Flying South

Today we are off on a whirlwind mini-trip to Southern California. By the time you read this I will be in the friendly skies. I chose to do the hour plane ride rather than the six hour car ride which ended up being a great idea since we have done a ton of driving the past few weekends with going to Tahoe and Santa Cruz.

The main objectives of this trip are to run a 5k at Disneyland and go to the USC football game which are both tomorrow. Call us crazy! We are flying back after the game since it's at 12:30 (Boo! Who likes 12:30 games? Nobody!) I know the moment I get home tomorrow I will get into bed and fall asleep.

We definitely did not train enough for the 5k but I am more doing it for the experience rather than getting a certain time. As long as I finish, I don't care what my time is. It's a fun run so you don't have a timing chip or anything. (I made a counter to today for the 5k which is at the bottom of the page.) I think doing the 5k will light a fire under me to seriously start training for the Tinkbell Half Marathon I've signed up for in January. When you run a race at Disneyland you get to go "backstage" behind the doors so I am looking forward to that. I have actually been "backstage" once when my high school band went to Disneyland and played there.

Today we are going to Disneyland for a few hours so I can finally ride the new Star Tours ride. The theme for the 5k is actually Star Tours.

For those headed to games tomorrow, remember it will be a long day. I'm definitely excited to see my school again. It's been 2 years since I was back and they built all these new buildings on campus. Hoping for a big win to start the season off right!

And since posts are always better with pictures here are a couple of things that combine my weekend activities! I actually have both.

Have a great weekend! xoxo

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My Weekend: Part I

Hope you all have survived Monday!

This past weekend my sister and I headed up to Lake Tahoe to see Ms. Miranda Lambert and Little Big Town. But before we even made it to Tahoe we made a few pit stops. First we stopped at the outlets in Folsom because my sister wanted to stop at Bass to get some shoes. I bought 3 pairs of flats there. It was buy 1 get 2 free, how could I pass that up? Next we stopped at DSW because I wanted a pair of boots I had seen on their website. Luckily they fit perfectly! I also picked up a casual pair of denim boat shoes. So that is a total of 5 new pairs of shoes in one day! #Obsessed

I had big plans for this weekend. Like we were going to do a lot of things but we just ended up taking it easy. My big brother lives in Tahoe so we stayed at his house which was great except that he doesn’t turn on his heater and it was freezing the first night we were there. After my brother got off of work, he went to get some food before he left for the weekend.

Miranda and Little Big Town were performing at the Outdoor “Arena” at Harvey’s Casino. I put arena in quotes because it was a stage setup in the back parking lot with bleachers and folding chairs. Even though the “arena” setup was weak the backdrop was gorgeous. The pine trees surrounded the area and the sunset was pretty.

Outdoor "Arena"

The Stage

Little Big Town

They sang this amazing cover of "Born This Way". It sounded so much better than the Lady Gaga version!

I was having major camera issues this night. The "good" camera ran out of batteries and wasn't even taking good pictures. So these were the only good ones I had of Miranda. 

So Miranda starts talking about getting married and then you can tell this tall shadowy figure is coming on stage and it's Blake Shelton! The crowd went crazy. So do I! I tried taking pictures but they all came out blurry. :( The only thing I do have is this small little snipet of them singing together. They were so adorable. Love them!

Sorry for the blurriness and shakiness, I was excited!

Saturday we headed to the “other side of the island” as my sister called it. South Lake Tahoe where my brother lives is where the major casinos are but I have always been more partially to the North Shore. Our destination for the day was King’s Beach. The drive from the south shore to the north shore is so pretty. It was a clear, beautiful day.

It was around 11 when we got to King’s Beach and I wanted to try this place for breakfast I had read about on Yelp. The Log Cabin Caffe was even on the Rachael Ray show-there was a sign that said so. The wait was going to be 45 minutes so we went outside and waited but luckily every time the hostess would call somebody’s name they weren’t there so we ended up only waiting about 20 minutes. The wait was worth it. My sister had pancakes which were really good. I had a “scramble-in” with avocado, sausage, and cheddar cheese and it was delish! Def one of the best breakfasts ever. The portions are huge too so if you eat there don’t plan on eating for the rest of the day.

