My dog Cissie turns 5 today! I can’t even believe we’ve had her for so long. I feel like a parent – it seems like just yesterday that she was a puppy!

Happy birthday to my little bear!

Now onto the weekend recap!

On Saturday, Steph and I completed the required pool dive for our scuba diving certification! It was hard for me to figure out how to breathe at first, but a lot of fun once I got the hang of it. Even though we were just in a pool, it was cool to swim around at the bottom and be able to look up at all the people bobbing around above us. I can’t wait to go open water diving in Hawaii in two weeks!

By the time we were done, it was 4 and we were both starving since we hadn’t had a chance to eat lunch. On our way back, we went to Satay Malaysian in Hoboken and had a bite to eat.

Steph ordered the chicken pad thai. She was excited!

I had the coconut milk bubble tea and a brown chicken curry. The bubble tea was delicious and the chicken curry had quite a kick to it! It filled me right up.

Later, my sister was in the mood for a second dinner so I made her one of my egg white and hummus wraps and we shared some sweet potato fries. I love when she comes to visit because I usually don’t get the opportunity to show her that eating healthy can be quick, easy, and delicious.

The next day, we hit the mall before going to my favorite Indian place, Raaz, for lunch! It was all really delicious, as usual. I finished off with two gulab jamun.

For dinner, I threw together the following in a bowl: lemony whole wheat pasta with kale and chicken sausage. Yum!

Lastly, I’ll leave you with these two photos of the birthday girl being sleepy!

Mother’s Day dinner with my family was the perfect way to end my perfectly relaxing Sunday!

My parents and sister drove up to Newport to join me for dinner at Komegashi Too, a Japanese restaurant by the water. The view was amazing! I Instagram’d it immediately.

I took some photos of the fam as we waited for our food to arrive. Aren’t my mom and dad cute?

Then baby sister Steph and I:

Mom and Steph:

And Dad and I and BEER! We’re the drinkers of the family. Sapporo for me and Heineken for him.

For apps, we ordered the edamame, which was nice and light.

And ika geso, deep-fried squid legs. Not so light, but they had the perfect amount of crunch!

For my entree, I ordered the Spicy White Lover roll, which had salmon and avocado in the roll and was topped with spicy white tuna, golden tobiko, and scallions. And a piece of sauteed enoki mushroom sashimi. I knew the roll would be enough, but I absolutely love enoki mushrooms so I couldn’t resist trying it when I saw it on the menu.

My sister got the tempura zura soba, which was Japanese soba with a dipping sauce and fried shrimp tempura.

My dad ordered the same thing he had the last time we were there, the K2 skirt steak cooked medium rare. It was amazingly tender and served with a divine plum sauce.

And my mom went with the miso bouillabaisse, which contained almost every type of seafood you can imagine with a delicious miso sauce. I sampled the lobster, fish, and some of the veggies and it was all delicious.

It was the perfect meal! Great service and fantastic food. We’d actually had reservations at another restaurant, but my dad definitely made the right decision changing our reservation to K2 at the last minute.

I don’t say it enough, but I love spending time with my family. Dinner was so relaxing and fun. I’m going to miss this next year when my baby sis goes off to Vassar. It’s not far though, so hopefully, we’ll still get just as much family time!

Happy Mother’s Day! Love you, Mom!

I was so happy to see some lovely April flowers on my commute to work this morning!

I live in the Newport area of Jersey City, and it’s easily one of the nicer areas around here. The town does a lot of upkeep, including planting flowers in the spring! So I encountered these right outside of my building:

These right outside of my gym:

And these in our tiny town square! They’re my favorites.

Later in the day, I ventured into Hoboken with a coworker to grab lunch at a small Cuban restaurant called La Isla. Didn’t manage to snap photos because we were absolutely ravenous, but we ordered the shrimp ceviche to share and Cuban-style sandwiches. Mine had ham, cheese, and a pickle on it. Tasty!

But the second highlight of my day came right after lunch! While walking back to the car, we saw some cactus being sold on the sidewalk. I’m very jealous of my coworker’s adorable bonsai tree so I had to one up. After careful consideration, I went for this little bundle:

Cute, right? I decided to name them Shaggy (the front one with the little curls), Daphne (the pinkish one on the right), Fred (the one(s?) on the left), and Velma (the prickly one in the back). Yay! They’re my new little work buddies.