First off though: I just want to say thank you for everyones comments on the blog and in real life about my "being shy" post, it means a lot that i can share such things, so hugs all around!
Finally, some Aruba photos and recap on Travel Tuesday! I've made you wait long enough, the suspense must have been killing you, no? Fine, i'll just imagine the suspense was killing you!
But first, a recipe as promised - look at me, keeping my blog promises and providing you with Aruba deets, i'm crazy on top of things today, excuse me while i awkwardly attempt to pat myself on the back
Todays new recipe is one of those desserts thats tastes sinful but has a short ingredient list and full of healthy ingredients, not an un-pronounceable word in sight!
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Chocolate pudding with a hint of Orange
Adapted from the lovely - Averie (Loves Veggies and Yoga)
Ingredients
2 avocados
1/2 cup of Honey
1/6 cup of Agave Nectar
1/3 cup of Sifted Cocoa
1 tsp of Orange rind
1 tsp of vanilla
Directions1. Put the avocado flesh (you know, that would be not the pit or skin, just an fyi) in the blender
2. Add the Honey, Agave Nectar, Vanilla & Orange rind and then sift the cocoa into the blender
3. Blend Blend Blend
4. Put a spoon in the mixture and give it a suspicious look, seriously, how is avocado supposed to taste like pudding???
5. Declare this the tastiest pudding that has graced your lips and you will NEVER EVER go back to jello pudding again!
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So its been almost 3 months since we have returned from Aruba and i've missed it every freaking day, here is Part ONE of the recap of our trip and a few of my favourite photos
Aruba Travelblog
PART ONE
Oh yeah, I'm back with another witty, bad grammered (not a word I know because iPhone autocorrect wants to turn it into Frankfurt?) travel blog for all my friends, family and random people creeping my FB! So hold on tight and prepare for the ridiculous travel shenanigans of myself, my lovely (till he denies me some kind of ridiculous unnecessary but I MUST HAVE IT souvenir) boyfriend and our awesome friends
Day one
- Well nothing says vacation like a good snowstorm hours before you leave for holiday! Planes weren't delayed though, must have been my not very silent prayer of - "dear god I can't take one more day of this snow and I might expire if I'm not on a beach with a fruity drink in my hand in exactly 12 hours!" I only said it about 9 (thousand) times
- Once at the airport I realize I had checked all the snacks in our luggage and cue the angry tummy noises I make the oh-so-wise decision to get in the tims line up with a wait of about a month but at least I can't see snow anymore, it's progress!
- On the plane trying not to elbow the guy in the seat beside me in the teeth, i lost count of how many times dude has elbowed me in the ribs and am slowly planning my revenge (hint: it involves a pen, my orange juice cup, the seat tray and an in flight magazine!) feel free to draw your own conclusions as to how this will end up
- STILL on the plane, have made kind of peace with guy next to me as he has let me out to pee on more then one occasion, we won't talk about what happened with the arm rest incident though, who has the rights to both armrests? There must be some kind of airplane etiquette lesson they could give before takeoff, maybe instead of emergency procedures because let's be honest who actually listens to those?
- I am quite pleased with myself as I've remembered I have some organic chips in my bag and I happily snack on them while Dave snores and I read my book entitled "skinny bitch", I'm sure there will be a review of this somewhere on the blog before the end of the trip, apparently it's QUITE controversial book, I'm just pleased that 2 pages in they are swearing at me kind of like how I wanna swear at elbowresthogger
- Time to land, let's hope I stay awake, I kind of fell asleep through take off, kind of the over rated part of a plane trip if u ask me! No one claps when u take off, just the landing - note to self: clap upon take off next time to give the pilot a self esteem boost for the rest of the flight!
- Once off the plane, customs is a breeze (unless u pick the slowest custom agent ever which of course we did) and instead of being herded on to the tour bus we make the smartest decision ever and take a cab to the resort so we can check in before the other 100 tourists get there, if u take all inclusive trips you MUST do this!
- We change out of our parkas (kidding we didnt have any on but we left during a snowstorm, there were many layers people), we claim our rooms and rush back down for lunch and are so overwhelmed at the choices we eat almost one of everything on the menu and in true island tradition the food takes about about 3 hours to come but our attentive waitress keeps bringing the martinis and beer so by the time our food arrives we are completely sloshed and cheering non stop about our love for Aruba
- Dinner is fancy schmancy, lots of courses, steak and wine but bed time arrives about 9pm, it's even sadder because that's 8pm Canada time, we have been up since 1am though travelblog readers, I promise to get into more shenanigans soon!
Next installment will involve a private island, scaly creatures and resort crashing!
