Tag Archives: adventure

Feeling The Need To Travel Again (or I Really Haven’t Left LA In A While)

Posted on August 24, 2022 | Comments Off

Growing up, I used to travel pretty regularly. We would go to Tahoe in the winter for a week or two and then again in the summer. My parents usually planned a big summer trip for us each year as well. Sometimes we did a driving trip where we went to a bunch of states and national parks. Sometimes it was a trip out of the country on a big adventure. And a few times a year, we would go down to San Diego to see my grandparents. I didn’t travel as much once I was in high school, since missing school was harder. So I didn’t always go to Tahoe the entire time my family was there, but I still had big family trips each summer.

Once I moved to LA, I didn’t do as much travel since I was occupied with college. I did go back to the Bay Area or to Tahoe sometimes. And I did little random road trips to Palm Dessert, San Diego, or Las Vegas. And after I was done with college, I cut back on traveling even more. I have done a few random trips here and there, but outside of traveling to be with family, I didn’t always travel every year.

And I’m aware that I’m coming from a place of privilege and most people don’t have opportunities to travel. Either they can’t miss work or they don’t have the extra money to spend, so if they go on a trip, it’s either something they have saved up for a long time or done locally or inexpensively. And for a lot of my adult life, unless my family was helping me with paying for a trip, that was the same situation for me. But even if I was just getting out of LA to see family, I usually went somewhere every year or every other year.

But since Thanksgiving 2019, the furthest I’ve been from LA has been Santa Barbara. That’s about a 90-minute drive each way, so it’s not super close but also not really that far either. I wasn’t going to travel during the pandemic, although I did think about driving to be with my parents in Tahoe (I wasn’t going to fly). But it made more sense for me to stay in LA since during 2020 there was so much uncertainty with work and I didn’t want to have to rush back home for some reason. And I wasn’t going to travel somewhere else since I was basically trying to avoid other people. I know that things are better now, but I just haven’t had the chance to travel.

But I’m feeling more and more of an urge to plan a trip. I don’t have anywhere to go or anyone to travel with, but I just want to have some sort of an adventure that isn’t in my bubble here. I am still worried about Covid and other things, but as I’ve watched more and more of my friends and family go on really great vacations, I’d like to have one too. And I think I’m in such a routine or rut that I could use something that would break me out of it. I know exactly what I’ll be doing every day and it’s pretty much the same pattern every week. I could use some variety, and having a vacation would totally change things up.

I don’t exactly have the money saved for a big trip, but I am doing better financially than I have before. My expenses are similar to what they were before, but I’m making more money than I was even earlier this year. I don’t have vacation days or paid time off right now, but because of some changes with the main job I have, I know that there will be a policy for that soon. Once I know what the PTO policy is like and how many days I might have already (I don’t know if we will all start at 0 or if they will count them back to when we all started working), then maybe I will start seeing if I can find a friend to travel with. I still don’t think I’d like to travel alone, even though I know a lot of my friends have done that for the first time recently and loved it. But I would rather have someone to go on adventures with so I don’t feel isolated while traveling.

I have no idea when I’ll be able to get out of LA for a trip that I plan. I know that as of right now, I will be headed up to Oregon in November to do an early Thanksgiving with family, so at least that will be something. But I want to plan something that is more about exploring the world and hopefully getting to see a place I have never been to before.

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Posted in Travel

Tagged adventure, Los Angeles, travel, vacation

Helping A Friend With Their LA Bucket List (or Hot Dogs, Tar Pits, and Ocean Views)

Posted on May 11, 2016 | Comments Off

My blogger buddy Lyndsay is leaving LA soon. She and her boyfriend are moving to Las Vegas at the end of the month and while I’m excited for them, I’m sad she’s leaving the area. Although, I’ll admit that while Lyndsay and I only live about a mile apart, we rarely get to see each other in person. So when I found out that she is leaving, I knew we had to hang out.

So this past Sunday we decided to go on an adventure to help her experience some awesome LA stuff before she moves away. She didn’t have a ton of ideas of places that she wanted to go to (we worked on that while we were hanging out on Sunday), but she did have a few restaurants on her list. And one of those restaurants was Pink’s Hot Dogs. I hadn’t been there for a while, so I was excited to go with her!

The line at Pink’s wasn’t too horrible, but it was still about 45 minutes before we got to order. Lyndsay got a bacon chili dog and I got the Lord of the Rings dog. I get the Lord of the Rings dog every time because it’s so awesome! It’s a hot dog with BBQ sauce and onion rings. Definitely not the best thing to eat, but as a super occasional treat it’s not too bad. We also got some chili fries to split between us.

Pink's Hot Dogs

My hot dog was just as delicious as it was the last time I had it (which was several years ago) and the fries were good, but I was pretty full from the hot dog so we didn’t eat a ton of them. And I think that Lyndsay agreed that even though we had to wait in line, the wait was worth it because the hot dog was so awesome!

After we were done with our hot dogs, we were trying to think of where we should go next. Both of us were lacking in money, so we were trying to think of free things around where we were that were fun to go to and Lyndsay hadn’t seen yet. We finally realized that we were right by the La Brea Tar Pits, and since Lyndsay had never been there we went right over.

