New Chocolate Chip Cookies...

The last few weeks I have discovered that I love avocados.

I have eaten quite a few of these hard boiled egg and avocado sandwiches on the way to work the last few weeks. Yummy. I have been looking for new ways to incorporate avocados into other meals during the day.

I saw a reipe for Avocado Chocolate Chip Cookies on Eat, Live, Run. This blog post got me thinking about how to incorporate avocados into my own chocolate chip cookies.

When I got home from the race expo yesterday afternoon I decided to put my knowledge of chocolate chip cookies to the test and whipped up my own avocado infused chocolate chip cookies.

Along with an avocado, I also added ground oats and flax seed. Of course, I had to use semi sweet and dark chocolate chips. I mean, they are chocolate chip cookies after all. I baked the first dozen to see how they baked, and discovered that they don't flatten on their own. They remained in the same shape. I flattened out the rest of them before they went in the oven, and that was a little messy. The dough was a little sticky.

I just have to say, these cookies are amazing. You can't taste the avocado, and the texture with the ground oats and flax seed is fantastic. They are moist and chewy and chocolaty. The girls and Josh all really like them, and had no idea they had an avocado in them until I revealed my secret ingredient. Now I can't wait to see where else my beloved avocados will turn up.

Stick around and I will let you know.

 

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OU Softball Game...

Softball season for Longfellow is now officially over. Camy gets to clean out her stinky locker on Monday, so for now middle school slow pitch softball is over.

We met her team at Hideaway Pizza for dinner. On the way over, I asked my girls if they were going to sit with me and they basically told me no. Once we got there, though, they sat with me with some of their friends.

Micah, Carson, Cassi and Camy. These are four crazy girls. They were laughing the entire night. Cassi had me take this picture on her new iPhone 5, so she let me text it to myself. We are now friends on facebook. Camy and Carson had to keep reminding me how they don't have iPhones all evening. *sigh*

Did I say that we met there at 4? Earliest dinner ever. I think you can barely even call eating at 4pm dinner. After I had half a Pizza of the Gods, Camy nibbled on a couple pieces of her cheese pizza, and Carson ate an entire small pepperoni pizza all by herself, these crazy girls loaded into my car to head to the OU softball field.

There was an open moon roof, load music, singing and some screeming during the very short drive to the softball field. Those girls crack me up.

We got the team inside and all the girls got free backpacks and OU shirts, and then we headed to where we were going to sit. This was our view from our seats in the outfield. In case you are wondering there were two balls hit all the way into our section. You would think sitting with a whole bunch of softball players would mean you would have someone who wanted to catch a home run. You would be wrong.

The girls did have a good time.

The game was rather boring. The Sooners played Iowa State, and it was pretty sad.

It's pretty small, but the Sooners scored 11 runs in the first inning, and 12 in the second. The final score was 24-1 at the end of four and a half innings. Thank god for the run rule.

Cassi and Carson wanted a picture with the mascot.

Of course, there were fire works at the end. The girls had a great time. Camy even got some autographs, and I was starving by the time we got home.

 

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I Love a Good Race Expo...

I ducked out of work early yesterday afternoon and met up with one of my favorite fellow expo lovers, Kim. Again, the beauty of a hometown marathon is that you don't have to travel far to pick up your race packet. We headed to the Cox Center for the OKC Memorial Marathon expo. Parking wasn't too terrible, but downtown was pretty crowded because of the Festival of the Arts going on right next door.

The expo opened at noon and we got there right on time.

They always do a good job of making packet pick-up a breeze at the Memorial. Lots of lines for everyone not running the 5k. I picked up my packet and two extras for friends that couldn't make it and Kim and I headed to check out all the stuff.

Yes, since I was with Kim, there were pictures.

We also got to go chat with friends at our favorite running store's booth. We got awesome new tanks to wear on race day.

Again, because I was with Kim, there were more pictures.

