Heab-rific Weekend

Finally, FINALLY I got to see the gal who has been such an inspiration to me for the past year! Heather from Heather Eats Almond Butter encouraged me to start blogging this past fall and has provided support, friendship and giggles the whole time. She and CD often visit his folks in Scottsdale, Arizona during the holidays. When she told me that she would be there this Christmas, I knew that we had to have a 'Meetup'.

During the last hour of our drive from California, Derek realized that we had made a terrible timing error. We forgot that there is a TIME CHANGE! Doh! Luckily, Heabs was a good sport and had a look around the mall while we raced into town. Derek dropped me off at The Kona Grill where I met Miss Heather at long last! She gave me a cute Lululemon bag with all sorts of goodies inside including a totally cool microfiber yogamat-length towel, a Pom apron and single serving Jay Robb packets & Justin butters- so thoughtful! She KNOWS I'm obsessed with travel sized eats! :-) Thank you Heabs!! Here is her post on the evening- she is sooo much better about the food deets than I am! :-)

Long lost friends, United at last!! Deb & Heather

As you might imagine, we gabbed and gabbed and practically closed the place down without even scratching the surface of all of the topics we wanted to discuss. We ordered the same modified Seabass dish (as we wore our baby seal coats and sipped coffee out of styrofoam cups...kidding!) and split a fab red velvet cupcake- the waitress even had the genius idea to get the frosting on the side for us- SCORE!

Demolished Red Velvet Cupcake with the Now-famous Frosting-on-the-side. We had intended to bring home half to the hubs, but that turned out to be a pipe dream.

Now is the part where I get to sound totally clichéd. I get to sound like zillions of other bloggers after they have their meetups...They go on and on about the fabulousness of a recently-met bloggie friend. Somehow you never hear "Peeps, she was boring and what a BeeOtch!" Well, you won't hear that now from me now either. Of that you can be certain!!

Here is the absolute truth, clichéd or not: Heather is kind and generous, just like she seems on her blog. More so if that's even possible. Effortlessly & naturally beautiful and genuinely curious about everyone around her, she was totally engaging from the moment we met. Once when I thought I had left my camera behind, she was on the phone trying to track it down without hesitation. This was just one of the many thoughtful things she did. As predicted, Heabie is a total sweet-heart. End of clichéd portion of the post :-)

The next day Her MIL, Alice took a bloggle of us (the technical term for a group of bloggers) on a hike in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. She is a volunteer guide, font of information and a hiking mastress. On the hike:

• Heather (Heather Eats Almond Butter)
• Beeks (Somehow I nicknamed her 'Beeks'... from BeekEats)
• Tenaya (Beeks' Mom who happens to be a fitness fanatic!)
  
• Alice
• Deb (Smoothie Girl Eats Too)

It was a stunning day that started off cool, but warmed up with the hiking and sunshine. Alice educated us about some of the local flora and led us with the perfect pace. We got to chat and learn all about each others’ lives on the 3 hours we had making our way up and down the mountain.

Tenaya, Beeks, Deb, Heabie, Alice

Heabs, Beeks & Mom-Tenaya. I love this photo- so fun.

Up, Up Up

My forearms (ie. Popeye muskles) & lats were sore the next day after using these hiking poles!

Action shot- look at Heabs- Run that trail, girl!

Beeks , Deb & Heabs in front of a HUUUUUGGGGE cactus

Beeks & Mama B. aka Tenaya

HeabRific Hiker Extraordinaire

6+ miles and 748 calories later, I was pretty much ready to eat my arm. For Heabies' take on the hike, click here. Beeks post is here. See, it pays to be lazy and get the last post out- I can just copy theirs and then link back- yesss!

Next stop: Lunch at The Pita Jungle. There was lavosh, pita, hummus and baba gannoush, among other main course yummies. You can imagine my happiness especially about the lavash. I tend to be a bit of a lavash monster.

Beeks had ordered something totally modified (so great to be around my peeps who also modify) and I pulled a Meg Ryan from When Harry Met Sally. You know, “I’ll have what she’s having”. And no, Beeks wasn’t making obscene noises…her Mom was sitting next to her for goodness sake!

Guess who met us there?

• Jenn (Eating Bender)

Jenn, Heabs, Deb, Beeks

Jenn was home from Chicago visiting family. We were lucky to be able to see her although I wished we had more time to chat. She has an exciting year ahead. She recently graduated college, got a job and got engaged! You can read about some of it here. Next time, we'll get her on a hike too because we missed her on that leg of the adventure :-)

Incidentally, sweet Beeks and Tenaya had driven 2 hours from Tucson just to be a part of the festivities. Plus Beeks took time off work. Thanks to you guys for making that effort! Beeks is a very mature and intelligent 18-year old woman who is about to embark on her culinary adventure at school in New York State in January. Be sure to read her blog to keep up with what is certain to be a fabulous career-in-the-making! She is creative, smart and very thoughtful. In fact she brought me some great gifties: some protein powder and Yogi chips...those are history fyi. They are that good.

We were unfortunate that Averie who lives minutes away in Phoenix was in Aruba the entire time we were there. What are the odds of that! We're sorry to have missed you Averie!

We saved just enough room for a bit of gelato at the shop next door. They claim to have less calories and fat than regular ice cream. How this is possible when it tastes richer than Chunky Monkey, I have no idea. Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Nom nom.

Finally and sadly, we said our bloggie good-byes. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

The next morning, Heather and I hit a Flow Yoga Class at At One Yoga studio, where I was able to put my new-from-Heather yoga mat towel to use. It was a good, challenging class. Heabs got to witness the Giggling-Side-Crow-in-a-Crumpled-Heap Pose that I have perfected. We were two happy, relaxed Sweaty Bettys by the end of it.

Only a really good yoga class can produce racoon-eyes like those I'm sporting in this photo

How cute is this girl??

I love Heather's smile in this shot. It's one of my fave photos from the whole trip.

I went back to the hotel for a quick shower and to collect the hubs. The two of us then met a freshly showered Heabs at “The Good Egg” for brunch, where I proceeded to modify my dish so much that the waitress didn't think it could be done. Turns out they did a great job. No photo, but it was a crepe with whipped egg-whites inside- HELLO!?! Is that not a Deb item? WHIPPED. EGG. WHITES??!! I asked for it with roasted fuji apples that I spotted elsewhere on the menu and side of pecans. I always joke that there is a gallon of spit in every modified dish that I order (courtesy of the chef of course). Oh well, good for my immunity no doubt! :-)

Heather & Deb- ready for some brunch!

Is this a Heab/Deb kinda place? Protein powder on the menu? Then again, there's also Oreos, M&Ms and Reese's PB chips, but we won't talk about that.

Luvie aka Mr. SmoothieGirl aka Derek & Heabs. Two of my favorite people together! For an artist's rendition of the Hubs, click here.

Like me, Derek loved meeting Heabie as he loved meeting Lara and Matthew. He's such an enthusiastic Mr. SmoothieGirl! But he was really sorry to have missed CD, who was sick the whole weekend. :-( Despite feeling like total cr*p, CD managed to flash me the biggest, friendliest smile and the most stunning blue eyes I have ever seen when I briefly met him. Wishing you a speedy recovery, CD! By the way, I hear that McVities and bacon cures all ailments.

It was a wonderful bloggie-filled weekend and I hope that there will be many more of those to come. Perhaps next time in LA!?

Q: Any fun meetups happening recently? Any planned for the future? I'm excited to meet my BFF/archrival/frenemy, Allie from Pimp My Protein Shake in January! She'll be passing through La La Land and we are going to hit up Asian markets and buy up all the shirataki & protein powder. Woot!