We didn’t go into the museum there (they were closing as we arrived plus that costs money), but we walked around the tar pits.

Tar Pits

It was looking more watery than like tar, but it was still a landmark for Lyndsay to see and a check off of the LA bucket list that she was creating as we were going on our adventure!

After the tar pits, we were stuck again for what to do next. It seemed like everything we were thinking of cost money. But after a couple of minutes we decided to take a drive up to the Bird Streets.

If you aren’t too familiar with LA, the Bird Streets are the streets in the Hollywood Hills above the Sunset Strip with some of the most amazing city and ocean views. Homes there are pretty expensive (when we searched online out of curiously, the range was $12-25 million) but they are pretty cool to check out. We knew we wouldn’t get to go into any of the houses there, but we figured we’d drive up to the one that was for sale for $25 million and see what the view was like from the street.

The drive up there was pretty fun. We were checking out cool looking houses on the way and saw some really fun new houses that were being built (it seems like people who spend $12 million might consider it a tear down, which is insane). The $25 million house was at the top of the hills at a dead-end street, but as soon as we turned around to face going back down the hill, we were not disappointed by the view.

Bird Streets

Even though it was an overcast day, we still had an ocean view. And when we looked the other direction, we could see downtown LA. Obviously the house is ridiculously expensive, but that view is really a million dollar view. I had never really explored the Bird Streets before, so going on this drive was a new adventure for me as well. And it was totally worth it.

Our final adventure was going out of the Hollywood Hills and into the hills right next to them. My great-grandparents (my mom’s grandparents) had a house over there and a couple of years ago I was able to go inside the house with my mom to see what it looked like. My mom talked to the guy who owned the house then, and he was happy to let us in to see what it looked like at that point. My mom loved it because so much of the house still looked the same as it did when her grandparents owned it. We had taken some pictures and said goodbye to the owner.

This time, it looks like someone else owns the house. We did a bit of research and it is now a rental house that rents for a lot of money. We actually saw people walking in and out of the house, but I didn’t want to bother them (plus it seemed weird to do that), so I just took a picture of the outside so I could text it to my mom.

Great-Grandparent's House

After that stop, it was getting a bit late and I knew I had to get home. So Lyndsay and I headed back to our part of town and we said goodbye. She’s got a bit more time in LA before she leaves and I promised to help her check off a few more things on her list, so hopefully I’ll have another blog post soon with another of our adventures!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged adventure, food, friends, Hollywood, Los Angeles, lunch

Reflection (or I’m Totally Living My Dream)

Posted on March 18, 2016 | 1 comment

The other night, I went out to dinner with my friend Erin. Erin is pretty amazing (she’s created a spoof series/rock opera) and she and I have been hanging out lately. First, we started hanging out because of our mutual love of “X-Files” (and me having a DVR when she doesn’t have cable), but we also are now working on putting together a project together. After we had an official meeting, we went to dinner to kill time during rush hour before she went home.

It’s seriously so inspirational to have friends who are really living their dream and doing exactly what they want to do with life. Sometimes I feel like I’m the farthest away from doing that, but nobody makes me feel less than or puts down the fact that I’m working multiple day jobs.

During our dinner, we did talk about what our ultimate dreams are (for me, it’s a series regular role on a sitcom-style tv show). And I really started to think about where I am in my life and how far I’ve come.

Yes, I’m still working multiple day jobs and I don’t make a living by being an actor. But honestly, I’m living everything that I dreamed of from when I decided to be an actor.

I moved to LA when I was 18 (to attend college) and have never moved away. In a couple of years, I will have lived in LA longer than I lived in the Bay Area. I have a really cool house that I rent and I’m able to afford my rent and bills. I have a working car and it gets me everywhere I need to go. I can go to the beach, see the Hollywood sign, and go to famous landmarks whenever I have the time if I want.

I am pursing acting. I have amazing agents who I love, casting directors who believe in me, and a community of fellow actors who are super supportive. I don’t audition as often as others may, but the auditions I get are usually for higher level parts than I would expect (series regulars versus auditioning for a 1 line part). I have acting coaches who I can work with when I need to prepare for a big audition. I’ve taking acting classes with amazing teachers and have more classes that I want to take. I have headshots that represent me and get me into auditions that are right for me and my type.

I have amazing friends in LA and in other parts of the country. There was a time when I wondered if I was going to be friendless for a long time (and it did feel like a really long time before I really built up my friends circle), but fortunately that changed. My friends are actors and non-actors, but everyone is equally supportive. I have friends who support me at my workouts, friends who support me at my auditions, friends who are helping me creating acting work, and friends who support me when times are tough. I know that if I needed something or someone that I could find a friend who would come to help me anytime day or night (and I would do the same for any of my friends).

I get to go on a bunch of fun adventures. A lot of adventures are local, but all of them are amazing. I can go to Disneyland whenever I have free time, I’ve been to secret clubs in LA, and I get invited to screenings year-round. When I do get to go out-of-town, there’s always something really awesome planned. While I’m hoping to be able to travel internationally again in the near future, there’s enough great stuff in California alone to keep me happy.

