Easter Weekend

Hi! How are you holding up? I hope you are hanging in there as much as we are here. We have been in here for a while, but we’re still trying to maintain some aspects of life as usual.

I had a birthday last week! It was weird and different but equally enjoyable to be at home and to have people to celebrate who wanted to celebrate with me. I Zoomed with friends, ate cake, and drank margaritas. I even got new skis which I hope I will someday be able to actually go somewhere and use. I can’t believe I’m old enough to be having my 10 year college reunion this year.

Easter was many celebrations in one for us: Palm Sunday, my birthday (pretty much the equivalent of Easter, wink wink), Good Friday, and the main event. It was nice to have constant fun to look forward to during this quarantine.

I busted out my ornament painting skills and added some flair to the dyed eggs.

I am feeling very grateful for the occasions and celebrations. And also the fact that we can get outside, walk the hills of the neighborhood, or even explore local trails. This one was a recent find that we tested out on Easter Sunday:

It truly is all about the little things these days and there are a lot of feelings going around. I have my ups and downs, but as always I’m thankful for family and nature.

I miss you and I’m thinking of you, too!

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New Normal

Just checking in to (and taking a break from Disneyland and El Salvador content) see how your quarantine is going. These are wild and unprecedented times! I actually hate the expression “new normal” because we can adapt to the new, but we don’t need to pretend that anything these days is normal. I hope you’re feeling your feelings, getting outside when you can, and connecting with your friends and family members. I’m an eternal optimist, so I believe that we’ll make it out of this, and I’ll keep crossing my fingers that it will be sooner rather than later.

I started off this strange time at my sister’s apartment in NYC. Her boyfriend and I were on the same flight back from LA on March 9th. The airport felt normal (no social distancing yet), but the flight was empty enough that we each had a whole row to ourselves. We’d heard warnings, but weren’t too worried. Back in NY, we even went to Comedy Cellar and to visit Grandma in Buffalo. Yikes, in retrospect!

I stayed at my sister Elayne’s place for a week, and Will took me down to Long Beach Island to pick up my car. Stores and restaurants were still open. I stopped in the restaurant where I worked last summer and grabbed a festive latte from my favorite quick lunch spot.

As it turned out, I wouldn’t be needing my car much. I drove it up to visit my dad, with a bag packed for three days, but I’ve been here ever since. We started to get worried about me getting stuck in NYC, which I’m sure would be fun, but could get old quickly for my sister and Will with me sleeping on their couch and all of us in the same apartment all day.

I arrived in Poughkeepsie on St. Patrick’s Day. My dad tried to salvage the holiday by serving corned beef and cabbage (with Harp lagers!) and my stepmom delivered green bagels. They did a great job of making us forget the quarantine for a night!

Since then, I’ve been here. In the beginning, we took little day hikes in nearby parks, but as the social distancing warnings became more severe, we’ve been keeping our exercise confined to the neighborhood and the basement gym.

It’s really all I could ask for at this time, and I’m SO GLAD to be here at home instead of on my own in Australia or trapped in El Salvador.

There’s no telling how long we’ll be cooped up, but Spring has sprung and the sunset view from the back deck is lovely. I haven’t spent this much time at home in quite some time, so I’m soaking it all in. I planned to visit friends and hug their babies, but I’ve been forced to slow down and sit quietly with myself.

I’m sure you could have guessed that I’ve been practicing yoga!

And Bonnie (my stepmom) made us yummy pizza!

We (mostly I) did a challenging and sanity-testing puzzle!

And here we are, a little stir crazy but enjoying our time with each other! I hope your quarantine days have been rewarding or cleansing or however you’ve needed them to be. We’re all in this together.

A Rainy Day in Sydney

Day two of my parents’ visit brought even more rain than day one! We kept our spirits up by checking out the aquarium down by the harbor. This one was a good one, even though I am not a huge aquarium fanatic— probably because the only times I go are when it’s raining and therefore full of three million rowdy young children. However, we did enjoy seeing the sharks, rays, sea pigs, and a few different styles of penguins!

