffeeshop to study
28: 1pm: building the treadmill laptop stand
29: circles: watching hubby brew beer
30: something that makes you sad- water leak = wet tools

In case you want to participate in May, here you go:

Happy Saturday 🙂

–Lindsay–

Hi Friends-

As you guys know, this is mostly a food and fitness blog. I don’t write a whole lot of posts that are super deep, heavy or from the heart. In fact, it’s been about two months since my last one (What’s in a Jean Size?). But yesterday something happened that really tugged at my heart strings and it brought to mind something that I’ve found myself thinking about a lot lately- saying “thank you”.

Let me back up. Yesterday, as most of you know, was Foodie Penpals Reveal Day. (ps…there’s still time to jump onboard for May!) After I got out of class yesterday, I was checking my email and a comment notification popped up on one of my posts from a few months ago. Remember back in January when I wrote this post called Things Blogging Has Taught Me?  A sweet woman named Kristen, who blogs over at Miami Housewife, found that post and left a comment. Here’s what she said:

I read her comment several times because I was so touched by it. I’m always so happy to hear people say they can relate to my posts, and it made my day to hear that she liked my blog and found it inspiring. And after thinking about it the whole way home, all I really wanted to do was say thank you to her.

Thank you:

• For reading my blog.
• For taking the time to look around and read more than just one post.
• For making an effort to tell me how much she liked my blog.

It means so much.

I’m just as guilty as anyone else of not saying thank you as often as I should. But I’m working on it. In fact, this post is probably a long time coming.

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I was raised to say please and thank you for everything and I was raised to write thank you notes all.the.time.

• When someone gives you a present…write a thank you note.
• When someone acts as your reference….write a thank you note.
• When someone takes the time to help you….write a thank you note.

It’s something I got annoyed with my mom for making me do when I was younger, but it’s one of the things I appreciate most now that I’m an adult.  And it’s definitely something I plan to teach my children someday.
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Because I think a lot of people truly underestimate the power of a simple “thank you”.

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I get legitimate road rage when someone flies by me in the left lane and then cuts over into my lane at the last minute to get on the highway. But it’s amazing how much calmer I remain if that person waves “thank you” as they’re switching lanes.

I spend a lot of time working on Foodie Penpals and I don’t get paid a dime…but when someone replies to one of my emails and says “thank you” for organizing or thanks me for helping connect them with a new friend…every single second is totally worth it.

But, this post is not me digging for compliments or a thank you for anything i’ve done. This post was written as a reminder to all of you….to take the time to say thank you the next time one is deserved.

• If someone sends you something awesome in the mail, SAY THANK YOU. Tell them how much you appreciated it.
• If someone sits there and listens to you complain about something, whether it be important or trivial….say hey, thanks for listening.
• If someone writes a blog post that inspires you to make a positive change, or motivates you to try harder…TELL THEM. Say thank you.

Because you never know how much it might mean to someone.

Or how much it may validate all the work they put into something.

Or how what a big smile it might bring to their face.

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So go out today and say thank you:

• Call your family and say thanks for being there for me.
• Leave a comment on your favorite blog, especially if you’ve never commented before, and say thanks for writing.
• Leave an extra tip for your waiter/waitress and say thanks for a great meal.
• Thank a member of the armed forces for their service to our country.
• Thank someone you see doing a usually thankless job like collecting trash or cleaning the bathroom.
• Send a note to a friend and say thanks for sticking by your side over the years.

Every single one of us has so much to be thankful for. So give thanks for it. And SAY THANKS FOR IT!

Trust me…it’ll be worth your while.

So this is me saying thank you to all of you.

• To every single person who reads my blog- whether it’s one time, or every single day.
• To everyone who has taken the time to tell me how much they appreciate and enjoy Foodie Penpals.
• To all of my Fitfluential friends who motivate me every single day.
• To anyone that has ever tried one of my recipes or workouts and told me how much they enjoyed it.
• To my husband- for everything he does around the house.
• To my family- for constantly reminding me how important I am, even when I’m far away.
• To my entire support system- for everything you do every.single.day.