While I’m still battling my eating disorder, I’m now viewing it as a battle and not something completely out of my control. I know that one day this will be in my past and those demons will be gone from my life. But thinking of it as a battle has helped me make more progress this past year than I have in my entire life. And the fact that I have a regular workout routine is helping me in my battle and the workouts are making me so happy. I feel like I’m taking control of my health and that is awesome.

When I was hanging out with Erin, we talked about some of these things. Sometimes, I do have to remind myself that this is my life. There are times that I meet celebrities that I was obsessed with as a teenager at an event and get to chat with them for a bit. If the 14-year-old me knew that this was in my future, I’m sure that I would have been much less stressed about school. Honestly, things have happened in my life that I never would have believed would happen to me. It’s awesome that this has been my life so far, and I know that it’s only going to get better.

I already know that this year is going to be better than last year. I have some really amazing things coming up and in the works and I know that they will lead to bigger and better things. And with this year only being about a quarter of the way done, I’ve got plenty of time to make this year even more awesome!

1 Comment

Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, adventure, friends, Los Angeles

Girls Weekend (or Hanging Out With My Mom And Aunt)

Posted on February 24, 2016 | 2 comments

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, I think you know that I’m pretty close to my mom and to my Aunt Cindy. I love getting to hang out with them and we had a really great girls weekend 3 years ago when they came to LA to hang out with me for a few days. And this past weekend we got to have another amazing weekend hangout!

After dealing with a bunch of flight delays for my trip with my mom and sister-in-law last year, I got some credit to use on Southwest for a future trip. I thought maybe I’d use it for a trip to Tahoe or something else, but I realized that the one year mark of getting that credit was coming up and I was going to lose the credit. So my mom and I decided that we would go to Sacramento (I flew she drove) where my Aunt Cindy lives to hang out with her! I haven’t really spent a ton of time in the Sacramento area except when I’m there for Thanksgiving. But then I’m usually hanging out at my aunt and uncle’s house and not really exploring the area too much. So I was super excited for this trip!

I flew out after work on Saturday. This was my first time flying while taking Vyvanse and I was so nervous that I would have a horrible panic attack on the plane. But I’m happy to share that just like at the dentist, I did surprisingly well on the plane! I even got to enjoy the view a bit. It was awesome seeing snow out the window since we’ve been dealing with such a horrible drought the past few years.

Snow From The Sky

Once I landed, my mom picked me up and we went to check into our hotel. All we did there was drop off our bags and then we headed straight to my aunt and uncle’s house. It was so awesome to be there again, it had been several years since we had Thanksgiving there. My uncle was spending time with a friend of his while my mom and I were there, so we all went out to dinner to work on planning out our next day. Dinner was fun (we went out for Chinese food), but I was excited for our full day the next day.

On Sunday, my aunt came over to our hotel and we were off on our adventure. Our first stop was the Folsom Zoo. My aunt is a volunteer there so she led us on an amazing tour!

Folsom Zoo

I know some people don’t love zoos and I’ve had some thoughts about them after seeing the movie “Blackfish”. But the Folsom Zoo is actually an animal sanctuary. The animals there were illegal pets, animals that were hurt and couldn’t go back into the wild, or donated after someone could no longer care for them. They don’t buy or sell animals and they don’t have a breeding program to increase their animal population. So I had no concerns with seeing the animals there.

We saw a ton of different animals at the zoo including monkeys, bears, tigers, wolves, horses, pigs, snakes, birds, and chickens.

Monkeys Bear Chicken

The animal we saw the most were peacocks. They were all over the zoo and since they technically aren’t zoo animals, they run free all over the property.

Peacock

The zoo is pretty small, so we were there for about an hour before heading out to our next adventure: the Folsom Prison Museum.

This might seem like a weird adventure to go on (especially since it’s located right next to the prison), but it was a really good little museum. The man working there was a guard at the prison and he had a lot of interesting stories to share. We got to see a video about how the prison was built and the architectural history behind it. The museum also had some artifacts from the early days of the prison and a section dedicated to Johnny Cash.

We had a minor moment of panic when we were inside the museum and heard a siren go off, but it was a signal that it was noon and not anything scary. As we left we saw people heading into the prison for visiting hours, but it was cool to see it after learning so much about its construction.

Folsom Prison

Our next stop was downtown Folsom. We got a quick lunch at a pizza place and then walked a few blocks to the old Folsom Powerhouse. The Powerhouse is a state historic park and there was a very nice museum that we walked through first that explained the history of the powerhouse and the history of having electrical power in the state.

After the museum we headed down a short path to see the old powerhouse.

Folsom Powerhouse

There was a really knowledgeable guide inside the powerhouse who told us all about how it worked, showed us some historic pictures, and even showed us a beaver that was living under the powerhouse that you could see through a grate in the floor. We were also able to walk down to the lower powerhouse (it’s not always open). While walking around, we were so grateful that we lucked out on the weather and it was a gorgeous day!

Gorgeous Day

Our next stop was supposed to be the Folsom Museum, but they were closing early that day and we only had a few minutes to walk quickly through everything before they closed.

