Fred and Ted's Excellent Adventure

One day while I was lifting weights, one of my favorite childhood books popped into my head. It is called Big Dog...Little Dog and features Fred who is tall and Ted who is short. I haven't yet confirmed this with my mom, but I'm pretty sure she bought it to help me deal with being heads shorter than all of my peers... Anyways, I loved this book. Fred and Ted go skiing, Ted makes Fred eat his veggies, and they form the perfect pair.

I'm telling you all of this because for my friend Lauren's birthday, I got her this book because it is our life story. She is tall and I am short. I introduce her to new vegetables like kale. And in general, we go together like peas in a pod, and have no issues spending 7+ hours together at a time.

So today, Fred and I Lauren and I embarked upon our journey to celebrate our birthdays (just a few weeks late). On our agenda: Pei Wei, which we've been counting down the days to (we grew up around the corner from one), and shopping at the outlets. Hooray for adventures into rural Virginia!

Lauren picked me up from the metro and we drove straight to lunch. Needless to say, I was quite hungry a good 4.5 hours after my light breakfast this morning. We discovered that there is a CalTort next to Pei Wei which pretty much made this the best place on earth in our book. We're easy like that.

We were starving and excited so we split the GF Vietnamese Chicken Rolls. They subbed sweet and sour sauce for the peanut sauce since it is GF and this was amazing!  We each had 1.5 and I secretly wished I had a second stomach for more.

My entree was the Sweet and Sour tofu and veggies with brown rice. I demolished this plate and only left ~1/2c of my tofu and veggies and most of the rice. I still did a fair amount of damage on it though :-)

This might have been my favorite meal of the summer. The jury's still out but I have that much love for this restaurant and miss having easy access to it in DC, especially because of their gluten-free menu.

The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping. I managed to do some damage (but all were great bargains). My haul included: 2 dresses, 2 shirts, and a headband. Plus a spiralizer! Not too shabby for a day's work.

On the drive home we stopped at a Wegman's grocery store which has a great reputation in this part of the country. It's like Tom Thumb (Safeway) meets Central Market meets H-E-B. I was in LOVE. I only wish it was closer to me! They had 2 whole aisles dedicated to gluten free products plus a row of allergy-friendly frozen products (many of which Whole Foods doesn't carry) AND a huge organic store within the store. Heaven... and we all know my grocery store obsession.  Despite being full, I found room for a little treat of gummies, nuts, and dark chocolate. It was a sacrifice but someone had to do it O:-)

It was just before 7pm when I got home and I was still stuffed from lunch and my happy hour dessert. I tackled some of my to-do list and finally got hungry around 8:30pm.  I had a chopped pear, toaster waffle with Earth Balance and almond butter, and the last ~1/8c of cottage cheese.

Today was a great adventure. There's nothing like great food, shopping, and quality time with one of my long-time friends to wrap up a great weekend.

On our drive home, Lauren and I discussed some of our "vices." The list includes: shopping, food, manis and pedis, exercise / fitness equiptment, Whole Foods, and things to help one stay organized. What are some of your vices? What was the highlight of your weekend?