Tag Archives: vacation

LA Staycation (or Hanging Out With Family and Friends)

Posted on April 25, 2017 | 2 comments

Normally, I try to keep myself pretty busy. Between work, workouts, acting, and having a social life my calendar can get full. And when I have downtime, sometimes I stress out that I should be doing more and I don’t feel like I’m really enjoying some free time. I don’t get to take vacations that often because I don’t have the money to do it and I don’t have paid time off. So I’m pretty much in a routine in my life in LA.

I’ve been joking for a while that my vacation this year was going to be the time in the hospital after surgery. I knew that while I was in the hospital I would have no responsibilities and wouldn’t have to worry about what I should be doing. And then when surgery got cancelled, I started to look at my schedule again to try to get things back to normal. I’m not taking that much time off of work because I want to save the banked hours for future things. But I did take a few days off since my parents are here in LA for the week (they couldn’t cancel their trip when my surgery was cancelled so they decided to have a low-key trip here).

Most of the time that my parents have been here, we’ve been doing a lot of lazy stuff. And honestly, all that lazy stuff has been perfect with me. I’m not working most of the days they are here (I did work on Saturday since my shift was done at 11am) so we have the entire day free. And we did try to make some plans with family and friends so my parents could take advantage of their time in LA. They usually aren’t here for more than a day or two so this was a rare trip for them as well.

On Thursday (what would have been surgery day), we drove out to the valley to see my dad’s friend. He and my dad have been friends since they were kids and my dad tries to see him when he’s in LA but he doesn’t always have time. My dad’s friend is very into gardening and succulent plants and has been getting ready to various garden clubs to come over to his house for a plant tour. So we got to see the rehearsal for the tour and check out all the amazing plants that he has in his yard. His garden is almost nicer than some of the huge ones around LA so it’s pretty incredible.

My dad’s friend also has a dog that Tucker loves. I don’t think their dog, Sunshine, loves Tucker as much as Tucker loves her. But that seems to be the case with a lot of dogs. Tucker just wants everyone to love him at all times and doesn’t understand why other dogs or people aren’t the same. But the dogs get along enough so we took them out for a walk and to a park so they could run around a bit. And when they both got tired, they were relaxing near each other nicely and seemed to be getting along more than they were at the beginning of the visit.

On Friday, we had lunch with some of my mom’s cousins. I hadn’t seen these cousins since I went to Passover a few years ago so it was great to get to see them again. We went to a restaurant near the rental house my parents were staying in, and while the food was ok the service was pretty awful. Servers were bringing food over to our table before we even ordered and nobody could remember what drinks went to which table. I think we were offered drinks every few minutes and they were never ours (it also took them like 15 minutes to get my mom an iced tea). I’m glad that we had a nice visit with family and that the bad service at lunch didn’t bring us down.

Most of the rest of the time on Friday was spent with taking the dog to a few different dog parks. He loves going to dog parks and there are some really nice ones in LA. We have been really liking the ones in Playa Vista because they aren’t just dirt like the one near my house. There’s one dog park that is bark and the other is fake grass. Both were really nice and had some fun dogs for Tucker to play with. I don’t get to hang out with Tucker that often, so just watching him at a dog park is a nice treat for me.

I’ll write more about what we did on the second half of their time here in another post, but I’m glad the time that I was expecting to be in the hospital were spent doing much more fun things. We didn’t have anything planned at first but we were lucky that we were able to get some plans organized pretty quickly so we could do some nice things while my parents are here. I know that they probably won’t do a long LA trip again soon unless there is a specific reason (like if I do have surgery eventually), so I’m taking advantage of having them here for a while without anything that we have to do.

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Default ThumbnailWelcome Tucker! (or Filling The Dog Shaped Hole In My Family) Default ThumbnailCelebrating Not Having Surgery (or Getting To Have Some Family Time) Default ThumbnailQuick Family Visit (or My Extra Long Lunch From Work) Default ThumbnailFamily Weekend (or Hanging Out With The Dog) Default ThumbnailFriends and Family Workouts (or Getting Pushed To Do Better) Default ThumbnailSan Diego Day (or Hanging Out With Family On My Day Off)

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Trip Planning (or Keeping Panic To A Minimum)

Posted on July 26, 2016 | Comments Off on Trip Planning (or Keeping Panic To A Minimum)

This past weekend, I went to Maryland for a family reunion. I just got back last night so I’ll recap the trip tomorrow, but I wanted to share with you how my trip planning went.