Since we weren’t spending time at the Folsom Museum, we decided to do some walking around and checking out the stores. My mom found something really cool to get my grandma for Mother’s Day and I found something that I’m going to give Rayshell for her wedding (I can’t post it on here yet because I know she reads my blog!). There was also a store that had some really cool decorative things made out of old silverware. I really liked them, but they were a bit pricy. I have no idea if I could do it myself, but I think if I found some awesome cheap silverware I might try it.

Crafty

After all that walking around and exploring, we headed back to the hotel to rest a little bit and then headed out for a quick casual dinner to end our girls weekend. It was a super full day and I had a great time, but I wish that I had a bit more time to spend with my aunt. But overall, it was an awesome Sacramento adventure.

On Monday, my mom and I were originally going to try to go to the Walt Disney Museum (my brother and sister-in-law gave me tickets for Hanukkah), but timing things out with rush hours and my flight home (which was out of San Jose) wasn’t going to work out. So we just drove straight to Saratoga so I could hang out with my dog and my dad.

We didn’t do anything too fancy when I was hanging out in Saratoga. I hadn’t been home in 2 years (since the first time I met Tucker), so there were a bunch of cool new things my parents wanted to show me in the house. We also took Tucker to the dog park (his favorite place!) and for a couple of walks. He’s gotten bigger since I saw him at Thanksgiving and he’s calmed down a bit too!

Tucker

Before I knew it, it was time to go to the airport to fly back home. I had another relatively calm flight and was home in time to get a good night sleep to get ready for the week.

I really had the best weekend with my mom and aunt. We’ve joked that in 3 years we’ll have to figure out another adventure to do together, but I really hope that we are able to do something together as a group sooner than that. We do such fun adventures/trips together and I can’t wait to see what we plan on doing next!

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Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged adventure, California, dog, family, mom, travel, trip, weekend

Staying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?)

Posted on February 23, 2016 | Comments Off

In my effort to do more fun adventures this year, I may have overdone things lately. There are a bunch of things back to back in my schedule and it’s starting to stress me out a bit. But I know my schedule calms down soon so I’m just trying to focus on getting through things.

My schedule craziness has a lot of factors in it. I’m currently doing the Orangetheory Weight Loss Challenge. While the weight loss challenge isn’t too crazy, one of the requirements made my schedule a bit weird lately. You have to do 3 workouts a week, but the weeks are from Friday-Thursday. So when I did a workout on a Thursday instead of a Friday recently, I had to make up an extra workout on a day that I don’t usually go on. While that alone didn’t make my schedule crazy, it did eliminate a free afternoon that I’m used to having and that threw things off a bit.

I’ve also just spent the weekend out-of-town. I went to Sacramento with my mom and my aunt (recap to come tomorrow) and being out-of-town for about 2 1/2 days changed when I would have time to do things about in my life. I had to rearrange when I could do errands that I typically do on the weekends. I had to figure out a new time to clean, do laundry, and do grocery shopping. With most of my afternoons the week leading up to the trip busy with workouts, I had to figure out when I had little breaks in my day (typically before 9am) when I could do things. It’s not horrible to have to schedule like this, but when things are a bit different they can be stressful for me and make me feel a bit too anxious.

I’m also going out-of-town this weekend. This time it will be to San Diego for Rayshell’s bachelorette party. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, but again it’s requiring me to do some crazy scheduling. The party is from Friday evening until Sunday. Fortunately, I got that Saturday off of work so I could drive late on Friday night (after my workout) or early on Saturday morning without having to worry about working until 11am. And while some people will be hanging out there for a good chunk of Sunday morning, I will need to be back in LA by noon on Sunday because it’s Oscar Sunday! I made a really simple costume for the party so I don’t need much time to get ready, but I still need to get back to LA, get ready for the party, and I’d like to do laundry then too. I have the option of driving back late on Saturday night and I’m still debating about doing that. I think I might not know what I want to do until I do it.

Besides those two weekend trips (which I hadn’t planned to be back to back but are), I’ve got some other fun adventures in the next few weeks. I’m going to see my WIF mentees soon, I’ve got another bonus show at the Pantages that I just got tickets for, and some of my friends and I are trying to figure out a time to go whale watching together.

These are all super fun things coming up. And I’d love it if I could get used to schedules like this. I think it could be really good for me to have more social time and less alone time at home. I love my alone time to read or watch TV, but I might do better with less of that. I’m already alone most of the day working at home, so making my afternoons, evenings, and weekends more social helps to balance things out. I think that I might have jumped into making myself busier with both feet instead of easing into it and I’m a bit overwhelmed right now.

Despite my stress, I’m really excited about every event I’ve got in the next few weeks. I do plan out my blog posts and I love that my upcoming schedule is pretty full with fun posts and less boring ones (like this one). I hope that you enjoy reading about all of my upcoming adventures and hopefully these next few weeks for me go by without too much more stress added to it.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged adventure, busy, family, friends, scheduling, stress, travel

A Speedy Friend Visit (or Making The Most Of 24 Hours)

Posted on February 16, 2016 | 1 comment

When my friend Kate stayed with me the last time, she mentioned that she might be coming to town in February to watch the Olympic marathon trials. I set the date aside in my calendar and was really excited when Kate told me that she had booked her flights and that she wanted to stay at my place again. But because of her work and the varying costs of flights, Kate was only able to be here for 24 hours (almost exactly). So I was planning out how to make this the most awesome 24 hour visit ever!

