Our trip to the Pacific Northwest

Over the 4th of July weekend, Derek and I took a wonderful vacation to Seattle, WA. There was no particular reason for the trip, other than to see a beautiful city that I love and that Derek had never been to before. We went into the trip with very few concrete plans but that ended up working out perfectly!

We were in the city Friday-Tuesday, which was the perfect amount of time for sightseeing, a Mariners game, and a lot of good food and coffee.

Friday night we had reservations at SkyCity, the rotating restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. I had eaten there on a high school choir trip and remember it being the greatest Caesar Salad I had ever had, and it did not disappoint this time around! The salmon was also excellent, as was everything that Derek got. It was amazing to get to see the city from the top of the Needle! The restaurant rotates 360 degrees every 47 minutes, so we got a nice view of the whole city and Puget Sound during our meal!

Our view from the top

We checked off a MLB stadium from our list as well, watching the Mariners soundly beat the Orioles with 5 home runs!!! We really enjoyed seeing a new stadium (Derek has seen many, and I'm almost through all of the west coast stadiums). Eventually we'd like to see every stadium!

A must on my list for our trip was finally getting to see the Seattle Public Library. I've heard wonderful things about it from the librarian community and I can honestly say that it didn't disappoint! It's such a wonderful testament to the library's role in the 21st century, not to mention an architectural wonder. We spent well over an hour wandering around each floor and taking lots of pictures (I'm lucky that the husband also appreciates books and humors my need to see every inch of new libraries).

Seattle Public Library

We also explored Pike Place Market, bought a beautiful flower arrangement for our room, and filled up on delicious fresh produce and fresh cheese (and even brought some cheese curds home to make poutine!) We also made a stop at the original Starbucks store at Pike Place. We had wonderful homemade ice cream at Molly Moon's even got to meet up for coffee with some friends who recently moved to Tacoma from California.

Me and my beautiful bouquet!

Piroshky, Piroshky

The original Starbucks at Pike Place Market

Finally, on the 4th of July we headed to the EMP (Experience Music Project) Museum to take a look at their Star Trek exhibit, as well as a few other exhibits that are currently at the museum. The Star Trek exhibit was so much fun and there was something awesome to look at at every turn. As someone who grew up watching The Next Generation, I loved getting to see the costumes and some of the props, as well as learn a little more about the history of the franchise.

My favorite: Geordie La Forge

A timeline of the Star Trek universe

It was so nice to get away for a few days and explore a new (well for Derek, anyway) city. We'd definitely like to make these little trips a tradition!

Western States 100

I grew up in a small town with great history, and one thing that Auburn, CA holds as of utmost importance is our reputation of being the "Endurance Capitol of the World", a nickname we earned from hosting the finish lines of the Tevis Cup and the Western States 100 Endurance Run. Both of these races involve traversing the mountain trails from Squaw Valley to Auburn, the Tevis Cup by horse and the Western States by foot. Growing up my family occasionally drove out to the canyon overlook to watch the horses come up to their last checkpoint before the finish line, but never did we do the same for runners. This year, after being into running for nearly two years, I finally made it to the finish line of Western States to watch the first (and last) runners cross the finish line.

A little historical background on the Western States 100 and why it's such a big deal. WS is the oldest and most prestigious 100 mile trail run. It was stared in 1974 when Gordy Ainsleigh decided that he was going to run alongside the horses during the Tevis Cup, which he did in less than 24 hours. Since then, lots of people jump at the opportunity to run 100 miles in less than 30 hours, and the race now has a qualification and lottery process for registration. If you finish the race in under 24 hours you get the coveted silver belt buckle. Finish in under 30 but more than 24, bronze belt buckle.

The finish line!

After being involved in the running community more in the past two years, I was ecstatic that I was able to be at home that weekend and I specifically blocked out my late evening and morning to be at the finish line (on my high school track) to watch both the winners and the last runners come in. Using a combination of Twitter updates and the race's live tracker, I was able to keep tabs on the front runners throughout the day (the race starts at 5am). At 6:30pm we headed over to the high school because all afternoon the lead runner, Jim Walmsley had been pushing the course record, and with 15 miles to go was still on track to beat the 14:46 course record by at least 10 minutes. Unfortunately, upon our arrival at the high school track there was an announcement over the speaker that Walmsley had taken a wrong turn, which had set him off course by almost 2 miles. While I was sad that I wouldn't get to see the record broken, we did get to see Andrew Miller become the youngest ever winner of Western States at 20 years old. What an inspiration!