More pub crawling was in store, but first we stopped at the local brunch spot for the best and fluffiest hotcakes I’ve ever had. Then my mom and I headed back to the Bondi Icebergs to start the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk. It’s one of my favorite things to do here! The views are so beautiful in any weather. Fortunately, it only rained on us at the very end of the trek. We were close enough to Coogee Pavilion to take shelter with some chips and a drink.

At night, we went down to The Rocks— a historic and touristy promenade area that’s close to the bridge— for dinner at a recommended Japanese restaurant. We enjoyed some sushi (I broke Veganuary again…) and bbq wagyu beef cooked at the table on a Himalayan pink salt block. Very fancy stuff!

My visitors are flying down to Melbourne today, but I’ll meet up with them again next week in Tasmania for a few more days.

Visitors in Sydney

My mom and stepdad were in town visiting for a couple days. It’s been rainy in Sydney, which is good for putting out fires, but not the best for hosting guests in such a sunny and outdoorsy city. We managed to get around anyway, during some breaks in the rain. On the first day we bar hopped via ferry at the Manly Wharf Bar and Watson’s Bay Hotel.

They weren’t too jet-lagged and were good sports about adventuring in the rain. Did you know they had this trip booked before I planned on moving here? They’ll be bouncing all over Australia and then to New Zealand. It made it easier to come this far abroad knowing that I would have some visitors a few months into the trip.

From Watson’s Bay, we took a short ride to Bondi and continued our hopping at the Icebergs Bar. It has the best view of surfers and the beach, even on a cloudy day. We enjoyed some Australian wine and a quick bite to eat in Bondi before they headed back to their hotel to get some rest.

Back in Brooklyn

This past weekend, my sister was kind enough to host me again in NYC. I don’t know if she loves living there, since she’s not much of a city person, but I certainly love her living there for prime visitation privileges, not to mention having a lot of fun stuff to do nearby. Our dad and stepmom came down on Saturday and we headed into Brooklyn to play shuffleboard. Yeah, did you know shuffleboard is trendy again?

It’s so trendy that we showed up and registered, only to find that there would be a four hour wait to play. We couldn’t believe it would take that long, so we grabbed a drink and watched the countdown of numbers slowly pass by. We decided that we would definitely have enough time to venture outside to find dinner.

And we did have time to have the most amazing dinner. I might need to become a vegetarian again when I fully devote myself to yoga in Sydney, but for now, this barbecue will have to do… along with this golfish mac & cheese and this most delicious cornbread of my life:

We ate in the outdoor bbq and beer garden until it was getting dark, and then by some stroke of luck still had room for ice cream afterwards.

And, what do ya know? After a couple rounds of 80’s-90’s trivia at the shuffleboard club, it was finally time for us to play! We shuffled our biscuits until late in the evening, then I tried not to fall asleep during the car ride home. It was a lovely sort-of-last hurrah in the city.

The Last Day!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… Sike! After eleven days of driving almost all day every day, it was pretty much only the best of times. Once I’d left Richmond, I was feeling pumped about being out of the car for good later that evening. But first, I had to make a quick stop through what was once my home for six years: The University of Delaware, which is, regrettably, no longer the number one party school in the nation, but hey, don’t look at me. I went there for the pretty brick buildings and study abroad program.

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I met my friend Jesse for what was supposed to be a bagel lunch, but I’d forgotten that college towns are different when the students leave, and our plans were foiled by the dreaded sign on the door revealing summer hours. Not a huge problem, BrewHaha is and always has been here for us. It was nice to catch up with Jesse, another regular friend turned yogi friend!

Then, no more stopping, there were two-ish hours to go and it was time to finish this whole thing. My sister and her boyfriend were down at the beach for the weekend, so we all met up for an early dinner at one of our favorite LBI restaurants (Parker’s Garage). Back at the house, everyone helped me unpack my stuff and leave it in the living room like this for days:

Because why even bother having kids if you don’t want them to keep messing up your house and living arrangements for years upon years? There were better beach things to do that night! Like play mini-golf and eat soft ice cream (twist on a cone with rainbow sprinkles, duh). I had arrived!

