2015 Holiday Vacation Highlights

Hi friends, and Happy New Year!

I had 12 days off of work for my holiday break, and not surprisingly, it just zoomed by. My hubby and I flew to the East coast to spend the holidays with our families in Jersey, and had a packed schedule full of fun.

I had set up a few blog posts that published while I was out of town, and really took a break from blogging, email, and my computer in general. I also only posted a few times on social media the entire trip. I love being connected, but it was a much needed break. I thought it’d be fun to recap my holiday break today and share what I’ve been up to. Let’s get to it!

We spent Christmas at my parents’ house. I made a bunch of dishes for the holiday, including this healthier apple crumb pie (recipe via Making Thyme for Health):

I got to hang out a lot with my family and play with my four nephews…

…and got my puppy fill by cuddling with my parents’ Pit bull Jada:

I got in a workout in a man cave (my father-in-law’s basement)…

Luckily he has a treadmill in there, so I did some incline walking along with some conditioning moves like squats, planks and lunges. Sometime you have to fit in workouts wherever/whenever you can, right? 🙂

I went to Philly twice during my trip – one of which was for the Eagles vs. Redskins NFL game. My father-in-law is an Eagles fan, and we got him tickets to the game as a gift.

My hubby, father-in-law, his fiancé, and I went to the Saturday night game the day after Christmas. Unfortunately the Eagles sucked (I’m a Giants fan anyways!) but I always have fun at football games regardless.

A few days later, we went back to Philly with A’s mom and grandmom. We walked around in the pretty downtown area, paid a trip to the city’s famous (and ginormous!) Macy’s store….

…and had lunch at this awesome restaurant we recently discovered called Sabrina’s Cafe:

Other food trip highlights include pizza at a childhood favorite restaurant called Federici’s (NJ/NY has Cali beat when it comes to pizza!)…

….vegan Chinese food from my favorite restaurant during my college days, Veggie Heaven (Their food is SO good you guys!):

And because it was 70 degrees out a few of the days we were in Jersey (!), I made a few berry banana protein smoothie bowls…

My last sweat session of 2015 = yoga practice + a Jillian Michaels’ Ripped in 30 DVD workout:

I spent New Year’s Eve with my family, hubby, and a girlfriend relaxing, drinking, eating, watching football, and hanging out in my parents’ backyard by their fire pit. My crowd pleasing creation of the night was these awesome homemade mini pretzels…

Perhaps I’ll share the recipe with you guys sometime soon!

Unfortunately I came back to Cali sick, so my weekend consisted of lots of rest, tea, cough drops, soup and puppy snuggles….

I’m battling an upper respiratory thing and think I might have bronchitis. Nothing like coming back from vacation sick and starting off the new year under the weather right? I’m just trying to rest and hopefully get back to normal within a couple of days. Fingers crossed!

I rarely get sick, and it seems that the only time I ever do is after I travel during the holidays. I had dodged it the last couple of years but unfortunately ended my healthy holiday streak this year. But to end this post on a happy note, New Year’s Day marked 5 years since this happened…  

Tell me… What are some highlights of your holidays?  

PS – Don’t forget to enter my Big Slice Apples giveaway! I’ll randomly pick a winner on Wednesday.