I’m a pretty good traveler, but I get so nervous and panicky about things. I always want to make sure I remember everything and I know I overpack because I’m scared I’ll forget something that isn’t easy to find (like clothing). For years, I’ve taken panic meds before traveling (for a day or so before flying and then right before my flight to be ok with flying). But since I’ve been doing better with my panic attacks and my Vyvanse makes the panic meds not as effective, I’ve been trying to get through traveling without the meds. I’ve been doing ok with doing that at the dentist (which is a miracle), so it should be the same for traveling.

I tried to do all of the other things I do to prepare for traveling to keep myself calm. I made all of my usual checklists, I did all of my usual prep work (checking all my travel toiletries and supplies), and tried to plan for some fun things to do on the flights there and back. I flew there with my brother and sister-in-law, but I flew home by myself so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of new library books on my Kindle to read and other things to keep my mind off of flying.

I was doing pretty great with my prep stuff, until I started planning out my clothes. While I am used to occasionally having hot days in LA, we don’t have humidity like they do in Maryland. I wanted to make sure I had clothes that would do their best to keep me cool in 90 degree heat and 90% humidity. Most of what I packed were workout clothes since those wick away sweat (I know that’s gross, but it’s true). And my outfit for the reunion was a tank top and a skirt so I figured it should keep me a bit cooler than other things. But just knowing that I might be sweaty for the entire weekend stressed me out.

I don’t know why that got to me so much, but I really was stressing a lot about the clothes and what would and wouldn’t show sweat if I was gross. I know that everyone else might be just as gross and sweaty, but I still didn’t want to look that way. I think part of it is knowing that I don’t want to look like I’m sweating because of my weight. I don’t want to be that stereotype and while I’ve been making good strides in my fitness and weight loss, others don’t know that and I don’t want to be judged.

I was talking to my mom about this a bit last week before leaving and she helped to calm me down a bit. I said that I just wanted to make sure I was impressing everyone since outside of my immediate family I haven’t seen any of the people at the reunion for 5 or 16 years (or ever in some cases). My mom was telling me how it doesn’t matter whether or not I impress people. I’m living my life the way I want to and as long as I’m happy it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. I know I’ve known this, but having someone else tell me it made it finally register in my brain.

I really tried to focus on how awesome it’s going to be to be going on a trip and to see family that I haven’t seen in years. I’m so lucky that I had the opportunity to do this and I’m grateful that I got to go. These family reunions are held each year, but since everyone pretty much lives on the east coast they are always held there. And I usually don’t get to go so this time was really special. Focusing on those things did help me relax a bit and not feel like I really need to take my panic meds. I’d rather not have to take them anymore so testing myself is good for me. I’m so used to taking them, and trying to get off them is a good idea since I pretty much have to choose to take them or my Vyvanse (and I would rather be taking Vyvanse).

A full recap of my weekend in Maryland is coming and I can’t wait to share with you everyone that I got to finally see again!

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Back To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

Posted on April 15, 2016 | Comments Off on Back To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

Even though I was only gone to Santa Barbara for a couple of days, when I got back to LA it felt like I had been gone for a lot longer. I’ve done other weekend getaways before, but for some reason it felt like this one was different. I’m glad I was out-of-town as long as I was (I had time to relax and see my family), but I’m also happy to be home.

The first thing I had to catch up on was work. I did miss work on Saturday last week (which was fine because I had worked extra hours not too long ago to cover for a co-worker), so I had to see what had happened while I was gone and if there was anything weird that I needed to know about. I ended up logging into my work email on a day off to see what went on while I wasn’t working and I looked at some of the issues that my co-workers had to make sure I was ready for any customers with the same issues. It didn’t take too long, but since my brain was in vacation mode a bit it seemed to take longer.

Also, in my other day job, I’m getting more hours soon. I can’t start the new hours until I have some training (and they might have to set me up with some work computer stuff), but since I know that it’s coming up I want to make sure I’m prepared. I’m trying to do as much as I can now with my current responsibilities because I know that when I get my extra hours my time needs to be split between my current work and the new work that I’m being trained on. I need to figure out a good time management system to split up my hours and I’m trying to look at that now before I have the extra responsibility to deal with.

