Blackberry Vanilla Smoothie

Happy Veteran's Day to all of the men and women who have served and continue to serve our country!  Your service and sacrifices are appreciated far more than you know!

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I'd especially like to recognize my own veteran!

Joe served as a Navy Corpsman (medic for the Marines) and did two tours in Iraq.  He celebrated today by getting a free lunch at Applebee's, and tonight we went to dinner at Olive Garden, where they were also giving veterans a free meal.  Lots of appreciation from the chain restaurants!

He was so ready to eat he wouldn't smile for a picture!

I loved celebrating with him, as well as seeing all of the other veterans dining out and feeling appreciated for their service to our country!  God bless the USA!

In honor of Veteran's Day, I had the day off of school.  That means that I was able to make a smoothie for my mid-morning meal, one of the options listed in the Insanity meal plan.  I made a really simple smoothie, but it was very, very tasty and I wanted to share!

Ingredients:

• 1 banana, frozen
• 1 handful of frozen whole blackberries
• 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder
• Milk of your choice (I used skim milk)

Combine the banana, blackberries, and protein powder in the blender.

Pour milk until it reaches the top of the ingredients (turns out to be about 2/3 cups).  Blend until smooth.  Stick a straw in and enjoy :)

I tell ya, this vanilla protein powder I had is fantastic.  It really adds a fantastic vanilla flavor that is silky-smooth without the "protein-y" taste.  It was a Wal-mart find!  Great stuff!

Question for you: What's something you do on a three-day weekend that you can't do on a normal week?
Not only do I get to enjoy smoothies, but I also get to fully relax for two days while getting a lot of chores done on the third day!