Wrapping up the Christmas Season

These are the last of the seasonal pics. It was a super busy Christmas season; busier than last year, for sure. Last year I had just returned to the States Dec. 10th and was completely overwhelmed with jetlag and family visits and crazy emotions. This year I didn't have any of the transitional stuff going on, thank God, but it was crazy busy. With adding in mentoring this year and being a JV leader, plus other random things, there was just a lot going on when the end of the year arrived. It was all so, so good, but I'm thankful that it's over for a while. =-) I survived the Christmas party season food-wise, usually taking my own food, but occasionally cheating in small amounts. My body wasn't too thrilled with the bits of cheating, and at first I thought I had kind of derailed on weight loss in December, but since I continued with all of my daily riding, I actually did just fine and will most likely end up at around 5 pds. lost for the month, which is pretty normal for me. I've got 4 days until the end of my 8th month, so we'll see then if I hit the 45 pd. mark.

How do you eat well at Christmas time??  The answer is that you have to plan ahead. Since I'm not eating refined sugars or processed flours, etc., I don't cook with them, either. I was sent a link for a cooking blogsite where the author specializes in special allergy dietary needs; whether the allergy be eggs, wheat, nuts, dairy, gluten, etc. I've found several recipes on there that I made in December. www.elanaspantry.com She had some good dessert ideas, and I really loved her recipe for coconut bars. I messed with the recipe my 2nd time around, adding a pecan crust and then lots of shaved 73% dark choc. to the filling- and it was so good and satisfying. Not only did I like it, but I took it to a church party(and didn't tell anyone that it was gluten and dairy free) and the whole plate disappeared! At other parties I took plantain chips and guacamole for myself, and just made sure in general that I had nuts and dark chocolate on hand at any given time. I also made spicy toasted pecans with Texas Pete style sauce, and dark chocolate covered cashews with dried blueberries for gifts, and had those around to snack on. My contributions for Christmas dinner were the chocolate coconut bars and Cranberry Almond Cauliflower Rice(not actual rice, but riced cauliflower). I love the rice, and even my father(who hates broccoli and cauliflower) ate some and then had leftovers of it the next day.

The following two pictures have nothing to do with food(well, we were at a restaurant in one), but are from Tapley's visit. We didn't get to spend much time together this visit, because the first week when she was in Charlotte she had the flu. Then the second week was filled with Christmas traveling for her, and she was staying at her mom's new house(which is a lot further away than the old one). It was kind of sad to not get much time, but as always, I enjoyed the time that we were able to be together.

At her mom's house

New Year's Eve dinner at Dish with Taps, Matt, her dad, brother, and his girlfriend.