A Labor Day Weekend Full of Hiking, Food & Booze

Hi friends!

I hope that you all had a fabulous weekend. Not surprisingly, I must say that 3-day weekends are pretty sweet! There seemed to be 3 themes to my last 3 days:

On Friday after I finished up with work, I ventured over to Elfin Forest to meet up for a hiking date with my friend Tiffany. I brought Harley along, and she ran around like a maniac as she usually does there.

The park remains my favorite hiking area around here, and catching up with my friend while getting a workout in, being outside, and wearing Harley out was pretty awesome. The 2-hour hike just flew by! I think I need to go hiking with girlfriends more often.

Wanting to hit a new trail on Labor Day with A and the pup, we decided to try a hike in the beach town of Laguna Niguel, about an hour north from where we live, called Colinas Bluff Trail.

While the views were beautiful and the weather was nice and breezy, the hike didn’t exactly turn out how I’d hoped for. For one thing, the difficulty level of the hike wasn’t high enough for me. It had some little inclines, but I most enjoy trails with parts that get my heart seriously pumping. You guys know that I’m a sweat junkie!

For another thing, Harley kept overheating. We usually give her water and breaks here and there, but she just kept constantly looking for shady spots to lay down by. The above picture exemplifies this pretty well – poor pup! I thought that the weather felt nice, but I suppose I’m not the one covered in fur. Towards the end, my hubby actually carried her for a good 10 minutes, and she looked a diva puppy, completely content with being carried. She is such a character!

On another note, Harley got into a fight with a rat. A rat! During one of her many attempts to lay down in the shade, out of the corner of my eye I saw her jump backwards…. and then I saw that she was getting in a spat with a rat. I jumped up and down saying, “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Ahhhh!” while my hubby yelled at her and got her away from it. Most often I hike alone with Harley, so it’s a good thing he was with us this time!

I stared at the rat and his hairy little face for a good 30 seconds afterwards, and it was just frozen in broad daylight sitting there. It was bizarre! My theories are that either 1.) It was a sick rat, or 2.) It had a nest of babies close by. Why else would a rat try to go at it with a 50-pound dog?!

So yea, the hike didn’t go quite as planned, but the not so amazing hikes make me appreciate the amazing ones. It was still a pretty area and I still got some exercise in, so I can’t really complain.

Onto the second theme of the weekend: alcohol!

My weekend included both white wine and sangria, and I also wound up going a bit out of my usual realm of drinks by having an expresso martini and trying a raspberry thyme cocktail:

One night we met another couple for drinks, and another night we went to our friends’ house for a happy hour of sorts. It was more alcohol than I usually indulge in in one weekend, and while I wasn’t really hungover, I just felt like I didn’t sleep great and was kind of lagging. I woke up on Labor Day thinking that I don’t want to see alcohol for a few weeks, though I had a ton of fun both nights!

Now onto the obvious third theme of the weekend: good food! A few highlights of my eats were banana chocolate chip pancakes topped with Peanut Butter & Co’s Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter and protein granola….

…a post-hike dinner of grilled corn, a black bean burger with mashed avocado, and a watermelon strawberry smoothie… 

…and an ice cream cookie sandwich:

I made this deliciousness after getting home from drinking said beverages, along with the nachos pictured above. First I made some chocolate chip cookies, then I let them cool before sandwiching sea salt caramel gelato in between. Let’s just say it was my best tipsy idea of the weekend. Totally worth the splurge!

To any cheese fans out there, I have to mention Sonoma Jack to you all, as their cheese has been one of my favorites for awhile now. I love the pesto and garlic flavors they make, and this weekend was my first time trying their chipotle cheddar. I found it spicy because I’m a spicy food baby, but I loved it! If you see this cheese when you’re food shopping, I highly recommend it.

On a Final Note

I indulged a lot over the past couple of days, and I’m okay with it. I had a great time, and now I’m just planning on moving forward with my week on a super healthy note – ya know, drinking green juice instead of vodka.

This applies to pretty much everything in life when I say that I don’t believe there’s any good use in harping on things that have happened – whether it be things that you ate and have the urge to feel guilty about, a job interview that went badly, losing your temper with a loved one, or the workouts you planned on doing last week that never happened. What’s done is done, the past is the past, and all you can do is let it go and do better moving forward.

Tell me… What was the last interesting cocktail you had? What was your favorite eat of your weekend? Did you overdo it over Labor Day weekend too?!