After breakfast we went to the beach, only problem there was no parking for King’s Beach but luckily we found this little side street with a tiny beach called Secline Beach. It was nice because it wasn’t crowded at all. When I was in the water I looked towards King’s Beach and it was packed! There were 3 families on the beach with us. One had two young teenage boys who I dubbed Prince Harry and William because they reminded me of the Royals. (Again #Obsessed) The beach was great except for these “burn-out” locals with their crazy dogs that were running around the beach.

Looking towards King's Beach

Looking towards South Lake Tahoe. There is still snow on the mountains!

View from my beach chair. Do you spot "Prince William"? 

My try at a panoramic picture. 

Part II coming later...

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Traveling South of the Border

Today I am linking up with Michelle, Michelle, and Lyndsay for Tastes & Travels. They have this fun series that you should check out if you haven't already. This link-up is to show off your travels to Mexico or what you would do there or even you favorite Mexican food. Join in the fun!



I have been to Mexico quite a few times. Most of them were to Tijuana when I was little. We always go to this same restaurant that is literally underground. I actually used to be scared of going to Tijuana don't ask me why though. More recently, my family and I went to Cancun in 2005 and Mexico City in 2007. We were actually planning another trip to the Yucatan Peninsula (Cancun area) this December but we are pushing that trip back until June 2012. When we first visited Cancun, we took a day trip to the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. To say we fell in love with that place would be an understatement. We have all grown to love Mayan ruins and are a bit obsessed with them. We took another trip in December of 2009 to Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras to visit numerous sites.

My post today is focusing on our trip to Mexico City and Palenque which is a modern city as well as an ancient city we took in June 2007. Mexico City is such a big city!

Me in the Zócalo or Plaza de la Constitución in Mexico City. This is the main square in Mexico City. To my right not pictured is a large Cathedral and some ancient ruins that they just recently unearthed. Behind me are the Natational Palace and the Federal District buildings.

Did you know that  Mexico City was built on a lake? Well here is the marker of the lake.

One day we visited the ancient city of Teotihuacan, which are Aztec ruins.

Pyramid of the Sun 

Pyramid of the Sun in the foreground and the Pyramid of the Moon in the background

Pyramid of the Sun, we climbed to the top! 

Pyramid of the Moon from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun 

I took a picture from the edge of the pyramid to show how high we were.

We also visited the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Here are two of my favorite artifacts in the museum.

Above is a picture of Chac-Mool which is a popular figure in the Maya world.

After visiting Mexico City we made our way to Palenque which was an hour plane ride and a 3 hour car ride away. Palenque had to be the hottest, most humid place I have ever been. Climbing around pyramids in that weather equals sweaty pictures of me so you won't be seeing any up close pictures of me. Also I had a lot of questionable outfits on this trip. Here are a few of my pictures of Palenque.

Me in front of the Temple of Inscriptions. The tomb of one of the kings of Palenque, Pakal, is deep within this pyramid. Unfortunately due to the humidity, you can no longer go inside and see it.

 The Palace from a top of another temple.

 Temple of Inscriptions and the Palace

 Me and my mom on the steps on one side of the Palace

Another view of the Temple of Inscriptions and the Palace.

We also visited a few other places in the area. One was this pretty waterfall called Misol-Ha.

Aguas Claras

Aguas Azules

Those are some of my favorite pictures from that trip. Eventually, I would also like to visit the town my dad was born in and some of the cities on the west coast of Mexico like Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, Mazatlan, and Zihuatanejo (any Shawshank fans?)

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Weekend Recap

Friday afternoon we left at about 3 for Reno. There was actually a lot of traffic so we didn't get there until 7 (it is usually a 3 hour drive). The drive up was pretty uneventful. I was so tired because I had slept for about 5 the previous night because I was watching all of the Japan disaster coverage and I woke up early because I was paranoid that a tsunami was going to hit the Bay Area and I would have to pack up my stuff and leave. (Note: I live about 30 miles from San Francisco so the probability that I would actually have to evacuate my house would probably be small but you can never be sure right?) Also Wednesday night I slept for like 3.5 hours (I tend to have insomnia) so needless to say I was pretty tired. Every time I tried to fall asleep in the car my sister would wake me up (Thanks sis!). I read a little until it started getting dark and by that time we were really in the mountains. I tried taking some pictures from the car but for some reason they were coming out with a blue tint. Not sure why though. We finally get to Reno and meet up with my brother, check in and eat dinner (I'm starving by that time as well since I only ate cheese and Ritz crackers for lunch). I was exhausted so my sister and I went back to our room. My brother and parents went to gamble.

