Busch Gardens!

We went to Busch Gardens on Saturday with my sissy, cousin, and our friends Brandon and Erin! We had such a great time! I warn you there are a lot of pictures in this post haha, perhaps to make up for the lack of pictures the last few days.

Another one of my 101 in 1001 knocked off of my list.  I took my sister to an amusement park, we had never gone together before.  

hehe look at how cute they are :)

 Also some more adorable people.. haha

I did not eat this giant cake, but I thought it deserved a picture, it was HUGE, please refer to the Elmo cupcake behind it for a size reference.

This is what I ate for lunch:

More cuteness:

After Busch Gardens we went to a place called Pierces Pit, most delish BBQ ever! 

Aaaahhh what a great day, we topped off a great day by going to the movies and FINALLY watching part 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! O.M.G. was it awesome! I wouldn't mind going to see it again!

______________________________

Sunday morning we woke up and headed to Cracker Barrel for some yummy brunch.  I failed to take pictures, because well I was hungry and I didn't think about it haha. We were so full the rest of the day that we didn't really want to eat a big meal for dinner, so when we went to Trader Joe's we picked up this little number:

It was the perfect amount of food for us!  And it was really good. The spicy California Rolls with Veggie tempura were my fav. We will most definitely be getting this again!

Alright folks that is all for the weekend. We would like to thank Brandon and Erin for being such wonderful hosts :) We had a great time, and cannot wait to see you guys again!!!!!!

New Car and Lunch with my Family Friday

Hello friends!

Sorry I have been really behind on blogging, things have been really busy over here!  Let's start with Thursday:

I had physical therapy again on Thursday and just when I think I am improving, I realize that my range of motion is still horrible.  I had one of the physical therapists stretch my shoulder out today, and she was trying to see what my limits were, and let me tell you I was in pain.  I have therapy three times again next week because my shoulder is still very sensitive. I am hoping with another week of physical therapy I will start feeling a bit better.

On my way back from therapy I stopped at a little deli called Pica-deli for a sammich:

This was SO GOOD.  There was a poppyseed dressing in there, that made this pita Amazing!  I will most definitely be going there again!

After work we all headed over to the dealership to continue our car shopping adventure. I am happy to say that I found our new family car:

We really got an amazing deal on this car, and it is just so freaking cute.  I really like the way BMW's drive so I couldn't stay away from them. I can't wait to drive it to work on Monday!

________________________________________

Friday:

YAY today was lunch date day!  My entire family came to lunch today (minus Erik *sad*).

We took them to Vapianos!  My mom and I really love this place!

Aren't my mommy and her sissy so cute :) eeeek I love it!  Alright folks, we are getting ready to drive down to Richmond to say with our friends Brandon and Erin, so that we can all go to Busch Gardens on Saturday!  I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Car Shopping...

Car shopping has got to be one of the most stressful forms of shopping ever! ugh. I can't decide what I want, and I feel like no matter what car I choose, a week later there will be a car on some dealership lot that will be a better deal than the one I bought. That being said, I went to a dealership and looked at a few cars, and couldn't find one I liked so the search continues.

Another problem I have is that I don't know when I will be getting my check from the insurance company so even if I did find one I liked, I can't really pull the trigger on it. Okay anyway on to food!

Has anyone ever tried these:

well don't. Ok well I didn't like them one bit, perhaps they would be better on top of some rice, but I tried them plain and yuck:

I was really hoping they were going to be good too. ah Oh well. I ate about a third of the package before throwing it out.  I hate wasting food, but the smell of it was making me sick.  I had this for lunch instead:

awesome! I know this is probably horribly bad for me, but I needed sugar and this is all we had other than coke and root beer (yuck).

Our friend Luke is in town for a wedding this weekend, so we took him out for a pre-birthday dinner.  We got Pho! Duh.  Instead of getting the chicken Pho I got the # 31 which was noodles, grilled chicken, cucumbers, carrots and lettuce.YUM. I think this is what I will be getting from now on. It.is.so.good. Sorry I didn't take a picture of it, but I am sure you will see it debut on here soon, (prob next week, Luke is obsessed with Pho).