–Lindsay–

Hi Friends!

Happy Monday. A few quick announcements before we get started! If you didn’t read The Bean over the weekend, you missed out on a couple of AWESOME posts, so I thought i’d just take a second to point them out to you.

1. My hubby built me pretty much the best thing ever this weekend. It’s a stand that fits around my treadmill so that I can use my laptop while I’m walking. It’s seriously amazing. Definitely check it out…and then build one for yourself! Bonus- all the wood and paint we used was from leftover projects that have been done previously around the house so it’s totally green! CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT IT!

Ok, moving on…Can you believe it’s already time for another Foodie Penpals reveal day?

• Freeze-dried mango, which I’d never tried before. Definitely making some tropical granola bars with that!
• Some locally made cookies. I always say I don’t like coconut but I must be coming around slightly because I don’t mind coconut milk in my curry and I actually liked these cookies. I’m trying to save them so I’ve just been having a nibble here and there. They’re like fun little shortbread cookies, except better!
• Homemade Coffee Cashew Cookie Bars! She posted the recipe on her blog (click here to see it!) and she kindly left the coconut out of mine. I was surprised how much I liked the coffee flavor in these. A delicious little treat!

• Roasted chickpeas and fava beans– another homemade treat! i LOVE roasted chickpeas and had no idea you could even roast fava beans. Very cool!
• Red lentils– my favorite kind! How did she know?
• Brown Basmati rice– we go through this stuff so fast in my house!
• Indian spices– she knows we love Indian food and it was sweet that she sent us stuff to make our own at home- which we do about once a week 🙂

Hi Friends!

I’m sure a lot of you have seen these #photoaday challenges floating around. I’ve tried multiple times to participate but I always fall off the wagon after about 4 days. Well, not this time! I’m rockin’ the month of April so today I thought I’d share my pictures from the first half of the month!

Here are the prompts:

Ready?

Of note- on the 4th, hubby had just gotten back from a business trip-
so I was extra happy to see him day 🙂

Of note- on the 5th, I kept finding my smallest cat curled up in a tiny ball

Of note- The 9th was my mom’s birthday!

Of note- hubby found craft beer in cans and his mind was blown!
Those sunset pics were randomly collected from twitter-
it was super cloudy at my house that day.

Have you ever done a photo-a-day challenge?

–Lindsay–

Hi Friends!

As most of you guys know, yesterday was my birthday. Thank you SO much to everyone who tweeted and facebooked birthday wishes my way!  I spent the whole day feeling very loved 🙂 I feel like there are two camps when it comes to birthdays. Those who love them, and those who just treat them like any other day.

I’m definitely in the those who love them camp. I LOVE birthdays! When I was younger, we had the birthday fairy in our house. She visited the night before our birthday and decorated our room with balloons and streamers so our rooms were fun and festive when we woke up on our birthday morning! I looked forward to it every year!

Luckily for me, I have a husband who indulges me and treats me like a princess every year on my birthday 🙂

Since my birthday was on a Sunday this year, we spent the whole weekend celebrating! Friday afternoon I got a pedicure (my first of the year!) to kick off the weekend. Then I came home and ran 4 miles while I waited for the hubby.

Hubby came home and surprised me with some flowers and some delicious treats from Trader Joes! We enjoyed a few beers on the deck and then headed out to our favorite Thai place for dinner. And then we stopped for some fro-yo for dessert 🙂

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to do yardwork! We got 2 cubic yards of topsoil delivered on Friday night and this year we finally decided to buy a wheel barrow instead of dragging the dirt around to the backyard on tarps. However, the wheel barrow didn’t fit in our car. SO, I walked it home 🙂 We only live half a mile from Home Depot so it didn’t take long. I’m sure I was quite a sight 🙂

We just got a new mailbox so this weekend we made a little bed around it so we can plant some flowers. We also turned the garden and added some dirt to get it ready for planting. Finally, we expanded one of our back flower beds to add a new bush and did some leveling in one of our other beds!