Kate got here on Friday afternoon (which is why I couldn’t work out on Friday). I picked her up at LAX and I was super excited to see her. I miss having her live in LA, so even when her visits are super speedy it makes me so happy to have her in the same city as me. It’s funny that it’s such a big deal because since we graduated high school, we’ve lived in the same city for a very limited time. But since she moved to LA briefly I am even more excited when she comes back!

I had gotten an email from the SAG-AFTRA Film Society earlier that week that there was going to be a screening of “Hail, Caesar!” at the DGA that evening. So I asked Kate if she wanted to go to that and she did. It was actually her first time going to a screening with me (for some reason we could never coordinate schedules with the screening schedules when she lived here). But this time it worked out pretty nicely so as soon as I had picked Kate up we headed over to the DGA.

Since the screening wasn’t until 6:30, we had some time to grab dinner before the movie. We walked across the street to The Counter (I love that place!) for burgers and some catch up time. Kate filled me in on her work and her cats and I filled her in on the craziness of everything and my workouts. We had to eat pretty quickly to make it to the screening, but it worked out fine.

I really enjoyed “Hail, Caesar!”! It was really funny and even though some of the jokes were very much about the entertainment industry, I think that enough of the movie isn’t insider stuff that everyone should be able to enjoy it. I was laughing quite a bit through the movie and I think that the entire cast was amazing!

After the screening, Kate and I walked over to the West Hollywood Orangetheory location. I don’t work out at that location, but I wanted to show it to Kate because there is a Orangetheory near where she lives and she’s thinking about checking it out. Even though the studio was closed, the manager (who I’ve met several times and he knows me) was there and he let us in. I showed Kate the various equipment inside and I chatted with the manager about the crazy workout from Thursday (where there was 22 minutes on the floor straight). We didn’t want to keep him there too long after hours, so Kate and I headed out and headed back to my house.

The next day was the main event that Kate came to town for: the Olympic trials. I’ll share more about this tomorrow but Kate went early in the morning and I was able to join her there after I was done with work. Even though I missed most of it, I got to see a little bit.

After we were done watching the racers, we headed over to my side of town to get some lunch at one of my favorite places, Lyfe Kitchen. Even though they have so many good things on their menu, I tend to get the same things each time. I love their BBQ chicken flatbread but instead of fries (since I had some the night before), I got a side of steam veggies with my food.

Lyfe Kitchen

After lunch we only had a little bit of time left before Kate needed to be back at LAX for her flight home, so we were trying to figure out what to do. We finally decided on doing a bit of random searching in the car for new wine bars. My favorite local wine bar, Bottle Rock, closed down right after the last time I was there so I was on the search for a new place. I knew that any new place I found wouldn’t be walking distance like Bottle Rock was, but I still wanted to see what other places were out there.

I had randomly seen a wine bar driving around a few weeks ago, so we headed over there first. Sadly, the place wasn’t open yet for the day. But we were able to see a menu online and it looked promising. After checking out that place, we did a search on Google Maps for other wine bars in the area and we set off on an adventure! We ended up checking out 2 other wine bars (one that looked good and one that didn’t) and then it was time to go to LAX.

Considering that this was all done in 24 hours, I think we succeeded in maximizing the limited time that Kate had in town. She kept saying that this wasn’t really a friend visit since she was coming here for the Olympic trials, but I lucked out because she was staying at my house. So I wanted to make sure that Kate had a fun time in LA and didn’t just feel like she was flying in, sleeping at my house, watching the Olympic trials, and flying out.

I’m just glad that Kate was just as up for going on as many adventures as we could like I was.

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged adventure, friends, Los Angeles, marathon, SAG-AFTRA, screening, travel

Broadway Sings Disney (or A Fun Adventure With An Awesome Friend)

Posted on January 12, 2016 | Comments Off

When I set my 2016 goals and said that I wanted to have more fun with my friends, I had no clue that I would start of the new year with a really awesome friend hangout. But that’s exactly what happened.

My friend Dani asked me if I wanted to join her for this random show that she found discount tickets for online. She didn’t tell me too much about the show, but I said yes right away! I figured that no matter what it was, it could be super awesome and the best idea ever or super weird and would still be a fun story to share. She sent me more information about it and it was Broadway Sings Disney at Rockwell Table and Stage. Even after learning more about the event, there wasn’t much information about it online. I knew it would be singers singing Disney songs and that there was dinner at the venue, but that’s pretty much all Dani and I knew before getting to the show. But we both went into the show very excited to see who would be performing and what the show would be like.

Once we arrived, we got seated at a table right next to the stage. It was pretty funny because I had looked at the seating chart online ahead of time and said that it would be really awesome if we sat right next to the stage. But I assumed that since we had discounted tickets we’d have bad seats. We were pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn’t the case and loved being right next to the action (even though sometimes we were only seeing the profile or back of a performer).

Broadway Sings Disney

We were given menus and a song list of what would be sung that night and got some food ordered right away. We wanted to make sure that once the show started, we weren’t trying to flag down our waiter or trying to eat and watch the show at the same time.