We forced Tim to take a picture with us. We got him to take a picture with us two years ago at the very same expo before my first marathon.

I can't believe after two years I am going to toe the line Sunday morning in OKC. I am very happy with my decision a few weeks ago to drop to the half marathon, and I am excited to run my first half on streets I am pretty familiar with.

 

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How About Some Softball...

Monday night we got to go to the Longfellow Athletic Banquet. They recognized the sports from the entire year so we went and got to see Camy get her awards for softball.

I still look at my girls and wonder where my babies went.

It seems so rare that I can get a picture of them both smiling at the same time.

It was a very pleasant evening, although the moods around here change minute to minute. Josh got Camy to pose for a picture with her medals.

Camy has really liked playing slow pitch this spring. With the crap weather we have been having since the season has started we have had about 50 games cancelled. I think they have only played about four games total. It's been a fabulous winter we have been having this spring. We have had games and practices cancelled for ice, rain, possible tornados, freezing temps. It has been horrible.

I believe our last game is tomorrow night, but you never know what kind of weather we could have by then.

We have gotten to see Camy play some, and w even have a few action shots.

We can actually see her face because she is a lefty.

She actually got a pretty good hit here.

This picture is blurry because she was running so fast. Not really, I have no idea what happened to this picture. She actually got out at first base but she had an RBI.

Carson also got a medal on Monday. She got her Kumon awards and her gold medal for three years of hard work.

I am so proud of my girls.

 

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WIAW, Quinoa...

I actually had some new eats this week, not just boring same old foods this week. For my WIAW post I thought I would talk about what I did with the cheesy broccoli quinoa I made and talked about last Wednesday.

Main dish on Wednesday, but a side dish on Thursday.

Paired with pas and fake chicken nuggets. You can't have too many green foods on your plate.

On Sunday morning I added some to a fritatta that I baked.

I love fritattas. What ould be easier than throwing some egg whites, chia seeds and whatever veggies you want and bake for about 30 minutes. You can eat it by itself, put it on an English muffin, or like I did on Sunday, make a breakfast burrito.

Half an avocado, quinoa fritatta, a little cheddar cheese and salsa. I am seriously loving avocados now. Why did it take me so long to discover my love of avocados?

I love quinoa. It's always good to love a food that is packed full of good stuff like protein, iron, calcium and potassium.

It wasn't all healthy last week.

I went a little over board with the mini Reeces pieces and M&Ms, but it was still really good.

I picked up a boxed brownie mix yesterday. Sometimes you just need brownies, but you don't want to go to all the trouble of making them from scratch. I did add extra semi sweet chocolate chips. Yummy!

So there you have it, another week of eats. It is almost May! Next week I should have some pre and post race week eats. Oh how I love race week.

 

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Girls Weekend...

Josh headed to the lake this weekend with my brother-in-law so Camy and Carson had the weekend to hang out this weekend.
Carson didn't want to go to the Kumon awards ceremony Friday night, so I let her pick where we were going to go out to dinner. She decided we were going to go to S&B Burger. We have decided the best thing on their menu is the Fried Spicy Cheese Cubes.

Check out that cheese cube! It was huge. The girls thought this was really funny.
I got up and got in a ten mile run on Saturday morning.
Camy had practice with her fast pitch team she is playing with this summer. They practiced sliding at the end and she as filthy when I picked her up.

She asked me if I was gonna take a picture of her to put on my blog. She actually doesn't look very dirty here, but trust me everything that she had on at practice went straight into the washing machine when we got home.
After she got cleaned up we headed to the outlet mall. Carson wanted some red Converse high tops. We did find these.

Too bad these were in kid sizes, they would be perfect for Josh.

I got to torture the girls while I tried on purple shorts. And I bought Carson the funniest t-shirt.

We had quit a few laughs when we found this.
Any time that involves just me and the girls would have to include a stop at Cherry Berry for frozen yogurt.

