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Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Thursday, August 1

my quarter century birthday

I decided to make the absolute most of my birthday as it fell on a Friday. My one day turned into a 4 day long weekend as I signed up to do different activities I had not done before. I reached for the land, air and sea, all in one weekend.

Let's rewind to Thursday, the start of it all...
Thursday, my birthday eve, I celebrated it with my family. A nice dinner followed by what can only be described as the most amazing cake to ever grace my presence. This is saying a lot, because I am not exactly a "cake person." I generally would prefer something along the lines of ice cream, cookies, or sweets for dessert. However, I saw this post on Pinterest a few months ago; Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake. Yes, you read that right.. cookie dough inside a cake. Never in my wildest dreams could I have guessed that I would be getting that cake for my birthday. {and I certainty was not going to attempt to make it!} This cake was hands down, the most delicious cake I have ever had, with little bits of cookie dough, running through the middle.

Friday, was a typical day of work for me. Although I did get a free birthday drink from Starbucks! A great way to start any day, if you ask me. After I was done for the day, I raced home because Brett had a couple presents left for me that I was ready to open. Yay for presents! Tissues paper and wrapping paper covered the floor but it was time to leave! We quickly fixed ourselves up a bit and went to grab a bite to eat before tearing up the track on Go-karts! I have been twice before and it is a really fun experience to just let loose and race your friends. My parents even came and my dad was brave enough to get on the track with us. It was a great Friday night.

Saturday morning, we drove down to Monterey, as we booked a 4 hour rental for Stand Up Paddle-boards. {or SUP} We figured 4 hours would be a sufficient amount of time as neither of us had done this before. We were expecting a little more trial and error, that's for sure. We got the hang of it in about 15 minutes and off we went. We had such a good time paddling through the "slough" as the tide was helping to carry us. We thought we had plenty of time to get back to the dock to return the boards, with 2 1/2 hours to fight the tide and return. Little did we know just how difficult it was going to be to paddle against the tide. It was really hard going and for a good portion of the time, as hard as I paddled, I just stayed in place. We eventually made it back to our dock and returned the boards. As soon as I got in the car, I immediately fell asleep {sorry, Brett!} I was so exhausted.

Sunday morning involved sleeping in, past 10, I might add! Which is something I haven't done for a very long time. We had a lazy morning as we were gearing up for a big activity, a flight tour and lesson. We arrived to the airport early and filled out some paperwork and waited in the lounge for the pilot and plane. I was expecting an air tour around the bay area and a short in flight lesson, that's what it seemed like would happen on their website. As soon as we got in the plane and went down the check list, the pilot showed me the controls for the plane and off we went! I was flying a plane the entire time we were up in the air. Of course he helped assist in take off and landing and through a patch of turbulence we had. Otherwise he was explaining the gauges and talking about the area we were flying over. The 45 minutes went by so fast and before I knew it, the wheels hit the runway and it was all over! I loved every minute being up in the air and is something I would definitely do again. After we left we went home to make dinner together and fell asleep really early after such an amazingly long weekend.

My 24th year was a pretty big one looking back on it. It took me to far away lands, local new discoveries, new job, new apartment just to name a few. Really looking forward to see what my 25th year will bring me.

Cheers!
X x

Thursday, July 26

twenty-four


Today I turn 24.

It's amazing to see what these past 365 days have brought me . I have already accomplished so much that I never thought imaginable; became full time employed at my work, took Brett to meet my family in Scotland, got an iPhone, went to my first basketball game, went for an all day hike through Yosemite, visited Chicago and Indiana. But what am I telling you this for? You've been sitting along side me while I blog about it all, right? :]

Even though I am working for a bit today, I will be heading off to Greece in just a few days with Brett for two whole weeks! I am beyond excited for our adventure together and to have some quality time away from everything and just enjoying all that the islands have to offer.


X x

Friday, July 20

every now and then..


... you need a little reminder in the morning to get through the day :]

I hope everyone has a great Friday & weekend.

X x

Thursday, June 28

my bags are packed..... well almost

Later this evening I am flying out with Brett to Indiana for his cousin's wedding this weekend. His mom's side of the family is very big & most of them still live in the state so it is going to be a great weekend! I have already met a few of Brett's aunts and uncles because they have come out to California to visit. I am really looking forward to seeing them again as well as meeting the bride and groom!