Andrew Miller, finishing strong

Just as inspiring was coming back to the finish line around 10:30am to watch the last half hour of finishers before the 30 hour cutoff. I can't even remote imagine running for 30 hours straight. It was heartbreaking to see people fall short of the 30 hour finish time, but they never gave up!!!

It was such an inspiring weekend, and it has me itching to get more involved with Western States. I still have zero desire to push myself through 100 miles, but I'm intrigued by the idea of pacing a runner or working on their crew, or maybe just volunteering at an aid station!

Had to get a shot of my high school

Dapper Day: Part 3- Dapper Day at Disneyland

When we woke up on Dapper Day, I couldn't wait to get dressed and head into the park. After spending entirely too much time on my hair and makeup (really, I don't know how they did it in the 50's and 60's), we got dressed in our Sunday best and strolled into Disneyland to take some photos before my hair invariably lost its style. As in the last few years, the amount of dapper dressed visitors seemed to grow, and it was wonderful to see everyone dressed up with their friends and families.

All dressed up in our Dapper Best

At noon we headed back to the hotel to freshen up before our reservation for tea at Steakhouse 55. Staying on property was a godsend that day because I was able to touch up my hair periodically as to continue to look my best all day.

While I have had tea at the Disneyland Hotel (see my review here), Derek had not yet had the experience, and we had a wonderful time sampling all of the delicious goodies placed in front of us. After tea, we wandered back into the expo for a bit so I could drool all over the new Mary Blair Collection that would be available from Pinup Girl Clothing this Spring/Summer.

Delicious Tea

The Perfect Date

After tea, it was time to get back to the parks, and we spent the afternoon strolling around and riding rides, continuing to enjoy the Dapper Day festiveness.We sat for a silhouette cutting, which is a tradition in my family and something that Derek and I have done on a few special occasions in the last few years. Eventually we'll hopefully get around to framing all of our silhouettes!

Sitting for a Silhouette

The Final Product

One of my favorite parts of the 60th anniversary celebration this year was the introduction of the Paint the Night Parade. It captured my heart the first time that I saw it and because we are rarely at the parks after dark, it's a special treat every time I get to see it. I had told Derek that it was a priority for me during this trip, so we made sure to get to the parade route early enough to get a nice spot to sit. While we were waiting for the parade to start, Derek went off on an errand and came back holding one of the "Made with Magic" paintbrushes, which I had had my eye on for the past year. It was a wonderful treat!

The "Made with Magic" products are a wonderfully fun advancement in technology that allows the light-up ears, paintbrush, and wands to interact with each other and the nighttime spectacles at Disneyland, such as the World of Color and the Paint the Night Parade. It means that I can change the color or blinking pattern of my paintbrush, aim it at someone's ears, and with the push of a button, change their ears to match! It is definitely the most fun toy I've bought at Disneyland and offered many hours of entertainment that night and since.

 

After the parade, we were exhausted and more than ready to climb into our lovely comfy bed at the Grand before our last morning at the parks. We so enjoyed our Dapper Day, and as always, look forward to the next.

Dapper Day, Part 2: Napa Rose Chef's Counter

While planning our mini-moon at the Grand Californian last year, a friend suggested having a fancy celebratory meal at the Napa Rose, specifically the Chef's Counter. The Chef's Counter consists of three different counters built in to the sides of the kitchen, facing in so that the diners are able to watch the chefs prepare food. Diners have the option of either ordering off of the normal dinner menu, or choosing a 5 course meal that the chef prepares for you after finding out any likes, dislikes, or allergies.

We had the most amazing meal of our lives when we did the Chef's Counter for our mini-moon, and knew that we had to include it in our anniversary trip. Two things to know about eating at the Chef's Counter:

1. It's expensive. Chef's Counter, food only, will run you $100 per person. Add drinks onto that and you're looking at a pretty hefty bill. It is also one of only two restaurants on property (Club 33 being the second) that does not offer an AP discount. That being said, it's worth every penny.
2. You have to make reservations in advance. This may seem obvious, but I'm saying it anyway. There are two seating times: 5:30pm and 8:30pm. Both seat 14 people. You can book up to 90 days in advance, unlike the normal 60 days for other Disneyland Resort restaurants. You book by directly calling the Napa Rose.