Saturday night with my girls, frozen yogurt and The Big Bang Theory. While the mood swings happen minute to minute I love days like this one.

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Beer Sprocket 2013...

This was the third year for me to be a part of Beer Sprocket. After cupcakes in 2011 and beer cupcakes last year I decided to change it up this year and bake cookies. Cookies and beer, I think they go together, but I tend to think that cookies go with everything.

I started baking on Thursday night. After making two batches of my chocolate chip cookies I made two batches of my white chocolate chip Nutella cookies. I made all of the cookies a smaller size than I usually made so they would be a bite or two.

I overbaked the Nutella cookies, and after they rested over night I decided I could not use them. I got up early on Friday and baked a couple batches of regular sugar cookies and chocolate sugar cookies.

Last but not least I made two batches of sweeties, one green and one pink. Those get glazed right out of the oven, so all there was left to do was frost the chocolate sugar cookies with chocolate frosting, and then the regular sugar cookies got white frosting and sprinkles. Last but not least was the white squiggles on the chocolate sugar cookies.

We loaded up the cookies and headed out to Choctaw on Saturday afternoon. It turned out to be a beautiful day, but it was really windy. We lost a few cookies to the very strong wind during the set up.

Kim and Jessica (aka Dancing Jessica) came out to hang out with us for a few hours. I like to think they were there for me and not just the free beer and cookies.

We were almost completely out of cookies by about 8 pm so we packed up and headed home. It was really getting chilly by then.

Another great year. I hope I get invited back next year.

 

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Welcome Back...

There was not much action on the blog last week. After the horribleness of last Monday in Boston I had a hard time getting back to blogging. I had a little over ten miles on Saturday morning to work out some of the emotions of last week with a few of my favorite running friends.

Source

This photo just moved me. I can't imagine being part of a race and experiencing something like this. I am so proud that my hometown race the OKC Memorial Marathon has invited the runners from Boston to participate in our race next weekend.

I will be putting on my red compression sleeves next Sunday morning and Boston will be on my mind when I cross the starting line. I am determined that I will be in Boston one day. I might not qulify until I am 80 but I will be there.

I thought I would participate in the Fitness Friday Linkup this week.

Tomorrow is officially race week. As I have said before on this blog, I love Race Week. Sure it is a little more exciting when it involves travel, but it is also nice to be able to make my own pre race past dinner and sleep in my own bed the night before a race. Working only a couple of blocks from the race start and right down the street from the finish line also makes for great parking, indoor pre race bathrooms, and shelter from rain delays before the start.

We had a few speedy runs last week. Our six miles on Tuesday averaged a 8:45 pace, with a few of the miles under 8:30. My legs felt pretty beat up afterwards, so it was probably not the best idea to do sprints on the treadmill Wednesday morning. We ended up wimping out of our Thursday morning run. I couldn't bring myself to go back to the Y to run on the treadmill that morning, but I felt less guilty about it after Saturday.

We had perfect running weather Saturday morning, and it makes me so mad to have such a great day the week before the race, because chances are the weather will be total crap next Sunday. Our run was unsupported because our favorite running store owner was out of town for a fishing trip. It was weird to be worried about our own water/fuel stops for our run. We headed from OK Runner, north through Brookhaven and changed our route to the "flats" a little bit. It was a nice change of pace, and we got some hills in through a neighborhood just north of our regular route.

Ten miles at a an 8:30 pace, and I felt pretty strong throughout the run. It felt good to have a strong run and the chance to work through some emotions. I am hoping to have a strong race on Sunday. It is strange that this will be my first half marathon in OKC. I had gone from the 5k to the marathon. It'll be fun to run my race and then cheer on my friend Sarah who is running her second marathon this month. I thought I might regret dropping from the full to the half, but I feel like I am running strong and am ready to go out and have fun and run strong.

I got to have a girls' weekend with Camy and Carson because Josh was out of town this weekend, but I talk about that later.

 

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