Unfortunately with the time difference and everything we won't get into Indiana until about 3am.. so today is going to be a very, very, very long day. Friday we have some time to explore the area, check into our hotel and then we are going to the rehearsal dinner, then Saturday afternoon is the actual wedding. On Sunday we are going to drive to Chicago and spend one night there and explore the city since I have never been there before catching our flight back home on Monday.

Here are a couple pictures of what these past couple days have looked like... starting with lots of scribble in my planner and more to-do lists than I knew what to do with..

It is pretty much going to be a go-go-go type of weekend but I am really excited to skip town and for a couple days & be away from work. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend & I will see you when I return!

X x

Friday, May 25

going off the grid

Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn {okay, 6.30am} Brett and I are heading off to Yosemite for Memorial Day Weekend! We have been looking forward and preparing for this all week. I haven only been to Yosemite once in my life and I was very little with my family so I don't remember much. But today is crunch time so I am grocery shopping, finishing up laundry, packing up, charging; cameras, cell phone's, ipad's you name it.

We have a big all day hike planned for Sunday so this week I have been trying to load up on protein, also I haven't had any soda {ok, I cheated once at lunch} lots and lots of water and keeping the exercise pretty light this week as I don't want to be sore before I even get there. We also have a 2 hour horseback ride booked on Monday that I am really looking forward to because it is something I always loved and used to do when I was younger. Unfortunately, the weather report says rain on Saturday when we arrive so we are just going to play it by ear for what we want to do. Also, we cleaned out Brett's explorer with shock vac and all because if there is one crumb of food in there a bear will smell it and rip the car apart to get to it. {no seriously} There have been so many stories about this happening, I even heard a bear ripped open a car because there was gum on the floor - yikes! At least we took care of that earlier in the week. All that is left today is the finishing touches.

Here are some of my pictures as I am still finishing up packing. I hope you all have a wonderful 3-day weekend with your family and friends. This weekend... we are going off the grid and I will see you when I am back to civilization!





X x

Monday, May 14

mother's day


Yesterday started out rather gloomy, we had a fabulous bike ride planned, a bbq happening later and the sun was nowhere to be found. However, we forged ahead and went out for a bike ride down to Starbucks where we sat outside with our bikes and coffee as the sun started to wake up. Then we took a couple detours home and by then it turned became a nice and warm afternoon with not a cloud in the sky! We had cocktails, sat by the pool and munched until we could smell the food cooking on the bbq. My mom is wearing her new purple Under Armour top that I bought her, looks fabulous don'tcha think?

Hope your Mother's Day was relaxing, sweet and spent with someone special.

X x

Tuesday, April 24

having your cake.. and eating it too!

This past weekend was my daddy's birthday, well Sunday was his actual birthday but the whole weekend seemed to be preparation for the big day. Friday was a bunch of running around to get all the supplies and presents, Saturday evening was spent baking the cake and then Sunday morning was decoration time! Just wait until you see this amazing cake. I found the idea from this fabulous blog called Making Life Delicious. My dad absolutely loves m&m's and kit kat's so I knew this would be the perfect {not to mention different} cake to make for him.

The cake was relatively easy to make. I wanted to keep it on the smaller side so instead of the 9inch pans, I used {what i thought was 8} but they were actually more like 7 inches. So with a little modification I made 4 smaller 7inch cakes. {the 4th was an extra in case something went wrong!} I cut the tops off so that it was perfectly flat and then made my own frosting to put on between each layer. Then I frosted all around the edges and kind of made the frosting on the edges pretty thick to make sure the kit kat's stayed in place. Then once the kit kat's were perfectly lined up all the way around, I just put about a bag and a half of m&m's on top. This was definitely an easy and fun cake to make and I hope in the future I will have more celebrations to make this for!

Have any of you made a cake like this before, or something else different? I would love for you to share your stories!


cake posting




X x

Tuesday, April 17

pink v. blue: the face off

This past weekend I went to a good friend of mine from high school's baby shower / gender reveal! This is actually baby #2 for the happy couple as they have a boy who is about 2 1/2. The shower was so amazing and had so many cute decorations. Since it was a gender reveal the theme was "Pink vs. Blue Face Off" and everyone was to show their "team spirit" and dress in either pink or blue to support their team. When you first arrived, you were to cast your vote and then pick up pink or blue beads to wear. Then there were tons of delicious snacks, depending on what you were craving ;). Then finally the big moment arrived and they ripped the tape off the box to find out what color balloons came out....

What do you think? Boy or Girl.. Scroll to the bottom to find out!


 


X x