Oh, and did I mention that all of this took us about 5 hours, it was only 50 degrees and it rained almost the whole time?

Saturday night we headed out to dinner with my in-laws. Good food, good times 🙂

Aren’t we lovely?! 🙂

Sunday was the best day! This is what I saw when I woke up, lol 🙂

Hubby served me breakfast in bed. It started with coffee:

Is he the best or what?! Look at this amazing breakfast!!

French toast made from a pretzel roll, scrambled eggs with leftover mexican couscous, a honeycrisp apple, Chobani and LGF granola, and a little bowl of Kix!

The boys watched me carefully the whole time!

After breakfast we headed out for a bike ride. We covered about 11.5 miles on a beautiful but WINDY morning!

He gave me my present- planter boxes for the deck so I can grow my herbs in them this year!

The we headed out to do some shopping at my favorite stores!

We bought a random assortment of things including a new rug, a new dog doy, a planter, a new dress, a clutch, some cutting boards….

and this beauty…

LOVE IT 🙂

Next we headed to World Market to spend my $10 bday coupon:

Afterwards the hubby treated me to an afternoon beer and snack!

We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some things for dinner:

Crab cakes that are so packed with crab that they don’t like to stay together….but taste delicious!

And hubby made me pan-seared scallops and roasted asparagus:

All in all, a pretty darn good birthday if you ask me 🙂

How was your weekend?

–Lindsay–

Hi Friends!

Should I get a Fitbit? That’s the question I’d been asking myself FOREVER! I knew lots of people that had them and talked about how amazing they were…but really, I just didn’t want to spend the money- they are $99.

When my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I bit the bullet and asked for one! Ask and you shall receive. My brand new Fitbut Ultra showed up last Friday and since then I’ve fallen in LOVE!

In fact, you might go so far as to say I’m obsessed. Just as the hubby. In fact, hubby- you should stop reading this post right now. It’s all about the Fitbit and I know you don’t care how many steps I’ve taken 🙂

I thought I’d use today to share a little bit about the Fitbit with you guys in case you’re on the fence about getting one like I was. We’re skipping Fitness Friday one more time because I’m still finishing up my antibiotics for my sinus infection and after running three miles one day earlier this week and feeling like I was going to puke the whole time, I decided to focus my efforts on walking until those pills are gone.

So, I got my present in the mail Friday afternoon. I charged it up Friday night and was off to the races on Saturday when I used it for the first time.

The fitbit is small. It’s about the size of a USB drive. During the day I usually wear it clipped onto my tanktop…or the waistband of my pants.

It’s a simple device. It only has one button. You press the button once to light up the display and the first thing it shows you is your steps so far that day. If you press the button again, it moves to miles, then calories, vertical flights, a flower that grows based on how active you are, and the time.  I know the pics are blurry but it doesn’t stay lit very long!

When you go to bed, you clip the fitbit to a wristband that it comes with. It’s super soft and closes with velcro so you can adjust it to fit your wrist.

When you’re ready to go to sleep, you hold down the button until a timer starts. When you wake up, you do the same thing and the time stops. The fitbit tracks your sleep during the time when the timer is on.

The fitbit syncs wirelessly when you’re within 15 feet of your computer, as long as you have the dock plugged into the usb port. This is what the charging dock looks like. I just leave mine plugged into the computer all the time and then every time I go near it, it syncs.

This is also what you use to charge the fitbit, but please note I’ve been using this continuously since Saturday, have not charged it yet and am still at medium battery!

To view all the info your fitbit collects, you visit your online dashboard at fitbit.com. All your info is automatically loaded there. You can see how many steps you walked on a particular day, floors climbed, miles traveled, calories burned and your active score.

The first day I wore it (Saturday), I didn’t do anything extra. It was just a day of running errands with the hubby. I didn’t go to work, I didn’t work out, I didn’t put in any extra effort and I only walked 5,800 steps.

