Welcome back from the long weekend! Long weekends always seem so much better in the summer than in the rest of the year. We took full advantage of this one by taking a few extra days off work and made the trek up to Ottawa to spend three days with my family. In order to make the most of the time off, I vowed to allow myself to fully relax and enjoy everything… meaning?

No work (other than client program updates on Saturday), more relaxed on my eating plans, and some really great meals out. It was a much needed mental break and we fully enjoyed lots of meals with friends and family.

Because the drive is so long, we like to split it up on the way up by stopping and staying the night somewhere in the middle – usually the Mississauga area. We browsed through a mall, had dinner from the Whole Foods salad bar, and even had time to see a movie. We got up early to get a workout in before hitting the road. We thought it was a brilliant plan which would help us miss the traffic, but were wrong. Apparently 7 am is prime traffic time in the GTA – it took us almost an hour to cover about 15 km! How do people tolerate this on a daily basis??  Made me rethink my anger over Windsor traffic, that’s for sure.

The movie was good, not great. It was just over two hours long, and it felt long. If you like sports, or underdog stories, it’s good, but you can rent it & save the theatre costs.

Once we finally arrived, we did some grocery shopping with my parents and then just relaxed at their place outside. My parents have recently started eating healthier, so dinner was BBQ’d pizza (topped with salsa, lean ground beef and grilled vegetables), and homemade turkey burgers with salad. I even enjoyed the new Bud Light Raz-ber-ita, which is amazing! It’s pretty sweet, but it’s a perfect summer drink – in the opinion of someone who never drinks!

I’ve wanted to try this since seeing an ad – it didn’t disappoint. Added bonus: I got ID’d when I bought them!

One of the highlights of travelling is going to different gyms. We know the gyms around Kanata pretty well, and were looking forward to some of the equipment they have. Mostly I was looking forward to training legs for these two reasons:

This hamstring machine is my favorite & I wish we had one in Windsor. The reverse V-sit machine at this gym is also a highlight. While we have these at our home gyms, this version has a different motion to it, which is a nice change.

Trained back, with a very matching outfit.

The two meals we had planned and were excited about were all you can eat sushi and The Works burgers. Timing these meals after training made the most of them. To keep some balance throughout the day, we kept our other meals healthy and low in carbs. This let us enjoy dessert without feeling too full or bloated. Yes, this is a relaxed approach – I wouldn’t be happy if I was overly full or bloated all day long, physically or mentally. Keeping that balance between meals helped keep me sane.

All you can eat sushi is a standard post-leg day meal. Fusion Sushi is between Kanata and Stittsville – I highly recommend it!
The Works has amazing burgers, so many options it’s overwhelming. I went with a turkey burger topped with peanut butter, banana, and bacon. Kyle had an elk burger with cream cheese, grilled pineapple, caramelized onions, and banana peppers – it was incredible (we shared).

Balanced meals – ground turkey salad with a few strawberries and some green beans. I love adding fruit to my salad.

I failed at taking pictures of our dessert, too. On Sunday night for family dinner, Kyle and I made dessert pizza for everyone. We’ve made it before and it was a huge hit. You can get the recipe here. It’s easy and everyone always loves it.

I’m pretty sure the highlight of the trip for Kyle was our visit to an elk farm. The farm raises elk and produces their own meat – a variety of options such as ground, pre-made burgers, sausages, ribs, and steaks. Buying it direct from the farm was great, the quality is really high and the prices were lower than any store we’ve bought from. I was just disappointed that the elk were all hiding in the forest while we were there.

Other than that, we did some shopping, worked out a few more times, went for walks around my parent’s neighbourhood, and just hung out and relaxed! We had great weather so we spent a lot of time out on the deck. The drive back home was smooth and we made great time – compensating for the crappy drive we had heading up, I guess. Now, it’s back to regular life at home for a few days. Fingers crossed the work week goes quickly!