I’ve also been busy working on the short film my friend wrote for us to star in. We have our director and our director got us a great producer. We’ve had a couple of phone meetings to work on budget and other things and we are all hopeful that things will be ready to go at the end of May when we are hoping to shoot. Even though I’ve produced a documentary before, working on a narrative (scripted) film is very different and there are things to think about that I didn’t have to worry about with the documentary. Fortunately, everyone else is much more experienced than I am so they can help guide me to what I need to help with. It’s a little overwhelming, but I’m so excited to be working on this project and seeing what ends up happening with it after it is done.

Besides all of that work plus the usual stuff that I have to do every week (errands can get annoying and time-consuming!), I’ve been running around like crazy and I’m finally starting to feel caught up on life. I have some really fun adventures coming up over the next few weeks and I don’t want to have to stress about not having a ton of free time to catch up on other things. It seems like I have weeks where everything is overbooked and crazy and then weeks where I’ve got nothing to do. I wish the weeks would be a bit more mixed up, but I’m dealing with the craziness (and lack of sleep) just fine for now and I know soon enough I’ll be wishing I had more stuff to do.

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A Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much)

Posted on November 11, 2015 | 1 comment

Since my friend Kate was going to do the Hard Rock Cafe 5K with me, she came down for the weekend to hang out (she lives in Northern CA now) and spent some time with me. I hadn’t seen Kate in a while, so I was excited for some weekend catching up and hopefully some fun too. But even though she was coming into town for the weekend, since she was coming in later on Friday and leaving early on Sunday we only had about a day and a half to hang out. And we had a race to do so it was going to be an interesting mix of craziness and relaxing.

Kate got to LA on Friday afternoon after I was done with work. So I got her at LAX and we went to an early dinner at Lyfe Kitchen since we knew we were getting up early the next morning. It was a fun dinner and we got to catch up on all the crazy and random stuff that has been happening lately (we’ve both had some tough times lately). After that dinner, we went to my house and went to bed pretty quickly.

On race day, we were up at 4:30am and then had the race at 7am. After the race, we had breakfast at Hard Rock Cafe and then went back to my house. We spent some time relaxing and then went out on a fun and random shopping adventure. Neither of us bought anything, but it was fun hanging out how we used to in high school.

After our shopping adventure, we headed to another early dinner. This time, we went to Bottle Rock for some wine and yummy food. I love going to Bottle Rock because there is always great wine and the food has never disappointed me. Plus, it’s not loud or too crazy on weekends so you can relax there and not worry about people being obnoxious next to you.

We both got wine flights and of course I got 3 different sparkling wines.

Bottle Rock

I drank most of my tastes (they were all so yummy!) and we got a bunch of different things to split between us to eat. We tried a bunch of food and got some dessert (we burned off some calories by doing the race that morning and we had both skipped lunch). But since we had been up for so long that day, we didn’t stay out too late that night.

The next morning, Kate had a flight back home. But before her flight we went to iHop near LAX to have breakfast. It was another good meal and again it was fun getting to just talk.

I’ve missed having Kate in LA and it was nice to have her back here for the weekend. Even though we didn’t go do a ton of stuff (and there were so many things that I thought we could go and do), it was a great visit. We both have said how it’s nice to be such good friends that it’s ok if we don’t do much or if we have a quiet hang out.

Kate will be back in LA next month and I’m hoping I’ll get to see her again then (she’s coming into town to see a different friend and I am working a lot the weekend she’ll be here). But even if I don’t get to see her on that trip, I’m glad that we had this fun and chill weekend this past weekend to hang out and do our best on our 5K.

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A Non-Exciting Life (or Trying To Not Feel Left Out)

Posted on July 17, 2015 | Comments Off on A Non-Exciting Life (or Trying To Not Feel Left Out)

My life is relatively routine and boring. While I do get to go to fun events and have friends who throw awesome parties, I haven’t really gone on a big adventure in a while.

I’m usually pretty ok with this. While I can take time off of work, I’d rather not do that because then it means I’m not getting paid (unlike my old box office job where I made commissions while I was in Maui). So I pretty much have to be at my computer Tuesday-Saturday.

But a lot of people in my life have been doing some awesome things and I’m really wishing I could do the same. I had dozens of friends at Comic Con this past weekend. I applied for a press pass but didn’t get one. And I really don’t have the money to spend on a pass. So I watched everyone’s tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram pictures over the weekend and kept wishing that I was there. I’m planning on re-applying next year for a pass and hopefully I’ll get one.