Alright well, that is all for me today.  Bedtime, more car shopping tomorrow!

Happy Birthday little Ella!

This is our little Ella when she was just a few days old. O.M.G. I always forget how cute and little she was!  When I go back through puppy pictures it really makes me want to get another puppy!

This is hands down one of my favorite pictures of her, haha. It showcases her personality so well.  hehe. Today she turns 2, and I can't believe it! Time flies when you are having fun!

my my where does the time go? She is still just as sweet as she was when she was a shy little baby. AH I love her! hehe.

Yesterday, I found out my car was in fact totaled *sad*, so I went down to the body shop to get the last few things out of my car:

Oh man look at what they did to my poor baby. I like to remember her like this:

Stupid old lady. Please listen to me when I say, if you have a grandmother who is over the age of 70 and is STILL driving, please take her licence away!  You might and probably will save someone's life! On my way back from the Auto Body place I stopped by Subway and grabbed a Spicy Italian:

yummy!  After work, my sister and cousin and I went to the BMW dealership and test drove an X3.  I loved the way it drove.  It was very similar to my 325... I need to also test drive an MDX to see which one I like better.  We decided to get an SUV, because we figured it would be more practical in the long run. Who knows I might change my mind before I actually buy the car.  Man I forgot how stressful buying a car actually was.

Alright well that is all for now, I hope everyone has a great day!

Totaled!

I received a call from the auto adjuster from my insurance company and he told me that my car is in fact totaled :( :( :(

Now starts the painful/exciting task of car shopping... eeek..... wish us luck!

Stolen Pictures

Hello friends! I have a few stolen pictures from this past weekend (I stole them from Lauren).

This is our family, we are cute, that is all. This was from Lauren’s birthday dinner last night, well actually both of these are:

This is one of the ladies, minus my mom and aunt (it was too hot they went inside after the first picture).

No updates about my car yet. We will hopefully know tomorrow!

I went to the gym again today! Biked for 45 minutes, and went about 16 miles! WOOT.  I was also able to read a good chunk of the last Hunger Games book.  I am hoping to finish it this week.

Alright that is all for today! Hope everyone had a great day!

Car update!

Hi friends! Sorry this update is a few days late but we have been super busy :).

I received a call from the Auto Body place, and they told me that there was around $10,000 worth of damage to my car!!!!!!!! Holy ****.  Because the quote was so high Allstate wants one of the adjusters to go out and take a look at the car, aka we won't know the status of my car until Monday or Tuesday. Bleh!  I don't wish this frustration on anyone... ever! I would like to move on with my life please. I also don't really think my shoulder is getting any better. Which is also awesome because I would love to have surgery and not be able to do anything I  love this fall.

Ok sorry for all the negativity. I'm done now.

On a MUCH happier note, my family from Iran is here again!!! YAY,  we have been shopping, playing kinect and going to the pool all weekend! Good times.  

Tonight we had Lauren's birthday dinner *yay*.  Her mom and I made some deilsh lasagna for the whole family, and her mom got her a yummy ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.

Overall it's been a good weekend, hopefully we will get some positive news this coming week, and my physical therapy starts to make a more positive impact on my shoulder!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Workout Fail!

Hello friends! I woke up feeling pretty good today, not much pain, and an ok amount of sleep (it’s still hard for me to sleep without pain *sad*). But today I decided to give the gym a shot, and it was an epic fail.  The physical therapist said I can do any activity I want as long as it doesn’t hurt my shoulder… ok… so I thought “hey the elliptical is supposed to be super low impact let’s try it out.”  I only lasted 9 minutes, before I semi- fell off.  I had to hold my shoulder in place so it wouldn’t move (super awkward), and I don’t really know what happened, I suppose I was just thrown off balance, but I slipped and semi fell off.  After recovering from the shock/horrific pain my shoulder, I decided I should probably stick to the recumbent bike.  I read my book, the last Hunger Games book in the series, and rode 10.5 miles before we left.  Ugh, I left the gym feeling like I had failed and I was in a lot of pain.  I know it has only been a week (barely) since my accident, but I am ready for the pain to go away, so I can get back to normal activities.