Southern Swims

Greenville, NC might not be a popular destination on your southeastern road trip lists, but it was on mine, because that’s where my Uncle Rick lives! You might remember Uncle Rick from this trip last summer or from our romps around Europe in 2016. Or you might already know him, since I think the majority of people who read this blog are my family members.

Uncle Rick is my dad’s brother who lived with us from about my early middle school through mid high school years to provide fun field trips and ride services when our parents abandoned us, just kidding, when they went to work. Now he’s a teacher and a wandering traveler, too (probably where I get it from!), so we try to meet up wherever we can.

This summer, it was at his home in Greenville, where we went out to dinner and swimming in his local pool. There’s really no other way to solve a sticky North Carolinian summer day!

We followed our usual tradition of eating Indian lunch buffet and watched a Netflix movie that I thought was going to be very bad but actually was not so bad.

Much like the other stops, it was a brief but enjoyable visit, and I’m glad I made the short detour, especially since Uncle Rick is our best family historian, so I got to sift through old pictures like the one below of my sister and me. I wish I still had that outfit as much as I wish Elayne would ever trust me to guide her dance moves!

Sisters in California: The rest!

I’m sorry to tell you, but most of the glorious highlights of our trip stopped after Yosemite. It was a boring drive back on the 5, however we adjusted the plan and went west to Santa Monica so we could at least enjoy a bit of beach time and our last donuts (some of my all-time favorites). After that, it was hard to keep my mind off the cross-country move that would be taking place TWO DAYS LATER. I forced Elayne to come with me to get my oil changed, which she did not really enjoy, but we did try a yummy coffee shop in Atwater Village. But then we walked over a mile in sweaty summer LA sunshine, so win some, lose some, ya know?

We tried to go bowling, and unfortunately there was a two hour wait, so we could only eat tacos. (Note to self: reserve your spot for the bowling before getting the tacos.) Then that was that. I brought Elayne to the airport and packed my car up to leave the very next day.

What a trip, though! I’m glad we could pack so many awesome activities (and donuts) into our week together. Until next time… maybe in another five years?

Sisters in California: Day 4

After our few days of fun in LA, it was time to head up the coast for further adventures. Maybe I should have organized the itinerary a little better so that we didn’t do the bulk of our driving on a Friday, but of course, hindsight’s 20-20.

We left early in the morning so that we would have time to make a few stops. First, we checked out Solvang, a sweet little Danish that seems straight out of a storybook.

And you know we had to find more donuts! Nothing to see here…

After a long drive and a bit of traffic delay, we made it to Napa and our tasting reservation slot at Domaine Carneros. Elayne had organized this portion of the trip, but I’m always happy to sit by and sip sparkling wines on any Friday afternoon.

This vineyard ended up being our favorite in Napa.

After the tasting, we checked into our fancy hotel—a little too fancy for the amount of time we were able to spend in it, but still a nice escape from LA. We drove into the nearby town of Yountville for pizza and, obviously, more wine. When in Rome…

Sisters in California: Day 3

It’s nice to have a visitor in LA, so that you can do all sorts of touristy activities that you might not necessarily do on a normal day. Like take a Warner Bros. studio tour:

And hang out around Batmobiles:

I think this was the day we made waffles for breakfast at home using my mini waffle maker. And went to yoga. And were there donuts, too? There probably were.

At night, we met a few friends for dinner at Grand Central Market, a good option for visitors since it’s casual and everyone can get something different. We opted for mango beers and Thai food. Elayne rode a Bird scooter for the first time. Then it was time to get home and rest up for our big weekend adventure…

Sisters in California: Day 2

Wednesday had to be one of the best California days I’ve had yet! We woke up early to eat breakfast at my number one neighborhood haunt, Kitchen Mouse. Then we hiked up to a secret swing in Elysian Park.

I think we must have had donuts, too, since that seemed to be the theme of our trip.