I’ve also know a lot of people going on vacation. It’s summer and it seems like everyone takes at least one awesome trip. I was hoping to make it out to Tahoe this summer, but after my grandpa passed away my mom and I forgot to plan it (I only remembered when I saw the dates with a question mark in my calendar the day I was thinking of going). I might get to go to Tahoe in the late fall or winter, but the summer trip isn’t going to happen.

I haven’t done regular summer trips in a long time. I usually don’t feel too left out. But when I see awesome pictures from people traveling, it really makes me wish that I had the time and money to go too.

Whales in Alaska

That picture is from a family member who is in Alaska right now.

I’m trying to stay focused and realize that right now is the time that I need to work on making money. Eventually there will be time (and finances) to go on fun trips. I might get to do another trip to New York soon with my sister-in-law, but that’s still up in the air so I’m focusing on the little trips I know I’ll get to do. I’ll be back at Disneyland in about a month (and that’s something that a lot of people don’t get to do). I’ll be going down to San Diego next month to see my grandma (and parents) and again at Thanksgiving where I will spend a few days with 4 generations of my family. And at some point later this year will be my Tahoe trip.

I’m not sure why everyone going on vacation and to fun events is affecting me so much. Maybe it’s because I’m getting serious about my money situation and have realized how out of reach a vacation is for me right now. Last time when I went to New York I used money to pay for it that I probably should I put toward my credit card debt (I also put more debt on my credit card to pay for the trip and I’m not proud about that). If I do get to go back to New York, there’s a good chance that I’m going to have to do a similar thing, but at least I’ll be conscious about making that decision.

Even if I don’t really get to go anywhere for the summer, I live somewhere where I can go to the beach pretty easily and there are lots of fun (and free) things around LA that I can do.

I guess I’m going to have to have an awesome staycation for the rest of my summer!

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Spa Time (or A Relaxing Day With My Mom And Sister-In-Law)

Posted on March 5, 2015 | 1 comment

While a majority of my weekend getaway trip was dedicated to wine tasting, we did save Sunday to be a very relaxing day.

When we were planning this trip, the original idea was to go away to a spa retreat sort of place. But we couldn’t find the right type of place for us, so we scrapped that idea. Then, when we decided on wine tasting, we agreed that we would still add a spa element to the trip. The hotel we stayed at had a really great spa, so it worked out perfectly!

Krystle booked a wrap and a massage and my mom and I each booked a massage and facial. All of our spa packages also included lunch!

The spa was located in the building between the building where my room was and the building where Krystle’s room was (all the hotel rooms were in buildings that had 4 rooms each).

Garden Spa

Since the spa was only steps away from my room, I decided to not worry about dressing nice and created a “spa outfit” out of workout pants and a hoodie.

Spa Outfit

After having some breakfast, we headed to the spa to enjoy our midday relaxation.

When we got to the spa and checked in, we headed into the locker room to change into robes and wait for our names to be called for our treatments. The way it all lined up, we all had our first treatments at 11am and our second treatments at noon.

My first treatment was my massage. While I love getting a massage, because my skin is so sensitive it can hurt quite a bit (and leave me super bruised). I always tell the person who is giving me a massage to use super light pressure, but more often than not they don’t do that. And because I’m trying to be polite, I don’t always speak up.

But this time, the technician listened to me and it was wonderful! It was super relaxing and it felt like time flew by! It was also an aromatherapy massage and I was allowed to pick what scents I would like. I didn’t really know what to pick, so it was suggested to have it be lavender and peppermint. That combination smelled like chocolate and it was fabulous!

After my massage, I headed back to the waiting room where I met up with my mom and Krystle again. My mom loved her facial and Krystle loved her wrap.  Then it was time for the two of them to each get their massage and for me to get my facial.

Facials are something that I do indulge in a bit more often. With my skin, it’s important for me to stay on top of taking care of it. So I try to get a facial at least once a year (and it doesn’t hurt that I found a fabulous place that only charges $40 for a facial!).

It was a relatively standard facial. Cleansing, exfoliation, mask, extraction, facial massage, and moisturizer. But while the mask was on my face, I also got paraffin wax for my hands (they are still super soft now!). And my skin looked amazing afterward!

When we were all done and changed back into our clothes, we went to a table outside the spa next to the pool and ordered our spa lunch. We all ordered the same thing (lemonade and a turkey wrap) and had a nice relaxing lunch.