Now to the fun part, our meal. When Derek and I arrived to the restaurant, we were seated fairly quickly and just happened to end up in the same seats that we had last time in the middle counter in between the entree and dessert stations (In my opinion the perfect place in the kitchen because you can see everything)! We each ordered a drink: I had the Moscow Mule (delicious!) and Derek had a sidecar. We were incredibly lucky to have the executive chef, Andrew Sutton in the kitchen that night, and we enjoyed chatting with him periodically before  the meal. 

Chef Gloria talked to us about any allergies or dislikes and then the magnificent meal began! I won't try to describe every course since, as they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words", and we took pictures of EVERYTHING.

Derek's first course

My first course- Salmon

Scallop (my favorite Napa Rose treat)

Chefs Andrew and Gloria

Main course- Short Rib

Dessert!

While we got wonderful photos of the food, for the second year in a row we absolutely failed at getting a good picture of us. So here's a medicore one to show off my wonderful vintage dress and matching jacket that my mom and I found at an antique store a few years ago. It was my first time actually getting to wear the jacket!

Dapper Day, Part 1

I look forward to Dapper Day at Disneyland all year. It's the perfect day to mix my love of dressing up with my nostalgia for the original decades of Disneyland that exist to me only in books and photographs.

For those of you unfamiliar with Dapper Day, it was created to honor the spirit of stepping out in style to the Disney parks. Inspired by concept artwork for Disneyland in the 1950’s and 60’s, it harkens back to the day where everyone dressed, well, a bit more dapper. There are currently Dapper Day events twice a year at Disneyland Resort, Disney World Resort, and Disneyland Paris.

Derek and I have become regulars at the Disneyland Dapper Day events, attending 4 in the past few years. This year, Disneyland's Dapper day was later in the Spring than usual, and since it fell in the same month as our first wedding anniversary, we decided to make a weekend of it and get a room at the Grand Californian (something that we decided to make a tradition when we stayed there for our "Mini-moon" after our wedding last May.

Since we would already be at the Grand and dressing fancy all weekend, we opted to make a reservation for the chef's counter at the Napa Rose for Saturday night, and enjoy tea at Steakhouse 55 the afternoon of Dapper Day.

The week leading up to our trip, I was rushing around to find everything that I needed to complete all of our Dapper outfits. I'm lucky that Derek enjoys dressing up as well and was excited to find a new suit and tie on one of our shopping excursions.

On Saturday morning, we drove to Orange County early to catch the Arsenal match at our favorite pub before heading over to the Disneyland Resort. We checked in early to the Grand Californian, changed into our first outfits for the weekend, and left our bags at the front desk to go kill time before our roomw as ready at 3pm.
We headed over to the Disneyland Hotel (more specifically Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar) to have a drink and a bite. We were lucky enough to find a spot at the bar inside and decided to go all out by ordering the Uh Oa! (and of course we had to keep the bowl that it was served in because who doesn't love a gigantic tiki bowl?) Our drink was served (on fire!) with a thunderstorm and chant to the tiki gods and we happily drank it while chowing down on our Hawaiian flatbread pizza.

My wonderful vintage Reef shift

Uh-Oa! Uh-Oa!

Vacation Time!

After drinks, we wandered through the Dapper Day expo at the Disneyland Hotel Convention Center. I restrained myself from coming home with an entirely new wardrobe, but I did pick up a pair of sunglasses. The expo definitely gets better every year, and this year was no exception. In addition to all of the vendors, they had hair stylists, a dance floor, a live band, several photo spots, and a bar! We could have easily spent hours browsing, but it was time to go see if our room was ready so that we could get ready for our early chef's counter reservation.

To our delight, when we got to our room we discovered that it had been upgraded to a courtyard view room and we had a lovely view of the trees and the monorail track (the monorail was sadly not running that weekend). We unpacked and got spruced up for our second event of the day, dining at the Chef's Counter at the Napa Rose!

