Rocky, James and Monica

After the Benjamin Franklin Institute…

…we headed to the Philadelphia Art Museum.

This is my first time to Philadelphia so it was great to walk around this city a bit and take it all in.

It was warm and pretty out and a lot of people were enjoying the good weather. Our walking group felt like a field trip – use the buddy system!

We went to the Philadelphia Art Museum to recreate the famous Rocky scene where he runs up the steps.

Fun fact: I have never seen Rocky, but when I was training for my marathon Ben caught up with me on a long run to help motivate me. He rode along side me on his bike and kept telling me, “You’re a bum Rock…” Because apparently boys motivate each other by being jerks. Anyways, I’ve wanted to see the movie ever since 🙂

I did it!

I also stood in the Rocky footsteps. I have big feet.

The views from the museum steps was great too 🙂

After all the festivities of the day we had some down time before dinner. I was hungry and had a few snackaroos…

I randomly picked up this bar at GNC. It has 140 calories and 12 grams of protein. I like those stats, but don’t necessarily like the ingredient list. You can’t win em all.

Then, it was time for dinner at James.

I love the color and design of their sign and door.

The restaurant was small and decorated with a funky, but modern feel.

I love brick walls and candles in the fire place 🙂

I enjoyed a glass of Rose while we waited for our table.

Let’s just say I drank more wine in the last two days then I’ve drank in the last 2 months.    

James had a menu pre-planned for us. We had two choices for each of the four courses.

I need to learn how to turn down bread. I am a fiend.

I started with the salad. I definitely don’t feel like I’ve eaten enough veggies this weekend.

For the second course I ordered the gnocchi. Actually, I think everyone ordered the gnocchi.

And it was AMAZING. This dish was definitely the highlight of the meal. I wish I had magical words to describe how good it was, but just trust me that a table full of food bloggers were raving about this one!

I ordered the risotto for my entree even though I don’t like risotto.  The salmon dish sounded too rare for my taste (the waitress described it as similar to sushi) and the other option was chicken. This was okay, but a little on the salty side (and that is crazy for me to say).

Dessert was an espresso mousse served with oranges. It was very good, but I prefer all desserts include chocolate 🙂

The dinner was well over two hours because it took so much time in between courses. But, that gave us a great chance to talk. I met so many smart and successful writers/bloggers this weekend. It was great!

The bloggers:

Tanya from Iateapie

Maridel from Vital Juice

Jenna from Eat, Live, Run

Christine from No Meat Athlete

Anne-Marie from http://www.thismamacooks.com/

Tina from Carrots N Cake

Anne from fANNEtasticfood

Jenna from Eat Right Around Chicago

Great to hang out with you all 🙂

I am very proud of myself for hitting up the gym this morning despite staying out late last night. It was not easy to wake up, but I knew I would be sitting on a plane all day and didn’t want to get antsy.

I usually take Sundays as a “rest” day so I just walked on the treadmill with an incline for 40 minutes and stretched a bit.

Then it was time to pack it up and head south to Florida 🙂

I was sad to leave the hotel though. We stayed at The Palomar. It was very nice and the service here was some of the best I’ve ever had at a hotel! The staff was super attentive and helpful.

It worked out great that Tina and Jenna were flying out at the same time and airline as I was so we shared a cab to the airport.

Once we got through security we were on a mission to find oatmeal. We almost freaked out when we heard there was no Starbucks in the Philly Airport, but luckily Au Bon Pain has oatmeal. Score!

I got oatmeal with raisins and a banana and mixed it with a packet of almond butter. I totally scored and found this on the cheap recently! They are amazing for traveling 🙂

Now I am on a plane on my way to Fort Myers, FL. I will be spending a few days with Ben’s family at a time share and then it’s back home to MD for a few weeks before I move home to CA. How crazy is my life right now?!

Despite the craziness, I am very happy, very lucky and very thankful 🙂

See you in a bit!