I also received the police report in the mail today, and it showed that the police issued the other lady a ticket!  I really feel bad for her, but I am glad they won’t be able to argue that it was 100% her fault.  Tomorrow we will know the status of my car!

Alright onto some food! Breakfast, cereal combo, yum:

Are you getting tired of it yet? Sorry I love this stuff!  For lunch today I had leftover pizza from last night, and it was just as good!  I can’t want to make more.  I had my second physical therapy session today, and it went really well. I wouldn’t say that I am making progress just yet, but at least I feel like I am doing something to avoid surgery.  After my session I came back to work and the company that owns the building we work in had a nice ice cream social, so I decided to indulge myself:

I went all out, mint chocolate chip ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles and peanuts!

This made my day! It’s ok you can be jealous, I would be too! 

For dinner we had planned on going into DC to celebrate our friend Joanna’s birthday, but I was in so much pain we decided it was best if we stay home.  My mom and sister came over and we had burgers and tater tots!

My mom had gotten some organic burgers from Costco and she wanted to try them.  We never get pre-made burger patties, I like to add a lot of spices and yummy things to my burgers, but we gave it a try.

Verdict: not that great.  The meat wasn’t very flavorful, and they were too thin.  But what the burger lacked, the tots sure made up for!

Alright that is all for me today! Hope everyone had a great day!

Some good news and Delicious Pizza

Hello friends!  I could not sleep last night!  I was in so much pain; unfortunately I also kept Erik up most of the night.  I will definitely need to take pain medication tonight if the pain doesn’t go away.  Because I was in pain when I got out of bed I could not go to the gym as I had planned to *annoyed*, instead when I got home from work I took Ella for a long *hot* walk.  She loved it and it was nice to get out and move around a bit.

After putting lunches for the day I had my yummy cereal combo in our new jumbo mugs:

Yum yum, although I am out of bananas, which I totally forgot to get at the store this afternoon, *darn*.  My lunch today was a smart one frozen meal, I know they are terrible for you, but I was not in the mood to make lunch this morning.  I also talked to my insurance lady today to ask her what was going on with the other lady’s insurance company.  Long story short she had told me they might be trying to fight the claim because the lady said I was “really moving.”  What does that even mean, especially to an 80-year old woman!? Ugh, needless to say I was really upset, and really stressed out.  Well, 10 minutes after I got off the phone with my insurance lady, Statefarm (her insurance) called to inform me that they have accepted full blame for the accident!!!!!!!!!!! YES!  *enter lots of dancing and smiling*.  The only negative is that they only make one lump payment for medical, loss time from work, pain and suffering, etc, and I am hoping I don’t need surgery, because I really don’t want to pay for all of that up front and wait for a check.  My car insurance will cover my expenses up to a certain dollar amount but I have no idea how much surgery would cost.  I am really trying not to worry about that until I have to deal with it, in 6 weeks. Anyway enough of that for today, onward to some delicious pizza we made for dinner tonight:

After work I headed to Trader Joes and got our ingredients, o.m.g their crust is amazing and only 99 cents! Sunny and Diana came over for dinner, and Diana helped/ chopped all of the veggies for our pizzas.  We made a pesto, tomato, chicken, basil, mozzarella one:

This is pre-oven.

And a chicken sausage, onion green pepper one:

Also pre-oven.

They were sooo good!

I had to put them back in the oven after these pictures, because they weren’t quite done yet. But the wait was so worth it!

At Trader Joes, I got a little dessert also:

This is a cranberry, orange spice crisp… or something like that; it also had apples in it haha.  It was fantastic! Honestly everything from Trader Joes is amazing.

Alright well it is time for bed!  I hope everyone had a great day!

Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods?- For me its Trader Joe’s all the way!