Gotta Get Up To Get Down- Ragnar Recap (Part 3)

So now that I've gotten all of the running out of the way, it's time to PARTY!

(Note: If you missed the first two parts of my recap, they can be found here: Part 1 and Part 2)

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finished my last leg. I was hurting and tired, but I had pushed through! The rest of the day I got to just be along for the ride, hopping out to cheer on our runners and just enjoy being with the team.

Finally, we dropped Chris off at the start of the very last leg of the relay (this was supposed to be my leg but we had switched). We had a good amount of time to head to the finish since the leg was 7.5 miles. On our way, we dropped Bruce and Sykes off at the 3 mile out mark and 1 mile out mark, so that they could be waiting for Chris and join him for support near the end of his run. The rest of us parked at the huge finish line lot at Silver Strand State Beach and met up with our other van of runners (minus two, who had also run up the course a mile to join Chris). Those of us that were injured/exhausted/over running made our way through the tunnel in front of the finish line to meet our team as they ran in so that we could all finish together.

Sean and our mascot, Tiny the T-Rex

When we saw the other neon yellow shirts come around the corner, IT WAS ON! We (and our mascot, Tiny) crossed the finish line as a team as the announcers called out our team name, and just like that, Ragnar was over. We had made excellent time and we already immensely proud of ourselves. We were given our bag of medals and excitedly divvied them up, and I headed over to the ten to get my double medal for the LA Marathon and Ragnar finishers (I might have even brought my LA medal to the finish line for some pictures). We took our formal team picture at the finish, along with some other fun shots and headed over to get our FREE PIZZA AND BEER at the finish line party (free food? yes, please!).

Finish line and 3 medals!

Sean, Me, and Adam

As we sat around with our libations, recounting funny stories from the course, they had a DJ out in the party area and we couldn't help but get up and sing and dance to songs from Grease (hey, we were just thrilled to not be running anymore!).

Tiny and I rockin our medals at the finish line party

I headed out to the beach to get some photos of my medals before hopping in the van with the rest of us party-poopers who were too tired to go beer tasting with the rest of the team in San Diego. I napped for most of the ride home and had never been happier to take a shower and put on clean clothes when I finally arrived home.

Love the new bling!

Ragnar was truly an amazing experience. I didn't know how I would handle the sleep deprivation and being cooped up in a van for two days, but it went surprisingly better than I had thought. While I had originally planned on it being a "One and done" sort of race for me, I can't wait to participate again next year, hopefully healthier and able to push myself more.

And for those of you who are curious, our team finished 52nd overall, which is not bad considering the 700 teams that participated! And that was with two injured runners and and entire team of Ragnar newbies!

Our official Finish Line photo

Gotta Get Up To Get Down-Ragnar Recap (Part 2)

Well, I've really been taking my sweet time with my Ragnar Recap, but I swear it's all for good reason. The last two weeks have been really busy with work and family life and I'm trying to balance this blog with everything else.

Okay so where were we....

Part I left off at the end of my first leg at Doheny Beach, and I was in pain. Luckily, one of my vanmates is a trainer and knew how to stretch me out so that I could actually bend my knee again. So after I changed out of my sweaty clothes into my second race outfit (after getting as clean as possible using a Shower Pill), Bruce took me to the med tent to use a cot to stretch. After that, I was feeling pretty good and we all loaded into the van to make the trip down to the next major exchange. We grabbed dinner at Chic-Fil-A (I was so hungry that I pretty much would have eaten anything), and stocked up on some groceries for the next morning. When we got to the exchange we tagged a bunch of vans with our magnets before trying to grab a little sleep. For most of the night my memories are pretty fuzzy. It was mostly me trying to catch sleep where I could before my 2am second leg.

At exchange 23 I hopped out with my wonderful vanmate, Christopher, who volunteered to be my pacer for the leg. I had been nervous both about running in the dark and concerned that my knee would give me issues, so I felt more comfortable having someone with me. The leg was pretty uneventful, other than it ended up being a half mile longer than was marked on the leg map. I kept waiting for the famous "1 mile to go" sign, but it took another half mile to finally see it. By then my knee was feeling pretty bad and the exhaustion was getting to me. Chris was my constant cheerleader, though, and we made it through.

Chris and I after our 2am leg!