Day two
- It's our first full day in Aruba and I wake up raring to go, Dave isn't impressed as it's only 6am Brantford time and he has made himself quite a nest in the plethora of pillows our bed comes with so I proceed to unpack as loudly as possible (imagine slamming drawers and stomping feet) and suddenly Dave is up and ready, teehehee
- We decide to check out the fitness room to offset the large quantities of food and alcohol we consumed and are highly amused at the sign when you walk in "no flip-flops or thongs please", dear god if there are people working out in thongs I'll gladly gain 10 pounds this trip then workout in here
- The treadmills have tv's so we pound a few miles out before heading back to our room which is really organized now, slammed drawers and all
- oatmeal for breakfast and Dave says it's not nearly as good as mine, aww he misses ground flax and chia seeds, we then take off to explore Aruba
- Clint and I become obsessed with taking photos of iguanas and he names himself the iguana hunter and I'm sure it's just the kind of show TLC needs to boost it's ratings because honestly have you seen "I didn't know I was pregnant", definitely not the quality programming it used to be
- We decide after lunch to take a bus to the palm beach area and it goes shockingly well, maybe my luck with public transportation in foreign countries is finally changing! We decide to sneak into Riu Palace (Resort crashers another great show idea) and we steal some deck chairs and check out the beach, after a quick swim and yet another nap, we head back to the resort quite proud of ourselves for stealing a wee bit of Riu palaces grandeur by utilizing their "paying patrons only" beach
- it's private island time, we are so excited about having a private island we make sure to go there at least once a day! - after sucking back one too many tropicaladas and ohhing and ahhing over the wedding being set up and several hints dropped to the boys about how nice it would be to get married on a private island we find out our flamingo beach is closed for the prior mentioned wedding, we decide we would never inconvenience other resort folks by doing such a thing and head back for yet another..., you guessed it nap!
- Tonight is Caribbean BBQ night and I'm pretty sure Dave ends up with meat sweats as he consumes enough BBQ beef I think he might start to moo any minute now
- We end the night with drinks and dessert in the lobby but there is a mix up with the flavour of hagaan daz ice-cream and honestly if this is the biggest thing that goes wrong on our trip, I am a happy girl!
Day Three
- Wake up to the sound of a giant cruise ship docking at about 5am!
- Today we rent a jeep, are u excited? We definitely are until we arrive at the car rental place and it doesn't contain the words budget, hertz or thrifty in the title, no no it's a sketchy rental place in the middle of nowhere with lawn chairs for furniture, no biggie, we are in vacation we can roll with this, the jeep they pull round is rusting, dirty, dented and has duct tape on it, SO not impressed, once we figure out Heathers seatbelt doesn't work we refuse to go anywhere and the rental scammer (can't call him a guy anymore) mutters it's the same with a new or old jeep, sure mr. scammer whatever you say, when we nicely ask for a ride back to our hotel we suddenly have a brand new jeep coming for us, so let's just get comfy in our lawn chairs and see what scammy (his new nickname) has in store for us next
- We finally free ourselves from car rental hell and head out to the open road well let's be more exact, the open subdivisions, it's impossible to find our way around as there are no street signs, finally we come across an oil refinery and a jail, hmmm this is getting a wee bit sketchy but wait a minute, there is some beautiful cliffs and beaches if you look beyond the killer goats (not sure if the goats are really killers, just adds some flavour to the travel blog really) besides it sounds like a great monty python skit and I'm on a roll coming up with tv show ideas - At Baby Beach we have a great swim and are best friends with the cutest puppy that moseys on over and seems to adopt us as his new family, he is SO cute so we give him some water and organic cookies and as we leave he looks so pitiful for a brief moment before pouncing on an unsuspecting sunbathing tourist! Oh and we named him beaches it seemed appropriate
- Next stop is the resort for lunch, it's free what can we say and we massively enjoy signing our bill for a $200 lunch knowing it's included in our all inclusive package
- After one too many rum collins (I'm not too drunk to know they are called tom colllins thats just what the bartender made us) we are on our way to the California lighthouse where I curse out several tourists for leaning their hot pink bikes against the well known tourist attraction utterly ruining my photo op! A lovely Italian place with the most beautiful view is spotted and the boys promise to bring us back tomorrow for drinks at sunset, upon leaving we notice the sandwich board advertising $4 sandwiches and $2 beers, our guys do like to spoil us on holiday :oP
- We head back for another amazing steak dinner at the resort and to tuck the jeep in for the night! (did I mention after all the jeep hassle we kept it for another night, lol!)
- Tomorrow is the natural pool, abandoned gold mine and bat infested caves, I can hardly wait! And I bet you can't either...
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So I heard this quote on the tv last night and i really liked it
"Innovation doesn't really matter unless it does something that matters to you"
I really liked it then i realized it was for a cell phone commercial, hahahaaaa
So it made me wonder - what kind of cell phone do you use?
I am a devoted iPhone worshiper :o)
