Happy Thanksgiving! I am now sitting on the couch with a full belly and a happy heart! After running the Charlotte Turkey Trot this morning I came home and cooked up a storm in the kitchen. Our menu included:

- Turkey

- Dressing

- Mashed Potatoes

- Sweet Potato Casserole (my favorite!)

- Green Beans

- Macaroni and Cheese (my grandma’s recipe of course!)

- Squash Casserole

- Homemade Biscuits

The best part is all the leftovers we will be eating throughout this weekend

On this day and every day, I think it is important to think about what I am thankful for and sometimes tend to take for granted:

* Having a healthy and happy family and two loving parents who have been married over 30 years!

* My husband who loves me unconditionally, no matter how bossy and irritable I get

* The cutest, sweetest doggie and kitty that a girl could ever want

* A strong, healthy body that helped me run the Turkey Trot 8K this morning in 52.23!

* A stable, well-paying job doing something I really enjoy and great coworkers who teach me something new every day

* A roof over my head and hot food on my table

* Having a group of amazing friends, some of which I have had most of my life. Though many of them are far away, I know I have their unconditional love and support and can pick up the phone any time I need them

While I may love shopping and material things, I thing there is nothing better to be thankful for than some incredible people in my life and a God who brings me new things to be thankful for each day!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and continues to remember to be thankful each day!

Barney Butter is giving away FREE SAMPLES of their almond butter and a coupon for a future purchase. All my lovely friends have been RAVING over Barney Butter lately, so now it is my turn to try it

Visit the Barney Butter website to get your free sample and coupon today!

Since it is Charlotte Restaurant Week hubby and I decided to try out a restaurant that we have never been to before, LaVecchia’s to celebrate an early Valentine’s Day.  Coming from the coast, both Hubby and I are huge seafood lovers, and that is what LaVecchia’s specializes in! So we got all dressed up and grabbed the lightrail to go uptown for our reservation.

I chose a magenta Banana Republic dress, black tights (Hue), Silver Nine West heels, and a black, drapey cardigan cinched with a black belt:

Date Night Outfit

I would give LaVecchia’s a B+ on the quality and flavor of the dishes and a C- on service. The food was actually pretty tasty, but it tasted like it sat in the window for a little while under a heat lamp. The problem was that our server put everything we ordered in all at once and we got bombarded with food from all directions. Seriously, we finished our whole 4 course meal in 30 minutes!

I chose to go with the goat cheese salad (I <3 Goat Cheese!!), almond encrusted tilapia with whipped potatoes, and a brownie cheesecake. We also ordered an appetizer of calamari, one of our faves.

LaVecchia's Atmosphere

Wine

I started off dinner with a glass of Merlot that was just okay. Took a few sips of the husband’s ShockTop beer and wish I would have gotten that instead!

Next we got our Calamari, which was really nothing special. Our favorite Calamari is still that at Carabba’s.

Calamari

My favorite part of our meal was the bread (delicous and doughy, yum) and my goat cheese salad which had an amazing dressing/sauce on it! I actually could have just eaten the bread with the salad and been completely satisfied.

Goat Cheese Salad

Bread

Quickly after (seriously, we felt so rushed!!) came our meals. The tilapia was actually delicious but put my fullness WAY over the edge. I think hubby and I both feel miserably full right now. Hubby got beef medallions and grits, which were pretty tasty as well.

Almond Encrusted Tilapia

Before we were even finished eating our meals, our desserts arrived at the table (sorry, didn’t get a photo). I ordered a brownie cheesecake and hubby got a chocolate torte. I took one small taste of each and boxed them up to bring home, this was way too much food for one meal! All in all the meal was good and I liked the restaurant, but had it been regular priced I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much. Definitely not a place I think we will be going back to anytime soon. Off to the couch with a full belly Hope you had a great Friday night, hooray for the weekend and my upcoming vacation!

Could it really be true? There are actually “healthy” donuts? Let me tell ‘ya, I love me some donuts and have a SERIOUS sweet tooth, but since reforming my diet, I don’t eat donuts often anymore. These look like they would be great for those times when I want to indulge in that gooey, sweet delicious-ness. With most flavors ranking in under 200 calories, these would make a great snack or add a piece of fruit and milk for a nutritious breakfast. I checked out the nutritional profiles, and they really look like they are fairly healthy and have no artificial sweeteners or trans-fat. What do you think, healthy or not?

Holey Donuts

And they even have pink ones, just for you PinQue readers

Holey Donuts in PINK

It was a delicious kind of day…I ran out to one of my favorite places Uptown to grab some lunch, Reid’s Fine Foods. This is actually a small grocery store that has a sandwich and salad bar, bakery, sushi and all kinds of goodies.

Reid's Fine Foods - Charlotte, NC

I got the “Coliseum” which is turkey, brie (YUM), avocado, lettuce and tomato on wheat bread. Their sandwiches are HUGE so I almost always only eat half. Of course I also have to get a cookie because they have by far the best cookies I have ever eaten (so good that I didn’t take a picture before I gobbled it down). If you are ever in the Queen City, make sure to stop by here and check it out. Just to tempt you, here are some photos of my sammy:

The "Coliseum"

Not only did I get my favorite lunch today, I also got my favorite dinner. How often does that happen? Hubby and I went to our college town nearby to meet up with some people for dinner at my favorite hole in the wall Mexican restaurant. We spent many a night here in college, let me tell ya! Mexican is by far my favorite food and something I could never give up, even though I know how un-healthy it is…there is something about the combination of cheese, guacamole, sour cream and black beans that I can’t resist. Oh, and those yummy fried tortilla chips. Usually we end up eating so many chips, salsa and cheese dip that we can’t even eat our meal. Tonight I tried to refrain and went with a taco salad (I don’t eat the shell, ick) so I wouldn’t feel miserable when we got home:

Cheese Dip and Chips

Taco Salad

BTW, I have been using my phone for pics today because they upload so easily from there to WordPress, so sorry they are not the highest quality. Oh SLR camera, where are you?