At that point, our van was done with our second legs and once again booked it to the last major exchange in La Jolla to get some sleep. We were parked in an absolutely massive lot overlooking the ocean (which I wouldn't actually realize until I woke up around 6am and limped across the lot to try to find the bathrooms, basically as far away as humanly possible). Before we caught some shut-eye, Chris told me that he thought we should swap our last legs, since he was concerned that I wouldn't be able to complete the last 7.5 mile leg with how bad my knee had gotten. I was frustrated by this, as I hate not being able to finish what I started, but the next morning I realized that he was right. Since we knew that we weren't going to win any category, we weren't concerned with switching these legs.

So with the switch, I was now running as the #8 runner for my last leg, which didn't give me a ton of time after we woke up and left the major exchange to get ready. I had a Luna bar and some water, and rolled my leg out as much as possible before my time to run.

Waiting for my handoff was a lot of fun, because I was relieved that I'd be running a shorter distance and that I was almost done! Not to mention, Adam would be handing the slap bracelet off to me and I would give it to Sean, so it was fun to have my old friends on either side of me. It made for some fun pictures as well!

The best Van-Fam a girl could ask for

As Adam powered in for his last leg, he slapped the bracelet on my wrist and I was off for my easy 3.5 mile run (or so I thought). A mile in I stupidly missed a turn sign and ended up running a quarter of a mile off the course, which I then had to backtrack to get back to the right turn. The leg ran along the strand of Mission Beach, which meant dodging a lot of walkers and cyclists. I was also in a lot of pain at this point. Luckily, a nice runner caught up with me and chatted with me for a good chunk of the mile, keeping my spirits up, before I told him to continue on because I needed a walk break. I was incredibly relieved to see the "one mile to go" sign and even more so to slap the bracelet on Sean and finally be finished. The hardest part was over and now I could really enjoy cheering for my teammates and getting to the big finish line party!

To be continued...

Gotta Get Up To Get Down: Ragnar Recap (Part 1)

I first heard about Ragnar a year ago, when Team Sparkle was holding a virtual run to benefit their #RagnarforRett Ultra Ragnar team. In case you don't know, Ragnar SoCal is a 190.6 mile relay run that starts in Huntington Beach and goes all the way to San Diego. Most teams have 12 runners to a team and each runner runs 3 legs (runner 1 runs legs 1, 13, and 25, etc). The relay typically takes 25-35 hours or so, and yes, you run in the middle of the night.

I was intrigued by the idea of running a relay, although not totally sold, until Ragnar and the LA Marathon announced that they would be offering a beautiful challenge medal for anyone crazy intense enough to run any Ragnar in 2015 and the 2016 LA Marathon, or the 2016 LA Marathon and either Ragnar SoCal, Los Vegas, or Napa. Well, I couldn't turn down that medal, so I did some searching for a team in need of another runner. I didn't have to look too hard to find Veronica, team captain of team "Gotta Get Up To Get Down", and a Pepperdine alum. After chatting with her about the team and finding that we were still a few runners short, I recruited two high school friends to run with me and started researching everything there was to know about the Ragnar experience.

Fast forward a few months and the day was upon us. I had been battling IT Band issues for over a month, but had cleared with my physical therapist that I wasn't going to do any serious damage by running (although there was a potential it was going to be incredibly painful to run 14 miles over the weekend). Our team had decorated our vans the night before and were armed with 500 magnets with our team logo to tag other vans along the course. Logistics were a little crazy as I had to present at a conference that morning (way to double book yourself, Kelsey). Luckily, the conference was only 20 minutes away from the first major exchange, Exchange 6 (where the last runner in Van 1 hands off to the first runner in Van 2). I was the 12th and final runner for our team, so my vanmates were going to swing by to get me before heading to Exchange 6.

We used almost every last magnet in tagging vans throughout the weekend

The second my presentation finished, I darted to the bathroom, changed into outfit 1 of 3, and booked it out to the curb to wait for the van. When I jumped in the van, I met a few teammates who hadn't been at the van decorating the night before and off we went to Exchange 6.

After sitting through a terribly boring safety lecture (I mean, it was probably helpful for those people who hadn't read the "Race Bible" but as I had read it front to back on multiple occasions, I was already set), we got our t-shirts and bibs and milled around, checking out booths (and I stocked up on Nuun). Soon we got the heads up from Van 1 that our runner 6, Matthias, was closing in on the exchange and that Adam needed to be ready to receive the baton (which is actually a fairly awesome orange slap bracelet).

