Bloodsuckers

Good morning, boys and girls! I hope your holiday weekends were relaxing and fun (if those two things go together in your life .  My week is going wonderfully so far… with the small exception that the mesquitoes are out of control this year!  I have bug bites in places that never see the sun, bug bites on my ear, in my hair… it stinks!  But, it’s a small price to pay for a week on the beach.

The last two days have been a lot of fun: we’ve been catching up with people (there are between 40 and 60 here each day) we haven’t seen in a year, lounging, cooking… The way we do things here is each night, one “cooking crew” makes dinner for the rest of us.  It takes a lot of work, obviously, to plan, cook, and feed for so many people, but we always have delicious, restaurant-quality food.

The first night is more of a pot-luck, so we had a Middle Eastern platter with hummus, pita, tabouleh, baba ganoush, pita, etc.

I also had a mixed greens salad and an orzo salad with cheese, tomatoes and olives.  This is so good!

Desserts abounded, including my Aunt Mary’s famous chocolate chip cookies:

Brownies, chocolate chip blondies, and lemon squares:

There are also some 7-layer / Magic bars floating around here, but if they didn’t get caught on camera…

We found bottom-shelf vodka to make cocktails to bring to the beach to watch the fireworks:

Jenny + Marina:

We sat on the beach watching the fireworks for hours… unfortunately my camera isn’t sophisticated enough to show you how beautiful it was.

For breakfast yesterday, I had a bowl of Wheaties + Honey Nut Cheerios with 1/2 a banana and skim milk.

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We went upstairs to have lunch and cool off: leftover orzo (this will be the death of me, I swear!) and tuna salad.  I ate them “wrap style” by rolling the salads up in tomato slices and lettuce weaves.

I had fresh grapes and blubes from the farmers market for dessert.

My dad got quite the haul at the Market… he brought this Super Charge Me-style oatmeal cookie for our cabin.  I only had a nibble, but it was pretty delicious! I see its future as “oatmeal future” in the near future…

In the afternoon, Judy and I went for a nice run to look at the houses.  We did about 2.5 miles (my HRM was out of it’s mind, AGAIN… Polar, expect a call from me today), and although it was pretty hot outside we ran in the shade and it was just perfect.  I cranked out some 8 minute abs when I came back, then had a nice Red, White & Blue Parfait with Oikos nonfat Greek  yogurt, blueberries, raspberries and a touch of brown sugar.

After showering and making myself presentable, I stumbled upon Bere, my 12 year old cousin, cleaning a Corona bottle.  Bere took over Jenny and my job of saving all the bottles and cans and collecting them for deposit (we go through quite a few of these over the week…), but I might have to convince him that we need the money more than he does!

During the cocktail hour, I had a cheese plate with Manchego (my favorite!), Havarti, Blue, and Brie. I also had a piece of bread, a couple crackers and olives.

I also had a Shiner beer, which was very yeasty.  It’s partly my fault for not following the directions and pouring half the beer out into a glass, swirling the rest in the bottle, and pouring it into the glass… but who wants to do that when they’re just trying to chillax with a brew? Hmpf.

George was the cooking crew leader last night and prepared a Mexican meal of Roasted Chicken, Red & Black Beans, Rice, and Tomato Salad.  He was nice enough to make me a pot of vegetarian black beans, so I ate them with rice and about 20 tomatoes.

For dessert, we had vanilla ice cream and blueberries.

As I’ve said, I’m not going to be documenting everything here… I want to be able to enjoy my vacation, obviously, but I’ll also be finding a healthy balance by continuing to blog and maintain my exercise regime.

Today, July 6, is Mama Veggie Patch (MVP)’s birthday, so some festivities will ensue.

Enjoy your weeks!