Luscious figs and creamy almond butter make this healthy smoothie extra dreamy. Enjoy this fig smoothie as a breakfast parfait with cereal and fresh fruit!

Random midnight musings. Being very #extra with our food. Hitting up the local library to borrow cheesy romance books fit for teenagers and movies fit for children. Watching Bachelor in Paradise every night while lapping up chocolate-y ice cream doused with peanut butter (and maybe accidentally getting said peanut butter on the sheets). A lot of shenanigans goes down when The Rachels go travelling.

We’ve waited all summer for our trip to Whistler. My family retreats up north every summer to unwind and relax, which sounds especially delightful after 5 days of mountain climbing in Banff. We ended up alternating days of intense hiking and doing absolutely nothing. The doing absolutely nothing days are just as fun as the outdoorsy days because we get to walk around the village, eat ice cream, browse the shelves of the library, watch movies, and overall be bums. It’s fantastic.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so #extra with my food than during these 13 days away from home. On Day 1 Chew and I raided the grocery story and bought a bunch of junk(ish) food: Oreos, Goldfish crackers, chocolate, and organic peanut butter (we tried to throw something healthy in there). I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to eat snacks; it was probably the combination of being very hungry after a whole day of sitting in the car and the excitement of being on vacation. When I sent my mom a photo of what we were having for dinner (i.e. the snacks) she was genuinely surprised at our choices and said “those are not usually things you eat”. Anyways, that jar of peanut butter literally only lasted us 6 days in Banff because we dumped it on EVERYTHING. Rice crackers? Yup. Curry pita bread? Why not. Bagel from the continental breakfast at the hotel? Dump some pb on it and add the figs (wow so fancy), berries, and cherries I brought along and voila, an Instagram-worthy breakfast! I’ve pretty much mastered the art of continental breakfast. The key is to bring your own natural nut butter and fruit and you can make any waffle/toast/bagel/cereal/oatmeal next-level. We once put sprinkles into our waffle batter and spread cream cheese and jam on top to make funfetti cheesecake waffles. You can thank me for the idea later.

Our Whistler routine this year was ending every night with a double scoop of Cow’s ice cream, bring it back to our vacation home to coat it with peanut butter and eating it while watching Bachelor in Paradise (OMG who else ships Danielle M and Wells?!). We literally went through a second jar of peanut butter over the course of our Whistler trip and ate ice cream 6 out of 7 days of the week. We’re straight up ice cream and nut butter addicts. I sure hope no one other than me sees my bank statements because it would say “Cows, $5.75” 6 days in a row. But I’m not even ashamed so should I really care? At least I know as a fact that chocolate cheesecake and peanut butter cup cup are two the best flavours there. It was for science!

Chew and I got to be roommates (and bed mates on some nights) during the trip and I’m happy to report we can live together just fine. Although sometimes she has the oddest midnight musings. One night at around 12 or 1 am, I’m lying in my bed at our Whistler vacation rental ready to drift away into sleep when Chew, who’s on the bed next to mine, suddenly asks me “Do you think oysters have feelings?” and “Can turtles talk to other turtles?” My body was weary from a long day of hiking and my eyes tired from binge watching Bachelor in Paradise so I told her to ask Siri. Siri couldn’t find an answer for us and apparently the response was so funny to us (clearly we’re delusional past midnight) that we went into a full blown laughing fit until our abdomens felt sore and we remembered the not-really-enforced quiet hour in the village. It’s definitely not enforced because I was woken up at 3:30am one night by the noise some very very very drunk girl was making as she walked down the village strip. I describe it as noise because what she was saying was definitely not comprehensible.

The day after our intense hike up to Wedgemount Lake (a 7km heart burn hill), Chew and I visited the library to pick out some books and movies to keep us entertained while my sore muscles recovered (Chew doesn’t get sore. Not even after running the entire hike. It’s incredibly unfair.) We found ourselves in the ‘Teen Lounge’ section of the library, lol. Not a teen but still loving those sappy, cheesy, high school romance novels because they require zero brain power. Perfect easy summer read. I picked out To all the boys I’ve loved before by Jenny Han and although the story took a while to build up, I became hooked and couldn’t wait to find out what happens in the sequel. Unfortunately the novel Chew picked up ended up being “a waste of an afternoon” (quoting a Good Reads review). I also went into the childrens’ section to find Mulan because Chew had never watched it and I needed to introduce her to this greatness. We watched it after breakfast one morning, feeling like kids watching Saturday morning cartoons. Except we were not kids and it was not Saturday. Re-watching Disney movies as adults is actually much funnier because you pick up all the subtle jokes and sly remarks; it’s great!

Whistler was my last vacation of the summer, as it is most summers. My brain cannot understand that it is September, nor is it willing to accept that fact. I want summer to last forever so I can prance around town eating more ice cream, biking farther distances, hiking more mountains, swimming in more lakes, picking all the berries, and having an over-abundance of fruit in the fridge at all times. Even though summer brings all those wonderful things, there is something about fall that I’m looking forward to as well. And no, it is definitely not school. The cozy knit sweaters, the warm spices, DIY-ing an awesome Halloween costume, pumpkin patches, and corn mazes! Just like how my mind is on the fence about summer and fall, so is this fig smoothie. Figs are very summer to me, because there’s a fig tree in the backyard that produces the biggest, juicest figs each summer. But cinnamon is the one spice I cannot live without. Like can-NOT. This thick and creamy smoothie brings together the best of summer and fall and almond butter brings it to perfection. If you wanna be #extra like me, turn the simple fig smoothie into a parfait with your favourite cereal or granola, and additional fresh fruit! It’s a nutritious and delicious breakfast that will take your mind off the worries of back-to-school, at least temporarily.