Today is the day! Today is the day I finally get to meet the amazing Melissa and Dallas at the Whole9 workshop at Geaux Crossfit in Baton Rouge! Woohoo! Can you tell I’m pumped?!

Haha, let’s step back a moment and start with breakfast. I made a couple pounds worth of homemade breakfast sausage from  Make it Paleo the night before. Not only are the delicious but they are super easy to make as well. I ran out the door with a few pieces of sausage and a banana at 6 am. When the fam woke up Brandon scrambled up some eggs to go with the sausage and I heard later that everyone was super excited about it. Success!

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And now LUNCH. Lunch was AWESOME!!!

A big group of us girls took the hour trip to Baton Rouge to attend the Whole9 workshop in Baton Rouge. It. Was. GREAT!!!

I highly recommend to ANYONE to attend this conference. My brain still hurts from the wealth of information that was smushed into to. I really think I am now using 20% of my brain power compared to the 10% they say we use. Really. I loved how Dallas and Melissa broke down how our bodies work, how it processes food, what sugar does inside our bodies, where we can get the vitamins we need, how our stomachs speak to our brains, what we need to make our bodies work to their fullest ability, and what foods are the BEST for us. Like I said, a WEALTH of information. I took notes like a crazy mamacita to the point that I had to borrow paper from Ayumi when I finally ran out of space. I plan on re-reading my notes over and over and implementing a bunch of new things to get my family and I even healthier. It was an exciting day, to say the least.

I can’t say the best part was lunch, but it was definitely a really great part! My girls and I had planned ahead of time to bring a small potluck lunch to share at the workshop so that we didn’t have to try and find a restaurant that could meet all our Whole30 needs. Our “little” potluck turned into a Whole30 BUFFET FEAST. It was incredible.

So let’s go through it: (And yes, that would be Melissa checking out our fab food!)

1. Ashley (our seal trainer) brought sliced peppers to dip in Whole Food’s fantastic guacamole and salsa and diced kabocha. We ALL love our kabocha!

2. Susan brought homemade sausage balls from Paleo Comfort Foods that we all agreed got !st prize. They were so beyond good I was blown away. Go make them and thank Susan.

3. I brought my favorite comfort food: chicken fajitas (minus the fajitas) that I will be posting a recipe for asap.

4. Ellen brought mashed cauliflower that was really yummy. This was my first time having mashed cauliflower so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but dang were they good. She made them with ghee, salt and pepper and we all loved them.

4. Ayumi brought a pork and cabbage stir-fry that I wish I would have had more room in my belly to have eaten more. It really was the very very tasty. Jump on over to Ayumi’s fantastic blog to get her recipe. It is so worth it!

5. Oops, I forgot. Ashley also brought tuna waldorf salad from Well Fed, for her friend Pearlas who came in from out of town. Like everything else, it was incredible.

Needless to say, our plates were overflowing with food! So much so that we for Melissa and Dallas, and whoever else was around, to join in on the festivities. We really had enough to feed a small army. We’re from New Orleans after all, we know how to EAT!

It was a great experience over all. We met great people, ate great food, filled our minds with great information, and had a GREAT time. Don’t we all look so happy! (Check out Ayumi on the far right.)

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You would think we would have been all so very tired after 9 hours at a workshop but no, we weren’t. We were ready to partay!!! We all carpooled back to NOLA, Ayumi and I ran home, put on our dancing shoes, grabbed our hubbies and ran right back out the door. It was time to DANCE!

Of course, we had to eat dinner first. 

We ate at one of my favorite digs, Ye Olde College Inn. I love this place not only for the young, hip atmosphere but more importantly for their fresh, healthy food. Who’d have guessed it? They have their own garden next door where they grow a bunch of herbs, fruit and veggies along with farm fresh eggs. AND, their burgers are 100% grass fed beef. Does it get any better than that?! As you can tell, I HIGHLY recommend this place.

Brandon and I both ordered the 1 pound burger (yes, it was huge) topped with lettuce, tomato, grilled onions and mustard. Gotta have the mustard! We also both ordered a side of steamed asparagus. Brandon somehow managed to finish his entire burger while his dainty wife could only handle half.

My dainty friend Ayumi managed to eat almost all of her hamburger (shocking, I know) while celebrating her Tim’s birthday. Yes, I did say HER Tim. Aren’t they cute?! We had a great dinner, along with Todd and Amanda and swiftly walked across the parking lot to Rock-n-Bowl to bowl and DANCE!!!

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And DANCE we did. First we bowled an awful game… all of us….twice. We really were pretty bad. Not even joking, I think a good 80% of the groups balls went in the gutter. Like I said, we were bad… but super funny. We couldn’t stop laughing the whole time we were bowling, which probably didn’t help. So then… we danced.

It was a seriously fun night. My favorite band, the Topcats were playing so we took advantage of the great music and danced our hearts out, well we danced until were exhausted at least. It was fun and HILARIOUS! We’re not really that great of dancers but who can tell in a dark place full of people?! We danced like we were the snizzle…and for a short time in our funny little minds, WE WERE! Wouldn’t you have liked to see that?! Haha…not really, I’m guessing.

That about sums up our fun Saturday that went from the wee hours of the morning into the wee hours of the next morning. But hey, who’s counting? All that matters is that it was fun, educational, relaxful, full of good food, and we fit dancing in.

Can’t wait to do it again.