Sunday, I decided I wanted to get at least 10,000 steps for the rest of the week. I went to work and even though it was a super slow day, I was shocked to see that I walked almost 6,500 steps while I was at work!

On Monday, I didn’t work, but I walked to class and took the dogs for a long walk, did a tabata workout and did a bunch of stuff around the house.

Tuesday was by far my most active day. I went to work- it was busy so I walked about 7,500 steps there, plus I ran/walked 3 miles when I got home. I hit 15,000 steps!

For each day, you can scroll down even further and see charts and graphs about your activity level throughout the day. You can see calories burned:

You can see that when I was at work from 4-7 my activity level increased to fairly active, and then that I was very active while doing my three mile workout later that night. You can also see how imbalanced my days are. I tend to be not very active in the mornings when I’m blogging and working on schoolwork and then cram a lot of activity into the second half of the day.

And you can also switch from calories to steps/floors/active score and watch the graph change. The graph below shows steps:

Finally, you can see how you slept the night before. When you start the timer, it tracks how long it takes you to fall asleep- or basically stop moving. It keeps track of how many times you wake up, etc. As you can see, I wake up every night between 3 and 4 to feed the dogs. It’s weird, I know…but it’s just easier for me to do it then, then to try to fight them off until a more “normal” time. It also tells you your sleep efficiency. My score is always pretty high, which surprised me.

One thing I did notice is that since the fitbit isn’t really hooked up to you and officially monitoring your sleep, more your movement, one night it thought I was asleep when really I was just lying in bed reading. So, after that I decided to not start the timer until I actually turn out the light and lay down to go to sleep.

Wednesday was another fairly active day. I didn’t want to run, but I took the dogs on a two mile walk and then walked two miles on the treadmill.

This was a more typical night of how often I wake up throughout the night.

The fitbit also has a lot of other features that I’m not using yet. You can track your food and water intake, your weight, your blood pressure and glucose if you monitor those and you can write journal entries about how you’re feeling each day.

I don’t track my food so I haven’t really done much with this, but if you do, and you use apps like My Fitness Pal, you can synch those with your fitbit so they all work together using apps. You can also use apps like EarnedIt where you get points for your activity levels and you can redeem those points for prizes.

You can also use apps to sync with your Nike+ workouts, set up alerts to get emails or texts when your fitbit battery is getting low or do more analysis of your sleep patterns:

There’s also a fitbit app for your phone that you can use to track your water intake throughout the day. It shows your steps and all that info, but just like the webpage, it only updates when you’re within 15 feet of the docking station.

Finally, you can always see your overall achievements, like your Lifetime steps, stairs, etc…as well as your best days for each. You earn badges for getting certain achievements and you can connect with other friends who have a fitbit. As you can see, I have no friends 🙁 Lol, but I haven’t actually looked for anyone yet! If you have a fitbit, find me!

There’s even a community section where you can join groups for support or just read the forums:

So there you have it. More than you probably ever wanted to know about the Fitbit.

I have to tell you guys, this little thing is making me do crazy things…like running in place in the basement, walked around while tweeting or reading my book, taking the long way to walk to class and leaving my laundry basket farther away from my dresser when I put my clothes away, just so I can get extra steps!!!

I LOVE the challenge of trying to get a certain number of steps each day and it’s definitely motivating me to move more.

If you’ve been thinking about trying to be more active, I’d definitely recommend a pedometer. It doesn’t even have to be as fancy as a Fitbit. Just get something that can track your steps. It can be a super motivating way to kick your butt in gear when you look down at 2pm and see you’ve only walked 1,000 steps for the day!

Do you wear a pedometer?

–Lindsay–

PS. I was not asked to write this review. I was not compensated for this review.  Fitbit has no idea who I am. My mom bought this fitbit for the full retail price. All thoughts and opinons are my own. I just wanted to share this cool little gadget with you guys!