Since there was a 2 item minimum for the show, Dani and I split 2 appetizers and we each got an entree. We split some truffle fries and veggies with dip and we each got a steak salad for dinner.

Food Dinner

The food was really good, but the venue was pretty dark so it was a bit weird to eat. When I was eating my steak salad, I never knew if I had a piece of steak or lettuce on my fork until I ate it. It made the meal a bit of a mystery. Everything had the same blue tint to it due to the lighting and nothing really looked anything other than blue. While that made it odd to eat, it didn’t affect the taste and I was glad that a venue that has a food or drink minimum didn’t have bad food.

The show was really fun! All the singers were really good and almost everyone sounded like they could have come out of a Disney cartoon or movie. I pretty much knew every song (the benefits of being a big Disney person!) and I enjoyed every performance that each singer did. Some performers kept things very simple and some performers made it seem like a scene out of a musical. But the thing they all shared was being so enthusiastic about getting to perform, and I loved that!

The show wasn’t very long, but that was a good thing because I had to be up early the next morning. There are 2 more Broadway Sings Disney shows, and each show is with different performers. I’m hoping that I can maybe make it out to one more, but if I can’t this time I’m hoping to make it the next time they do the series.

I’m so grateful that Dani invited me to come to this show with her. I doubt I would have discovered it on my own. I had never heard of this venue before this show and I already know that I want to go see some of the other shows they have coming up there. This was a great way to start of my 2016 adventures with my friends and I can’t wait to see what the next adventure will be!

Comments Off on Broadway Sings Disney (or A Fun Adventure With An Awesome Friend)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged adventure, Broadway, dinner, Disney, friends, musical

Ventura Ranch KOA (or Maybe I Am The Camping Type)

Posted on September 15, 2015 | 7 comments

A little while ago, I won tickets to the ENMN Conference through my friend Mindy who blogs at Budget Fairy Tale. I was so excited for a couple of reasons. First, I feel like I never win anything! And second, this was going to be my first ever blogger conference!

Fortunately, this conference was going to be in LA, so I didn’t have to make any travel or hotel arrangements. I knew I’d be driving a bit around town, but I’m used to that. But to have my first blogger conference to be where I live made things much less stressful for me.

The first day of the conference was actually going to be off-site. We were going to take a bus about 90 minutes outside of LA to Ventura Ranch KOA. We were going to have some time to explore there, have some lunch, and have our first session. At first I was pretty nervous about this being the first event. It was going to be very hot out there (and I don’t do well in the heat) and I’m not really an outdoorsy person. But I wasn’t going to miss it so this past Thursday morning, I was at the meeting place at 7am to get on the bus!

I only knew a few people at the conference before it and the bus was pretty big, so I ended up sitting alone for the ride. I listened to what the conference founder, Erica, had to say and spent a lot of the ride checking out the view.

As soon as we got to KOA, I knew that this wasn’t going to be what I had expected.

Our first stop was the pool to learn a little about KOA and the Ventura Ranch KOA.

KOA is all over the US. There are some locations that are mainly for people who want to camp in a tent or in their RV and then there are some locations (like Ventura Ranch) that have much nicer and less rustic accommodation options if you are looking for those. This location in particular has the RV or tent options, but you can also stay in a teepee, a glamour tent, or a cabin (which has bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and my new favorite thing a/c). There are also a ton of activities that everyone in your family can take part in there. There’s the pool (they are working on adding a huge water slide right now!), a climbing wall, crafts, and a zip line. But the first activity that KOA wanted us to see was the jumping pillow.

The jumping pillow was so much fun! It’s like a giant trampoline that is filled with air and you can bounce really really high! Toward the center you are off the ground quite a bit so I had a bit of trouble staying standing. But then I discovered (like my friends in the picture) that the best thing is to sit down while everyone bounces around you!

After that fun (and it was like a workout too!), we toured one of the teepees they have at Ventura Ranch.

It was really nice inside and pretty spacious too! It’s hard to tell in the picture but there was more than enough room for 4 of us to be standing in there. The teepees are all on raised decks so you don’t have to sleep on the ground. While there aren’t bathrooms inside, the bathrooms are pretty close by.

After that quick tour, they asked to see which of us wanted to go zip lining. I have zip lined a few times in the past, but it’s been years (or decades) since I’ve done it. I decided that this was the perfect time to do it again!

There were two sets of zip lines we could do. The first (pictured above) was a less scary zip line because there wasn’t really a drop off at the end of the platform, just a slanted drop. I was one of the last ones to go down this, but it was amazing! I wish I could have done it again.

After the first zip line, there was a second one that went farther and had a real drop off at the end of the platform. It wasn’t really that scary on the zip line, but I turned around during the ride and ended up coming in for the landing backwards so I couldn’t see when I was going to stop! Even with that small amount of scariness, all of us who chose to go on the zip lines had so much fun!

While we were zip lining, others in the group were checking out the Glamour Tent option at KOA. I sadly didn’t get to see the inside of those, but from the picture on their website they look pretty amazing!

After zip lining, I was able to check out some of the cabins that are available at KOA. I think that these look amazing and I’d love to stay in one!

These cabins are seriously incredible! They are even nicer (and probably bigger) than my house! They are decorated really well and they made as many of the walls windows as they could. Why wouldn’t you if this was the view from the kitchen?