We woke up late Saturday and ate breakfast and then headed to a different casino that was a few miles away. The Grand Sierra Hotel and Casino is pretty big. My brother, sister, and I bowled a couple of games while the parentals gambled. There was a gun show and a dog show in a few of the ballrooms. There were a lot of cuties at the gun show (and even the dog show!) But I woke up that morning and I wasn't feeling 100% I think due to my lack of sleep and it was really dry in the hotel room so my nose was all stuffy. I had to hydrate like no other while we were bowling. I lost both games but I'm not very good at bowling so that was expected. Once we were finished bowling we went back to the casino to meet up with my parents. I played an Amazing Race themed slot machine! The only time I won was when I got 5 Phil faces which made me happy since I love Phil. I really wanted to play this Wizard of Oz slot machine so when I saw it was open I walked over to it but  then this lady who was playing two machines away got up from her machine and totally swiped it! Then she just smiled at me and I was like that doesn't make it right. We eventually left there and went back to our casino.

We rested up and grabbed some dinner before seeing George Lopez. My dad didn't want to see him and I know he wouldn't have enjoyed it if he did so he just gambled while the four of us went to the show. We had pretty good seats, two of which were free, thanks to my parents' casino host. There was a guy who warmed up the crowd who was pretty funny. Finally George came out on stage and he was great. The show was sold out and the crowd was pretty good. Some of the things he said made it awkward since I was there with my mom and brother but it was alright. After the show my sister went to the room but I wanted to play. I finally got to play the Wizard of Oz machine which was fun (because of all the animations) until I lost A LOT. I had wanted to play the Sex & the City slot machine a year ago when we went to Tahoe so I was on a mission to find it here and I did. It was such a fun game and I won a lot from it but then lost it again. That was by far my favorite slot machine ever! It played little clips from the show and you got to play "mini games" based on the characters.

After a couple hours my brother and I decided to turn in and left my parents in the casino. Sunday was my parents actual anniversary. We checked out of the hotel which was hard with the time change. We said goodbye to my brother and we headed home. It was lightly snowing while driving home which made the drive that much more fun. I ended up finishing the book I was reading (Pretty in Plaid - #2 of 12 of my goal). We got home and went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant for dinner with my oldest sister and her kids. Remember how I gave up tortillas for Lent? It was so difficult going to that restaurant but I made it through. My niece and nephew had baked a cake for my parents and even make chocolate covered strawberries to put on the cake (they are so gourmet!).

I spend last night watching The Amazing Race (I do not like Christina's father) and Celebrity Apprentice (I'm so sick of Star Jones and LaToya Jackson's voice creeps me out) while preparing for an interview I had today. The interview went well in my opinion so hopefully I will get the position because I feel like I'm not getting many responses from the resumes I have sent out so far.

I had a great weekend and I hope you all did too. (Sorry for such a wordy post and no pictures!)

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Mini-Vacay

This weekend my family and I are going on a mini vacay to Reno! We are going to celebrate my parent's 40th anniversary. My brother will be joining us since he lives in nearby Lake Tahoe. When I was little went to Reno a lot because my Grandma loved gambling and my mom didn't like her going there alone so we would go up there with her. My siblings and I would just spend all our time in the arcade. I'm hoping to win big this weekend!

I'm actually excited for our drive up there. Sounds weird right? But it should be all snow-covered mountain tops which makes the scenery so pretty! I think we might if stop and play in the snow on our way home. This was the view from the car last year went we drove up to Tahoe.

Saturday night we are going to see George Lopez which I am really excited about because he is so funny. I've never seen him live but I watch his comedy shows on Comedy Central and I am always busting up laughing.

This is one of my favorite bits he does.

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

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