Love Of Oats

A blog dedicated to balancing a healthy and fun life… with oats!

Monthly Archives: May 2009

Mocha Maniac

While I was away, I was lucky enough to receive a new Odwalla bar in the mail to review on the blog! 

I was really interested in trying out Odwalla Mocha-walla bar because I have never had a chocolate-flavored Odwalla bar, plus I was also excited to try it out since it was a brand new exclusive foodie product!

I have to admit I prolonged trying this bar simply because I didn’t want to be let down and I really wanted to be in the mood for it, so I saved it until this afternoon to have as an afternoon snack before taking a bodyworks (strength training) class.  Upon opening it up, I was greeted with the pure smell of coffee.  I didn’t really smell any chocolate so that kind of bummed me out, but I did enjoy the coffee smell because we all know how I love my coffee :)  

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My first bite was a blast of flavors – I expected coffee in chewy form, but my bite was actually a nice mix of chewy chocolate chunks with a hint of espresso.  The texture of the bar was right inline with all of the other Odwalla bars, but I must say that this was my favorite flavor simply because I can’t resist chocolate & coffee in a nutritionally sound bar!

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Have any of you tried this bar?  What did you think?  Have you seen them in stores yet?  If so, let me know because I’m now on the hunt for more of them…

One Week Ago Today

I luckily picked up a new card reader yesterday so I am really happy that I get to share pictures with ya’ll again!  Thanks for the great suggestion to get a card reader instead of a cord – much easier!

Anyway, I’m a week behind but I figured it’s better late than never to share with you the details of our Mother’s Day 5K (Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure) and our Mother’s Day Family Cookout!

Here’s the start of the race…

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Here’s us getting ready – we were both a bit nervous due to the whole lack of running/working out the entire week before.  Seriously, I didn’t get to work out AT ALL the entire week before the run due to my business trip, but I must say I think it helped me b/c I was really motivated (a little nervous too) and didn’t feel overtrained/overworked…

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A few minutes before the start…

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We finished!  We ran pretty much the entire time, but I did have to stop three times to take a few walk breaks because I felt like my lung was going to pop out :) … I was purely motivated by Bill along with all the other participants… It was a nice trail too with plenty of “cheerleaders” and volunteers along the way, so that helped a lot! We wound up finishing at 34 minutes, 11 seconds but it probably would have been a little sooner since there was a backlog of people crossing the line turning in their runner number stub :)   I was really happy with our time and just the fact that we finished was a HUGE accomplishment for me.

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My post race meal consisted of none other than a Philadelphia soft pretzel!

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Here’s some scenic pictures!

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Here’s all the goodies we took home!

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After our race, we headed home, showered, and prepped for our guests!  We had my parents, grandparents, brother over along with Bill’s parents, grandparents, brothers, sister/husband/niece!  It was a LOT of fun… We had a lot of yummy appetizers and dessert, but the best part was the grilled burgers and hot dogs cooked by grillmaster Bill hehe… he definitely got a lot of use out of our new grill!

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I hope you enjoyed this long and late recap and hope you had a great Sunday!  We had my friend Kelly’s bridal shower today (she was my maid of honor) so it was a very busy, exciting, fun, and exhausting day, so I am ready to collapse!  Good night :)

Now I’m off to collapse…