A day (or three) in the life...

So, I had quite the weekend last weekend! An eating disorder treatment facility offered to fly me out to see their outpatient facility in Santa Monica, California. When they asked if I would want to come visit it was a no brainer. Um, yasss!!! So Thursday morning I headed to the airport to start my adventure. During my first flight I started to get hungry so I ate 1/2 a quest bar I had bought for the trip. Are you guys a fan of quest bars? I must say, I am NOT. There is just a leettle too much fiber. I felt like I was chewing a sugar daddy. Which normally I would be all about, but not for my granola bar....

Once I landed I had to rush to a different terminal and grab lunch before loading on the plane. There was an eistein bagel close to my gate and no line, so a bagel sandwich it was. And you guys! I loved it! They have an option where you can get any flavor bagel as a "bagel thin," so they just cut out the center part. It was the perfect bagel to filling ratio...this one had egg white, mushrooms, asparagus, melted cheese, and some sort of delicious spread. 

Later on I got hungry and had a Mojo bar and brookie, but I didn't take a picture of it...my bad. I landed and Rosewood (the facility that flew me out) was wonderful enough to set up a shuttle for me. After a little bit of confusion, my driver and I found each other and I headed out to the hotel.

Have you guys ever stayed at a double tree hotel? Did you know they give you FREE cookies when you check in? Guys, I don't generally like cookies, But these. Wow. Thick, chewy, chocolatey, nutty. Perfect. I got to explore the hotel a bit, change, go for a short walk around the hotel, and then I met up with all the other professionals and Rosewood staff for some meet and greet at the hotel restaurant. 

I'm not used to fancy schmancy dinner or hotels, so I felt like total royalty as we were served delicious appetizers and drinks. After a while of connecting, we went into a private room to learn more about Rosewood and to eat dinner. I ordered a salad with quinoa, roasted veggies, avocado, and goat cheese. I added the salmon for some added protein. 

They were also thoughtful enough to get us all Sprinkles cupcakes. I had never had Sprinkles, and I'm generally not a cupcake person, but I gave mine a try the next night and it was totally on point. It was pumpkin and had cream cheese frosting. Enough said.

After dinner, I headed to my room to get ready for bed and watch tv. It was 2 hours behind my regular time, so it was a struggle to stay awake until a decent time. The next morning I got up and went for a short little walk because the weather was GLORIOUS!! I saw these succulents at a store I walked by. Aren't they perfect???

Breakfast was a continental breakfast at the hotel. The biscuit was better than it looked. The eggs were worse. I ended up mainly just eating the fruit and yogurt. 

We then visited Rosewood's main office to see their facilities and then got to see one of the houses they own for clients to live in if they are from out of town or need a little more accountability. This was the street that the house was located. Those trees....

When we got back to Rosewood, they catered in lunch. And it was my favorite--Mediterranean!! That falafel was absolutely perfect. The grilled veggies weren't my favorite so I actually ended up leaving those. It was kind of weird not eating the veggies, but why eat something you don't like??

At some point in the afternoon, all of the other professionals wanted to get coffee, so we went to this coffee shop nearby. Oh my word. I want a place like this SO bad where I live. Not only did they have a great coffee selection, their food looked SO fresh and delicious. Come on, Tulsa, get with the times...

After a few afternoon sessions, the tour ended and we headed back to the hotel. I had from around 4:30 until bedtime to do whatever I wanted. Our hotel was about 1.7 miles from the beach, so I put on some workout clothes and ran over to the beach. SUCH a good idea. The walk back didn't seem quite as good ;-) 

Once I got to the beach, I walked out to the pier, walked along the beach, ran a little further up to where there were vendors and street performers, and then headed back to my hotel. I stopped to pick up dinner at the Cow's end because I saw they served breakfast tacos all day. If you follow me on IG, you know how I feel about breakfast tacos...I got the tacos to go and then walked back to my hotel to eat it on the back porch. It was glorious. 

The rest of the night I tried the cupcake, read in bed, watched a little tv, and packed up because the shuttle was picking me up at 5:30. In the morning. Yeah, I know...Breakfast was a leftover taco, an iced latte (with WHOLE milk from duncan donuts, and some grapes. Funny story, as I was in line for the coffee the man behind me had a bag of grapes from the grocery store. He asked me if I wanted some and when I said no, he insisted that he couldn't eat them all and that he had just bought them and washed them. He was the sweetest man! So I had grapes with my breakfast...and I know that story sounds a little sketch, but it totally wasn't. 

On my over 3 hour flight I got hungry, so I had a banana I had snagged from the hotel. Once we landed, I got a falafel wrap with a side salad. The wrap was good because it had a liberal amount of feta and tzaziki sauce :-). To finish it off, I had another brookie I had brought.

I got to talk to a friend that moved out of state and then boarded the plane to fly home. I met a super sweet older lady who used to be an English teacher so we talked about reading for quite a while. We landed and my friend picked me up to go home. It was rough coming back to real life, but I'm super grateful for the experience to go to California and to connect with other eating disorder professionals and to see how a facility is helping people find healing from their eating disorder. I had a ton of fun along the way and got to meet some really interesting people along the way!