When Adam took off, it was ON! Adam's leg was pretty long and did not allow van support (aka us getting out to cheer along the course), so us in Van 2 took it as an opportunity to go grab a real meal and take it easy on our way over to Exchange 7.

Adam warming  up for his first leg at Exchange 6

Even though I had just met several of my vanmates for the first time (and I was in a van with only guys, Adam, Christopher, Sykes, Sean, and Bruce), we bonded quickly and shenanigans ensued throughout the whole weekend. At Exchange 10, Bruce decided that there was no way that he wanted to run in safety gear (a reflective vest, headlamp, and taillight were required between the hours of 6:15pm and 7am), and swore that he could run his 8 mile leg in 55 minutes so as to come in right before 6:15. Sure enough, he put on the speed and after being catcalled by our van "BRUCE YOUR THIGHS ARE ON POINT" and taunted with safety gear along his leg, came in right around 6:10pm, slapping the bracelet on my wrist for my first leg (fully decked out in all of my reflective glory).

Ready to run! (with my super cute reflective gear and ankle tracker)

My leg (Leg 12) was the last leg before a big gap in the route south, due to not  being able to run through Camp Pendleton. So while my leg would end at Doheny Beach in Dana Point, our next runner would take off from a middle school in Oceanside, some 40 miles away. Our runner would be notified when I was about a quarter of a mile from the end of my leg, thanks to a tracking chip that I would wear for my leg.

I took it easy coming out of the exchange, not knowing how long I would hold up before running into knee pain. My leg was 4 miles, which would have been a breeze on any other day, but of course this injury wasn't going to make the experience easy. I made it a mile into the leg without much discomfort, but I could feel the muscle tensing up and it quickly turned into a nagging pain. Luckily, most of my leg was downhill and easier to handle than having to pull myself uphill. The last mile was marred by stoplights, and I was incredibly thankful when I got to the timing mat that would notify Van 1 that I was getting close to then end. I cruised into Doheny State Beach in relief, but after I stopped moving, I found it almost impossible to bend my knee. NOT GOOD.

Not a bad view!

Since this post has been plenty long for everyone, I'll continue in Part II.

Disneyland Day!

Since I've been dealing with a sore knee for a few weeks and have been advised to take a break from running, the husband and I decided to opt for a different kind of workout a few weekends ago...a nice day hike through Disneyland!

I was antsy to ride the new "Luigi's Rollickin Roadsters" ride, so we made a beeline straight to Cars Land, stopping to grab a fastpass for Radiator Spring Racers before hopping in line for Luigi's. Shortly after getting in line, there was an announcement that the ride was down, so many hopped out and we scooted forward. It had been marked a 60 minute wait when we got in line, so we didn't feel bad waiting around while the line was down, and figured we were moving faster with it broken than with it running due to the amount of people leaving. Pretty soon we were only about 75 people from the front, and they began giving out return passes to come back when the ride was back up. We'd take it!

After "dropping" by the Tower of Terror, we moseyed back to Luigi's and, sure enough, the ride was back on. We were directed through the exit and to the next loading area, and in total, spent much less than the originally predicted 60 minutes in line.

I have mixed feeling about the new ride. First of all, I'm biased because I loved the Flying Tires. Yes, they were difficult to fly and a little boring, but I loved the nostalgia in a new version of an original Disneyland ride (the Flying Saucers in Tomorrowland).

However, as sad as I was to see the tires go, I was quite excited about the new Luigi's, since it utilizes technology that no US Disney park had used yet (but we experienced during the Ratatouille ride in Disneyland Paris). The technology uses a system of magnets underneath the surface that the ride vehicles use to allow the vehicles to move freely without tracks, giving them many more movement possibilities.

Waiting to board the ride, we had a great time watching the cars "dance" around each other as the music played. It was exciting to see the cars wheeling around in various formations, like a classic Italian Dance. However, riding it was a different story. The ride did not feel as smooth as Ratatouille. It was a bit jerky and had a lot of sudden twists and turns. Additionally, you can't see and appreciate the formations of the dancing cars while you are in them, which leaves you feeling like you're wheeling around with no purpose.