After touring the cabins, a couple of us went back down to the pool to cool down a bit (it was pretty hot out) before heading back to where the nice cabins are for some lunch and our first session.

We got to learn a lot about travel blogging and how to approach different PR people to help you with your posts. I don’t really do travel blogging so this was very informative to me. I took a lot of notes and hopefully I’ll have some great travel posts to share on here in the future.

After lunch, it was time to head back on the bus to try to beat the LA traffic back to the host hotel (where the bus got us). The ride back was pretty quiet since a lot of people took naps. We did a lot of activity in a little amount of time, so we were pretty exhausted.

I never thought that I’d have fun at a campground, but obviously I’ve been going to wrong types of campgrounds. I’m already thinking about going to KOA for a fun weekend sometime soon. We are lucky here in LA because our KOA is open year-round (some of the locations where it gets cold and snowy are only open seasonally). Maybe I can organize my friends for a weekend adventure. I know that they would all love the zip line and pool and it would be fun to camp (in a cabin) and have s’mores by the fire.

Thank you so much Ventura Ranch KOA for hosting us for the day! You’ve converted this non-camper into someone who is dreaming of going camping soon!

7 Comments

Posted in Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged adventure, blogging, Los Angeles, outdoors

My Return To Disneyland (or Being Lazy And Enjoying Air Conditioning)

Posted on August 27, 2015 | 3 comments

It’s been a long summer blackout for my annual pass at Disneyland, but I was finally able to return to the parks this week! I had this on my calendar since my last Disneyland day, so I’ve been looking forward to it for a while.

I went again with my friend June (who went with me for the last day before our blackout). June lives 2 blocks from my house, so it’s pretty convenient to go to the parks together. And since I have parking on my pass and she doesn’t, we like to carpool.

Just like our last day in the parks, it was another super hot day. We got there at about noon (I had my workout early in the morning) and we were off and running as soon as we parked. First on the list was to get our favorite treat: Dole Whips!

Last time, we enjoyed our Dole Whips in the shade outside of the Enchanted Tiki Room, but since it was so ridiculously hot out we decided to go inside. I usually don’t go into the Enchanted Tiki Room, but the air conditioning was totally worth it!

Next on our list was something we had both been waiting on for a while. The Peter Pan ride had a pretty big refurbishment and had opened over the summer when we were blacked out. So we wanted to go on and see how the refurbishment looked. I’ve seen several videos on what they worked on so I knew to look for particular things in the ride. Overall, it looks pretty cool. I’m not too happy with the scene where you are flying over London. To me, it looks too bright and not as three dimensional as it looked before.

Next on the list was another ride that we knew would have some air conditioning: Indiana Jones. This is definitely one of my favorite rides and it didn’t disappoint. There was a weird technical glitch where things weren’t syncing up properly with the ride vehicle (the boulder scene was delayed and the Indiana Jones animatronic at the end didn’t come alive until we were driving away), but I actually thought those technical issues were pretty cool. I go on the rides enough that when I get to see things not show perfect, I’m pretty exciting. It doesn’t top when I rode the Finding Nemo submarines and all the computer imagining failed, but this was a pretty fun glitch to watch.

After Indiana Jones, we were feeling pretty overheated and a little hungry so we rode the Monorail into Downtown Disney for a late lunch/early dinner. We went to Tortilla Jo’s because we both were craving ice-cold margaritas (mine was a virgin since I am still on painkillers for my torn calf).

I had a pretty amazing steak burrito for my meal. While there are some good food options inside the parks, I have to remember to go to Downtown Disney too because they have a lot of variety for meals.

After the food, drinks, and air conditioning, we were ready to go back on some more rides. Next on the list (after riding the Monorail back into Tomorrowland) was Space Mountain. We waited for the ride and just as it was our turn the ride broke down. There was no set time for when it would re-open, but we decided to wait it out a bit. Just as we were getting close to the time deadline we had set for our wait, the ride started back up. We got to ride in the front of the car and it felt so much faster than it ever has. I’m not sure if I just forgot how fast it feels or after it’s shut down for a while somehow the ride gets faster. But it was perfect!

The last ride in Disneyland was Star Tours. That was a relatively uneventful ride. Except the guy sitting next to me was grabbing the outsides of the armrests so he was almost holding onto my leg instead of the seat and I wasn’t able to hold on on one side.

We headed over to California Adventure next where we had hoped to get some Fastpasses for World Of Color. Sadly, those had gone pretty quickly that day so there was no way for us to see the show. We were a little disappointed, but decided to just ride a few more rides before heading home. We rode Soarin’ (one of my favorite and the music from it is the ringtone on my phone). That ride will been changing the movie in the future so we want to get as many rides on it as we can.

Then it was time for another cool down break inside of Starbucks where I got a strawberry smoothie. After that, we were feeling pretty lazy and didn’t want to walk over to our next ride, Tower of Terror. Honestly, it isn’t that far away but we just didn’t want to walk it. And California Adventure has a little trolley that goes through a couple of parts of the park. So we waited longer than it would have taken us to walk to ride the trolley to what was going to be our final ride of the night.

