Amelia Earhart, Exotic Fruit, and a Chocolate Cake

This morning started out great!  I got up when I planned to and had some coffee and then I got my running clothes on.  I ran 4+ miles as I promised myself yesterday.

 

After the run, I showered and then prepared our Exotic Fruit plate for breakfast.

I think we all agreed the Mandarin oranges were really yummy (very sweet!) and the golden raspberries were good.  My personal favorite was the Strawberry Papaya.  In fact, just thinking about it now is making my mouth water!  

What I was REALLY looking forward to was this:

 

At about 2.5 miles this morning, I used this as incentive to get through the rest of the run.  I just kept thinking that I had a bowl of oatmeal waiting at home for me along with a hot cup of coffee!

I figured I needed to hydrate after the run, plus I needed to down some chia seeds this morning so I added them to a cup of Vita Coco.  I know it looks weird, but it was really good!  

Do you remember the "Bubble Tea" or "Boba Tea" that was popular a few years ago?  It had tapioca pearls in the bottom of a sweet tea or fruit beverage.  That's kind of what this reminded me of, with the chia seeds being a teeny tiny version of the tapioca pearls.

A trip to the grocery store was next up on the agenda and when we got home from the store, I was still right on schedule.  I had a To Do list for the day and had even planned the times when I needed to do things so I could be sure to get everything done, see...

 

It was about 2:00 and Matt's birthday cake was in the oven when my 8 year old broke the news to me that he had a research project due TOMORROW!  Luckily they did all of the research in class, but they were supposed to put the creative presentation together at home. 

As soon as the cake came out of the oven we headed to Office Max to get the supplies for his presentation.  His project was on Amelia Earhart.  It was actually kind of a fun presentation to do and we found the perfect poster board that was sky blue with clouds already printed on it!  We...um, I mean he...made kind of a 3 dimensional red airplane coming out of the page with propellers that spin!

  

The whole time this was going on, I was simultaneously trying to ice a cake and get dinner going.  I was stressed out to say the least!  

On the birthday dinner menu for tonight were Grilled Lamb Chops (for Matt only, the kids and I had steak), Grilled Lobster Tails, Roasted Asparagus, and Brown Rice. 

The cake was a Dark Chocolate Mocha Cake that was fabulous!  

 

The cake contained coffee liqueur and there was mocha cream in between the layers.  I served it with coffee ice cream...sinful!

...and painting the game room carries forward to the next to do list...