Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a nice relaxing weekend. My dad and sister were in town this weekend! My sister had a break between summer session at UF and Fall session, so they took a road trip through Charleston and West Virginia on the way up to Philadelphia to bring me my car. We definitely ate well this weekend...

Friday night I took my family around the Chestnut Hill area where I live and we ate dinner at Earth Bread & Brewery . It's a funky little place! They brew their own beer and specialize in flatbreads. It also reminds me of home (Gainesville) a little bit because their menus are placed in old quirky story books, like The Top (#1 favorite restaurant of all time.) We started with a cheese plate and I got the house wine.

Side note: the house wine is a blend and they call it 'draft wine,' meaning that it's kept in a bag inside of a big keg. I was a little skeptical at first, but it was delicious. Smooth and easy to drink. I don't think I could tell the difference between bagged wine and a $150 bottle. Unless of course it's Franzia.

The cheese plate was awesome! Honey, homemade jam, a brie and a goat cheese.

We also tried out an amazing black bean curry dip that I'm going to try to recreate at home. For my dinner, I ordered the Summer Smash flatbread because it sounded so interesting. It had pea pesto, yellow squash, mint, lemon, pine nuts, mozzarella and a honey balsamic glaze. It was incredible! The honey balsamic really made it.

After dinner, we took the train back into center city and realized that the Ben & Jerry's shop was right across the street from the hotel my dad and sister were staying at. The Tonight Dough all the way.

Saturday started on a sweaty note - Julia came to my Super Circuits class at Sweat Fitness! We worked up an appetite. To be quite honest, I felt like all we did for the rest of the day Saturday was eat! We had brunch at Continental Diner and then made our way down to the Italian Market after digesting in Rittenhouse Park. Couldn't go to the Italian Market without getting a cannoli!

Once we made our way back toward the hotel (Dad and sister had to catch the airport train at 5:30) we needed a cold beer and another snack. We ended up at Monk's Cafe. Such an AWESOME bar. They have more than 200 beers on their menu and beer battered chicken fingers. Super dark inside though so no pics, but such a great bar in Philly!

I live for the weekends full of good company and good food. There's nothing better!

- Rach

What was the high light of your weekend?

I'm just going to start by saying how HAPPY I am that it's the weekend! For some reason this week just seemed to drag on very slowly. Just one of those weeks, I guess! Last night MichaIel and I decided to stay around our new neck of the woods instead of taking the train into center city. The train to downtown Philly only takes about 25 minutes, but I was really tired from this week and we really haven't tried out any places around our new area since we moved in. I'm happy just to have some downtime in our new apartment this weekend!

I was really in the mood for sushi, so we tried out a restaurant near by called Hokka Hokka. Overall it was very good sushi! The cocktail menu didn't sound appealing to me at all, so I opted to start with a glass of Chardonnay and some seaweed salad. 

Michael ordered just the house salad with ginger dressing. I was expecting it to be a generic little salad, but it was HUGE. Such a nice salad.

For the rest of our meal we ordered three rolls to share: Spicy salmon, a Farmer's Roll and a Lobster Roll that was deep fried. It was the perfect amount! The Farmer's Roll was my favorite one. It had tuna inside and it was topped with salmon and eel sauce. The Lobster roll was delicious but VERY rich. It was kind of like sushi desert.

We left full and happy, but not too full to skip out on desert. Cue the Fro Yo.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Friday night! I'm on the train on the way to teach my Saturday morning class as I type this up. Workout coming later :).

- Rach

P.S. My site got a little facelift, did ya notice?

Happy Monday! How was everyone's weekend? Mine was spent in Ocean City, MD with Michael and some of his family. I was really excited since I had not been before and I was seriously craving some beach time. It's been too long! We arrived on Friday just in time for the beautiful sunset. On Saturday we woke up late, had some eggs and bacon and headed out to the beach around noon. We didn't leave until 7. It was perfect! I don't think I really moved from my beach chair that whole time and that's exactly what I wanted to do. Because Saturday consisted mainly of sitting, I woke up earlier on Sunday morning to get in a run before going to the beach once more. I ended up doing 5 flat, sweaty miles. After refueling with some breakfast, we all headed back down to the beach again for a few hours.

Michael and I wanted to hit the road around 6, so we went for an early dinner at the Crab Bag. It was really fun and really messy. I kind of wish I could eat on a big paper table cloth with my hands all the time. Lady like?

Another highlight of the weekend: finishing this 1,000 piece puzzle. I've decided that I really enjoy puzzles and need to buy some for my apartment. They definitely increase concentration and alertness. I'm all for games that are good for the brain! We've been playing Bananagrams at work when we can't focus and it really does help!

Another random thought - how cute is this romper? I got it from Loft for half off! It's super comfortable and I love that it can easily be dressed up. Find it here.

- Rach

What's your favorite weekend getaway?