After lunch, my mom wanted to go walk around town and do some shopping but Krystle and I wanted to hang out at the pool. So we split up and were going to meet up again before going to dinner.

It’s hard to believe that this is winter in Sonoma (although we did have the crazy hailstorm the day before).

Hanging At The Pool

I did enjoy the hot tub, but mainly I enjoyed laying out in the sun being lazy.

After some sun time (and when my skin was starting to turn a little pink despite the SPF 50 I had on), I headed back to my room to shower and dress for dinner.

Our dinner that night was at the steakhouse at the hotel. It was perfect and totally worth not having a steak right after the cleanse ended. It was a delicious steak and while my mom and Krystle enjoyed some red wine, I enjoyed some sparkling wine.

Seriously, this trip was the perfect trip! I may have had some travel delays (5 hours of delays over my 2 flights), but once we were in Sonoma pretty much everything on the trip went off without any issues. Thank you Mom for the trip and I’m so excited to see where we go for our next girls’ getaway!

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Reflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals)

Posted on December 31, 2014 | 1 comment

I can’t believe that 2014 is ending! It really seems like it was just a month or two ago that I was posting my goals for this year.

I just want to take some time and reflect on my year and the goals that I had set out for myself.

I really felt like 2014 was a rebuilding year for me and my family. While 2013 did have some great moments, there were also a lot of sad and stressful ones. I think of 2013 as the year that Ross and Krystle got married, that my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and my family lost two dogs. While we did technically adopt Tucker right before New Year’s Eve last year, I think of 2014 as the year he joined our family.

In 2014, so many positives happened for my family. Adopting Tucker was a big one, but the biggest was my mom being declared cancer-free. Knowing that she is ok (even though we all knew that she would be in the beginning) really has taken so much stress out of my life. I know that there are still some stressful times ahead with making sure that she stays cancer-free (and now I have annual mammograms to worry about too), but knowing that it’s all good right now just makes me so happy.

This was also a rebuilding year for me as far as my health goes. I have finally connected with a workout in a way that I had hoped for. And very recently I’ve been getting my food in a better place too. This isn’t to say that I don’t have days where I seriously struggle, but I’m taking more and more steps in the right direction.

So let’s take a look back at my goals from last year and see how I did with them.

My first goal was to continue to do 5Ks. I did 3 this year. And while that is much less than the year prior, I’m ok with that. I don’t love doing 5Ks as much as I want to, but the few races that I did do are ones that I look forward to a lot. I also got a new PR which I am very excited about!

My next goal was to make spin a regular habit. This did not happen. I stopped going to SoulCycle a while ago because I have replaced it with Orangetheory. I’m planning on going back next year every so often to spin, but I really wanted to focus on Orangetheory during the second half of this year. But since I did make exercise a regular habit, I’m declaring this goal as a partial success.

Next on my list was to track my food/exercise better. I’m still using MyFitnessPal to track my food every day. I’m much happier tracking it when I’m making smart choices. And as far as tracking my exercise, I think I’m doing pretty great at that too. It makes it easy to track my exercise in MyFitnessPal when Orangetheory tells me exactly how many calories I’m burning in each workout.

The next goal I had set was to get into an improv class. I failed to do this goal. I had every intention of getting started at UCB this year. I even purchased the book that all students are required to read. But I think the lack of stability with my job got to me. When I thought I knew when a class would fit into my schedule I would lose my job and everything changed. I’m feeling pretty stable with my current day job, but I’m still looking for something else to help me make enough each month. Once that stability is set, I think I can look into class again.

Next was pay down my debt and not add more. While I did pay down some of the debt, it was impossible to not add more this year. With some expenses having to be put on a credit card, there was no way to not add to it. But when I did have those expenses, I tried to pay off exactly what I spent by the time the bill came around.

Then I had the goal of going on another vacation. While I did go to visit my parents, those don’t seem to feel like vacations to me. They seem like getting to have family time. That’s probably because I’m either visiting them at the house I grew up in or I’m at their place in Tahoe. But I did get to go on a fabulous trip to New York with my sister-in-law this past spring. That trip was amazing and we are planning to try to go to New York again in the coming year.

My final goal for 2014 was to continue blogging. While some days are tough to come up with a topic to write about, I have maintained posting a new post Monday-Friday every week of this year. That’s a lot of posts!

All in all, even though I didn’t complete all of my goals, I think that I did a great job in trying to do them all. I’ll post my goals for 2015 tomorrow.

