Hellloooo!!! I have been so out of touch it feels like. Our internet has been a pain the past couple of days. It was pretty touch and go with its connection. That means I have been out of the loop and don't know if I will be able to catch up on blogs. Let me know if I missed anything big! This post will be touch and go too so I can get it up before we have any more issues.

How is everyone's weekend going? Mine has been a bit of a rollercoaster. More on that tomorrow. Right now, I want to focus on the best part of my weekend so far. A blogger meet-up! I got to meet up with my pal Lindsey. We met through a fitness forum awhile ago and became good friends through that site. Now she is planning on getting a blog up and running soon which I am very excited about. I will be certain to link to it here so you can check her out. She is awesome!

Lindsey & I met have met before for lunch when she flies out of the Atlanta airport, but it is always rushed and I have a certain 20 lb tot commanding my attention during the visits. So we planned on catching lunch this weekend at a halfway point, just us and with no time limits.

We headed to a place called The Red Tomato in Brolingbroke, GA. Yes, it is just as small town as it sounds. But we wanted a good halfway point and this place had the best reviews out of anything we looked into. The restaurant is very quaint, housed in a cozy cottage.

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We decided to dine outside on the deck since the weather was ideal - sunny & low 70s.

Our waiter pointed out the daily specials to us, which all sounded good, although a little heavy for lunch.

Daily Special Table

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So we ended up settling on something from the lunch menu. Lindsey got a tuna patty burger with some parsley potatoes that looked good. I chose the chicken southwestern wrap with a fruit cup on the side. The wrap had chicken, a creamy salsa, cheddar, tomato, avocado, and lots of lettuce. The fruit was a mix of cantaloupe, grapes, and pineapples with a strawberry yogurt + poppyseed drizzle over the mix. It was the perfect side for such a nice day. Everything was really good.

Funny story...that is a picture of my leftovers because I didn't have my camera battery mid lunch. I wasn't about to leave good conversation to go out to the car to grab it, besides the fact I didn't think about it at that moment. Since I had leftovers, I figured I could nab some sort of you picture. And you know what's even better? I had to toss the leftovers after taking a picture because traffic left me in the car for 3. 5 hours on the way home and I figured the chicken wasn't so good anymore.  But hey, a picture is a picture.

I think our waiter had a bit too much fun getting pictures of us. And sharing all the details of his Lasik surgery he had the previous day. He was great though and helped to keep us entertained. Not that we needed it. Conversation always flows between us. I sure will miss her when she moves away from Georgia. At least I know we have one or two more visits planned before then. Thanks for a great afternoon Lindsey! 🙂

Happy Friday to all my wonderful friends! Once again, I am going to go for a Flashback Friday post. I think most of you enjoy reading those over the "fun facts" and they are more fun for me to come up with and write. It works out nicely. 🙂

About a month ago, Peter found this in one of our closets.

It completely motivated me to do some flashbacks of what is written in those leather bound covers. What is it? None other than my personal journal from the almost 2 months I spent backpacking through Europe!

total goofball even back then

It may be cliche, but people do it for a reason. It can't be beat. That was one of the BEST vacations of my life. One of the pluses of getting hit by a car as a pedestrian and having lawsuit money to help pay for college + summer before working full time. 😉 I absolutely cannot wait to go back, but I know that won't be for a long while so the flashbacks will suffice. Time to get packing!

We started our Europe trip in London because we were seeing some of my friend's family for her cousin's high school graduation from a boarding school there.

Since we started the trip around familiar people, it didn't seem REAL that we were in England. Even after hitting up Windsor Castle with her family it wasn't quite real I was in another country.

Maybe seeing the guards helped a little bit. 😉

Eventually, we left her family to start the true backpacking experience and head to our first stay at a hostel. Haha. I think every place we went has an interesting hostel story. This one was sharing a room with a chick that laughed and talked to herself...all.night.long! After checking in first thing that morning, we set out to explore downtown London. We visited Buckingham Palace and showed up just in time to witness the changing of the guard. All that pomp and circumstance was pretty interesting.

We also made sure to walk around for the traditional sight seeing hot spots.

Tower Bridge

London Eye

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

There is something surreal about seeing things you had previously only seen in pictures. I remember both of us watching all of the London episodes of Friends before we left. We ended the first day crashing in our bunk beds. That first day, we walked over 16 miles! You will hurt in places you never knew after doing that suddenly. All of you runners who run that much at once...you're crazy. And I say that with the utmost of admiration. 😉

The next days we continued with the sight seeing to things like Hyde Park and the Tate Modern, as well as (window) shopping in Harrod's and (really) shopping in H&M. This was before they were common here in the States, so that was like heaven. We also got some of the "must-have" shots in London. Like this one for example.

We also took a trip down the Thymes River to head into Greenwich.

The Maritime Museum and Meridian Line are located there, along with a cute little town. I did two things I had never done before in Greenwich.

Stood in Two Timezones at Once

Ate Fish & Chips

The homesickness started kicking in towards the last of our London days. It was more just a surprise missing of people. And for me, the biggest surprise was missing Peter. We had only been dating for a month before I left, but I missed that boy like no other. We say my trip helped solidify our feelings and speed the remainder of our relationship along (engaged 7 months in, married 6 months later, etc). Absence does make the heart grow fonder.

Even with not even an entire week, I had already experienced a more exciting vacation than I could have imagined. And it only got much, much better. Stay tuned for future Flashback Fridays to read on about my trip. 🙂

• Where is the best place you have ever traveled? Mine = Barcelona!!!
• Where are you dying to go? Australia or Greece!