One of the adorable cars

Ultimately, I think it's fun to watch the ride, and I look forward to seeing it operating during the holidays, as supposedly they will be adding Christmas songs to the dances. For now, though, I'm okay avoiding the hour+ line.

After Luigi's and lunch, we grabbed some ice cream from Ghirardelli and decided to eat it while doing the annual Easter Egg hunt. In the past we've done the Disneyland side egg hunt, but we were already in DCA so we decided to switch it up this year. We bought our map and stickers and set off to find the character eggs. When completed, we brought our map back to Elias and Co. to get our prize, a Cheshire Cat egg!

Of course, no trip to DCA is complete for me without saying hello to my favorite lucky rabbit (especially with Easter so close). I had thought ahead and not only wore my favorite Oswald shirt, but brought my ever-growing lanyard with my Oswald pin collection. He was quite excited by my lanyard and gave me a kiss on the hand!

Oswald loved my lanyard

We decided to head home before we got too exhausted and irritated with the crowds, which had grown quite a bit since we arrived. Overall it was another wonderful Disney Day!

Chick Trip

When I was about 7-8, my mom decided that she wanted to start taking each my sister and I on weekend getaways each year for some one-on-one time. While my sister liked exploring a new city each year, I quickly fell in love with Carmel-by-the-Sea, and insisted that we return each year, stay in the same hotel, eat at the same restaurants, and browse the same shops. Did my Mom get a little tired of that? Probably. But she humored me, and we've stuck with it, going nearly every year.

Not only do I love Carmel, but it seems to run in my blood. My grandmother and grandfather used to visit every year and even my parents enjoyed vacation there before I was born.

As I've gotten older and my mom's parents have fallen in and out of health, it's been harder scheduling our "chick trips". The last time we went was almost 5 years ago, so we were way overdue.

The whole trip was supposed to be a surprise for my mom, but that went out the window pretty quickly when my dad missed the "secret" memo. She was ecstatic, nevertheless, and it gave us both something to look forward to for months.

On Saturday, I flew up to Sacramento, where Mom picked me up and we headed for Carmel, making a stop for wine tasting and to pick up a few bottles at a winery in Livermore before battling traffic down to Carmel. We arrived to find our little hotel unchanged (a relief after finding out that it was now being managed by a company that runs a lot of BnBs). The same manager that has been running the inn was still at the front desk! We unloaded the car and sighed in contentment. We were finally on vacation!

The Coachman's Inn

That evening we wandered around the quaint town, stopping for dinner at our favorite restaurant, Club Jalapeno, before heading back to our room to soak in the hot tub and relax. After sleeping in the next day (which we almost never do), we had a quick buffet breakfast and headed to Monterey to get some shopping in.

For dinner on Sunday night, we decided to head over to the Carmel Mission Ranch, which is owned by Clint Eastwood. It had been a favorite spot of my grandmother's but neither my mom nor I had ever eaten there. We were absolutely taken by the beautiful property and the rustic restaurant. It seemed as if nothing had changed since the 60's and yet everything was immaculate. Our filets were perfect and paired with fresh asparagus and delicious potato gratin. The drinks and dessert were delicious as well. We toasted to Grandma and Grandpa and enjoyed every minute at their favorite spot.

The most delicious filet!

The next morning we said goodbye to our lovely inn and headed up the coast to Santa Cruz so I could get a quick moment with my old college campus and we could visit my aunt before heading back up to the airport to drop me off. UCSC was on Spring Break, so the campus was quiet and absolutely beautiful in the drizzle and gloom. It's just how I love to remember it. After a walk around Porter College (and a quick call to my college friend, Tim, to tell him where I was), I grabbed a requisite "Squiggle Picture" and we headed to lunch.

One of the many beautiful murals adorning Porter College

The Squiggle!

The drive up to Sacramento was one of the rainiest, scariest, most traffic filled drive I've ever had from Santa Cruz. It was a relief to finally get to the airport and stop worrying about if the traffic was going to make me miss my flight.

I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. It was so refreshing to get out of the city and see greenery and open spaces. I relish the time that I got to spend with my mom, and so look forward to planning our next getaway!

Mama and I