I hope that you all have an amazing New Year’s Eve tonight! If you chose to drink, please don’t drive. Take a taxi/Uber/Lyft to get home. Or you can call AAA for a Tipsy Tow.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Family, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Travel, Weight Loss, Work

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Making The Most Of My Last Day In Tahoe (or Tucker Is A Lake Dog!)

Posted on June 26, 2014 | 1 comment

On my last day in Tahoe, I didn’t have to leave for the airport until after dinnertime, so I had a full day to have fun. So for the day, we decided to head to Donner Lake to enjoy some time on the water.

We went to the exact same beach that I went to last summer. But besides bringing the raft with us again, we also brought our 2 kayaks to the lake!

We decided that my mom and Kate would each take a kayak out and my dad, Tucker, and I would go in the raft. Tucker had been in the raft one other time the week before and he did ok then. But this time, he wouldn’t be with both my mom and dad so we were a little unsure of how he would do.

We got my mom and Kate in the kayaks and into the water first. Tucker watched from the shore and yelped a little that my mom was paddling away. He didn’t want to get into the water so he stayed on the very edge of the shore. Then I got into the raft and my dad picked Tucker up and placed him in with me. Then my dad got in and he took over the paddles (he’s way better at it than I am).

The kayaks are pretty easy to maneuver, so my mom and Kate were off and going around the lake. My dad refers to the raft as a bathtub so we paddled away from the shore and pretty much just floated out there.

But I have to say that Tucker seemed to really love it!

IMG_3279 IMG_3301IMG_3296

And yes, he’s wearing Dante’s old life vest.

Tucker spent his time in the raft people and dog watching and then just leaning back on either my dad or I and enjoying the sunshine. But his favorite thing to do was to lick the water off of the paddles.

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You can tell from that photo how giant his ears are! And you can tell that he’s a bit of a redhead too!

When my dad and I got back to shore, there were a few other families with their dogs near where we set up our stuff. The dogs were jumping in the water and swimming and Tucker was mesmerized by that. We thought that maybe if he watched other dogs swim, he would try it too.

The owner of the other dog wanted to help us get Tucker to swim, so she kept throwing toys into the lake for him to get. But again, he refused to swim. He got very close, but when he realized that he couldn’t put his foot onto the ground, he backed up. But even without swimming, Tucker had so much fun.

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My mom and Kate kayaked back to the shore then and my mom wanted to see if Tucker could kayak with her. So my dad got into the lake with Tucker and got him on the back of the kayak. My mom paddled in the shallow area incase Tucker fell off, but it turns out he has amazing balance and managed to stay on!

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We spent a good few hours at the lake, and eventually it was time to head back to the condo. Kate and I wanted to watch the World Cup game and my mom was going to make a nice early dinner.

Around 6pm, Kate got into her car to make the drive back to the Bay Area and my mom, dad, Tucker, and I got into the car to do a little walking around before I had to get to the Reno airport.

It was a gorgeous evening at Lake Tahoe and I was sad that my vacation was coming to an end.

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At about 7pm, we got back into the car for the drive to Reno. Airport security only took me 5 minutes from the time I was dropped off, so I spent a lot of time looking at all the tempting ways I could spend my money in the Reno airport.

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I managed to keep all my money in my wallet and just read my book while waiting for my delayed flight home.

I’m so glad that I was able to do this trip to Tahoe this summer. Even though I got to go last summer as well, I haven’t been able to go up as often as I’d like. I talked to my parents about me going up this winter since it’s been a few years since I’ve been up in the snow. Hopefully we can make that happen.

I’ll see my parents again in about 2 months when they come to LA. We are all going to a show at the Hollywood Bowl together. And I’ll see Tucker again at Thanksgiving. There’s a small chance I might be visiting my sister-in-law at the end of the summer when my brother is working out of the country, so I might get to see everyone then as well.

But for now, I’m just grateful that I got to spend a nice long weekend with my family (and chosen family as is the case with Kate).

 

 

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A Plane Ride And A Mini Road Trip (or My Adventure To Get To Lake Tahoe)

Posted on June 24, 2014 | Comments Off on A Plane Ride And A Mini Road Trip (or My Adventure To Get To Lake Tahoe)

I got to go see my parents and puppy this past weekend in Lake Tahoe. My parents own a place near Truckee (I went there last summer as well). I grew up going to Tahoe every winter to ski and most summers to hike and enjoy the mountains.