After Tower Of Terror, the trolley happened to be right in front so we hopped back on and rode it to the exit gate of the park. But before we left, I wanted to make one more quick stop.

I never get the buttons at Disneyland, but I wanted to get an “I’m Celebrating” button to celebrate my SAG-AFTRA convention delegate win!

And after that, both June and I were ready to go home. The drive home was pretty quick and we’ve already made plans to go in a month to see the Halloween decorations.

Overall, I think it was a pretty great day at Disneyland. We were much lazier than usual, but that’s one of the perks of being an annual pass holder. We felt no need to rush around all the rides and we took advantage of whatever air conditioning we could find. Hopefully when we return next month, it will be a bit cooler.

I can’t wait to see what the Halloween decorations will look like! I know that that Disneyland day will be another great memory!

3 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged adventure, air conditioning, Disneyland, lazy, rides, theme park

Workout On The Beach (or Meeting The TIU Trainers)

Posted on June 23, 2015 | 2 comments

A little while ago, I saw an event on Facebook for the Summer Shape Up that Shape Magazine was doing in Hermosa Beach. The event seemed pretty cool on its own. But when I saw that Katrina and Karena, the trainers who created Tone It Up, were teaching 2 different workout classes, I knew I had to go!

I really wanted to go to a bunch of classes (included both of the Tone It Up ones), but due to my work schedule, I was only able to make it for the final class of the event which was the second Tone It Up workout.

I drove down to Hermosa Beach right after my work shift ended. It was a gorgeous Saturday at the beach, so of course parking was very difficult to find. I searched for about 90 minutes before I managed to find a space. But the space I found was in the shade and less than a block from the event space.

I got checked it really quickly and got my wristband for my class. Then I went in search for some of my TIU friends. I found them about 10 minutes later in line for the meet and greet with Katrina and Karena. My meet and greet time was after my class, so I stood off to the side while my friends did the meet and greets and took some photos for them.

Since everyone else had just finished a workout in the hot sun, they all wanted to get something refreshing to eat before the next class. So a bunch of us walked a few blocks away to a juice bar where we got some really delicious smoothies. And by the time we all finished our drinks, it was time to head back over to the workout area to line up for our class.

We ended up being toward the back of the line, but we were able to find spaces to put our things down almost dead center of the workout space.

I liked being at the back because I didn’t feel too claustrophobic. But as one of my TIU friends mentioned, being at the back meant while we did squat work that everyone on the pathway behind us were looking at our butts.

I really tried my best with the workout. A lot of things were things that I couldn’t do because of my hips, but I made my own modifications. Also, the sun was very strong and I was sweating like crazy and feeling a little sick from the heat. But even with those issues, I feel like a got a very nice workout in.

And Katrina and Karena were so fun teaching the class! They had great energy and were very encouraging of all of us. It’s one thing doing workout videos that they have posted online, but to do one in person is a whole other thing!

After the workout was done, those of us who didn’t do the earlier meet and greet (or who did the earlier one and wanted to do the second one) lined up. Again, we were toward the back of the line, but it worked to our advantage.

When it was my turn, I got to tell Katrina and Karena about my blog and how I blog about my fitness journey. They seemed to love the name of my blog and said that they wanted to check it out. There were professional photos taken as well, but since I haven’t gotten them yet I just have the photo that my TIU friend took for me.

After my turn was over, I was chatting with some people right next to the meet and greet area. One of the people in the group is the boyfriend of one of the trainers and he was very nice. We chatted about Disneyland a bit. Since I was toward the end of the line, Katrina and Karena finished the meet and greets while I was still standing there. And they came over to me to confirm the name of my blog so they could check it out. I gave them one of my cards so they could have that as a reminder (Hi Katrina and Karena if you are reading this!).

After that, it was time for me to head home. I had a bunch of stuff I needed to get done. So as much as I wanted to turn the afternoon into a beach day (I do keep an emergency beach kit in my car), I had to make the drive home.

As soon as I got home, I checked out the swag bag that Shape gave us.

It is pretty awesome! I’m really looking forward to checking out the workout DVDs and trying Shakeology again (last time I tried, it made me very sick).

The only negative to the entire adventure was that despite putting sunscreen on and reapplying a few times while I was outside, I still ended up looking like this.

Definitely not as bad as my last bad burn, but I hate knowing that I did damage to my skin. I’m not sure why I’m burning easier than I have in the past, but I’m going to see my dermatologist at the end of summer for a mole check (there are a couple that have been watched for a couple of years) and see if there is something I can do to help prevent this (other than staying out of the sun completely or being totally covered up).

I’m so glad that I had a chance to do the workout with Katrina and Karena. Not only was it a fun workout, I got to have a fun adventure and see my TIU friends. It looks like this event is an annual one, and I hope that Tone It Up is a part of it again next year!

2 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged adventure, beach, fitness, Tone It Up, workout

Tag Archives: adventure

Feeling The Need To Travel Again (or I Really Haven’t Left LA In A While)

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Broadway Sings Disney (or A Fun Adventure With An Awesome Friend)

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Ventura Ranch KOA (or Maybe I Am The Camping Type)

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My Return To Disneyland (or Being Lazy And Enjoying Air Conditioning)

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