Even though I went to Tahoe last summer, I haven’t gone as often as I’d like. This is because it’s not the closest place for me to go and my parents are pretty busy people. There are times where I have to make sure they set aside a certain weekend for me so they don’t invite friends of theirs up there.

My parents had invited me as well as my friend Kate to come up and she and I both set aside the time in our calendars. I know I’ve said it before, but Kate is like a sister to me, so having her come to Tahoe is more like a family hangout.

As a kid, we pretty much always drove to Tahoe (it’s about 4 hours from where I grew up). I flew a couple of times when I was in high school and couldn’t go on vacation as early as the rest of my family. And since moving to LA, I’ve pretty much only flown up there unless I’m combining a trip to Tahoe to a trip home to the Bay Area.

But for some reason, Southwest (who I pretty much always fly when I’m flying between Northern and Southern CA) stopped doing lots of non-stop flights from LA to Reno. There’s only a couple a day now when there used to be at least 6 or 7 options. And I didn’t want to have to have a layover in Vegas or Utah.

So my parents suggested that I fly into the Bay Area and Kate could come and get me. Then Kate and I could do the drive together (my parents were in Tahoe a few days before we went, so they couldn’t drive me).

That actually worked out pretty well! I got a flight from LA to Oakland and then Kate came to pick me up after she was done with work (which was pretty much the same time that I landed). Then she and I drove for about 3.5 hours to get to Tahoe.

It was a really fun mini road trip. We caught up on each other’s lives (she’s got a new job and she’s living in a new city). We shared crazy stories that have happened lately. We discussed the World Cup (we are both following the games, but she’s following them a bit better than I am).

By the time we got to Tahoe, it was dark so we pretty much just went inside to hang out with my parents and dog (who is more than double the size he was when I saw him in February).

While making my trip take almost 5 hours instead of 1 is a little crazy, it was totally worth it to get some hangout time with such a good friend. Plus, if that’s what I had to do to get to Tahoe, I’m fine with that.

I’ve got some fun pictures from the weekend coming up in my next two posts, so make sure you check those out when I post them!

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Back To LA (or Reflections On The NYC Trip)

Posted on March 28, 2014 | 3 comments

On Sunday last week, Krystle and I headed to the airport to get flights back to LA (for me) and San Francisco (for her). We had pretty early flights, so we were up at 5am that day. I was exhausted, but still didn’t sleep much on the flight.

I still can’t believe that this trip is over! Even though we only planned it for a few months, it seemed like we had been looking forward to it for forever!

On our last day in NYC, Krystle and I chatted about what we were able to check off our NYC checklists and what we need to do the next time we go (and we’ve already decided that this trip will be a somewhat regular adventure).

I’m so happy that we got to see as many shows as we did. We thought at first that 4 shows in 4 days was a bit ambitious, but it ended up being perfect! And we saw a good variety of shows (2 family friendly and 2 adult only).

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There were other shows that I would love to have seen, but I also just got a season at The Pantages (the Los Angeles theater that does Broadway tours) and most of the other shows I would have wanted to see are those that are in my season. But I’ve already said that if “Heathers” moves to Broadway, I will be back to see it again.

We didn’t really get to go into Central Park, and I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before (I don’t remember doing it, but maybe when I was little we went). Also, there are so many more museums that I want to see, but those are expensive and time-consuming. And money and time were a bit tight on this trip.

And there are also a lot of restaurants that were on my wish list that we didn’t make it to. But again, we can only go to so many dinners.

But we did manage to take the subway system for most of the trip, and we didn’t really get too lost. Sometimes we were confused what direction we needed to walk once we got out of the station, but that’s not too bad. Fortunately, we had both phone apps and a good paper map to use that helped us so much in our navigation. I also successfully hailed several cabs (I think that’s kind of awesome).

And finally, something that my mom said before we went on the trip was that she hoped that this trip would bring Krystle and I closer together. We’ve only seen each other a handful of times, and pretty much never just the two of us. So this was a real bonding experience. We got along super well (even in our really tiny hotel room that we shared) and we have planned to do more trips in the future. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that Krystle is not just my sister-in-law, but also a good friend of mine as well now.

It was tough to get back to life after this trip. It really felt like something magical with all the shows and seeing several friends. But I did have to get back to reality quickly because this past week, I started a new day job! But more on that next week.

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