After that, it was time to get ready for the wine safari. You heard that right. In Malibu, you can visit a farm/winery where they will drive you around in a safari bus to visit a giraffe, zebras, alpacas, etc.

Of course we paid extra for a meet and greet with Stanley the Giraffe. It was the highlight of our trip.

Look at that tongue! I think the animals are more of the draw than the wine at this particular wine safari, but the grounds are lovely to walk and ride around. And the sun came out exactly at the start of our tour.

When the tour was over, we likely needed something to absorb the booze, so we decided to revisit one of the stops from our first California sister’s road trip five years ago, Neptune’s Net. It was just as good as we remembered, though we probably didn’t need to eat this entire plate of fried seafood right before dinner, but we’re on vacation, right?

We stopped at Point Dume on the way back to take in some gorgeous views of the coast. Then it was back into the city for dinner. I wasn’t doing it intentionally, but I realized I’d added mainly vegan restaurants to the itinerary. My sister and I aren’t vegan, but the options here are just that delicious!

Oh yeah, of course while we were in WeHo, we had to stop and see some more “famous walls of LA”. Here’s the one whose fame shocks me the most. But, when touristing, you gotta do what you gotta do!

Sisters in California: Day 1

My sister, Elayne, landed at 10am last Tuesday, so, most appropriately, I met her at the airport with donuts and immediately brought her to take pictures in front of all the fancy, brightly-colored walls in Los Angeles. Just kidding, but not really…

We ate breakfast at my favorite Venice breakfast place, and I thought we would spend the day at the beach because I forgot it was still June and how LA gets very sad, cloudy, and rainy at this time of year. It was too cold and not exactly sunny vacation weather, but no matter; we strolled around to the Venice canals instead.

Yup. Did you know that Venice has peaceful little canals just like Italy? They don’t have any gondolas to hire, but apparently you can bring your own paddle boat or stand-up paddle board and use it at your leisure.

We walked the boardwalk after that and saw a pretty OK but also pretty drawn out street performance. It was still too chilly to enjoy the beach, so we had a snack and took a pretty nice and necessary yoga class to work off the donuts and said snack before dinner.

Dinner was at THE BEST RESTAURANT, The Butcher’s Daughter. Have you been there yet? They have one on the east coast and the west coast, so New York or California, no excuses. You have to go!

Although it was a little chilly to our liking—especially since Elayne has been working in a hectic veterinary internship all year and hasn’t seen the sun or light of day in a while—we made the most of things and had ourselves a nice west side day. Nevertheless, we were still crossing our fingers for some sunshine later in the trip.

What To Do with Parents in LA

Hi! I’ve just freshly landed in Australia, but before we get to that, I better tell you about the time in February (too long ago now) when my mom and stepdad came to visit me in LA. It was kind of “cold” for visitors (ie. it was 60 degrees and I had to wear my ski jacket), but they were en route to Cabo, so I didn’t feel too bad. I almost went to Mexico with them, but the hotel they were staying at only had couple’s suites and that would have been a bit too much togetherness for us all. Instead, we had a few days in LA.

We were able to do a lot of the sightseeing stuff that I’d not gotten to yet. I showed them the worst of traffic—only once! They tried In-N-Out (overrated) and a few of LA’s other most fine and trendy eateries, like Sqirl, Republique, Manuela, and Donut Friend (not overrated).

I’m very into building itineraries, so I packed way too many activities into each day. We sprinted around Huntington Gardens, stopped by the Getty Villa, and ate in the Arts District all in one day, which are all in opposite directions if you didn’t know (hence the traffic).

I brought my mom to work (aka yoga and Zumba class in Monterey Park) and was wildly impressed that the Zumba teacher made up a special dance with costumes for Chinese New Year. To be a conscientious teacher like that!

We saw the Rose Bowl Stadium, which is kind of just there and you can’t go inside, so maybe strike that one off your list if it’s not football season and you aren’t staying in Pasadena.

We had a very Hollywood day when we took a celebrity van tour—so much fun and you must, must do this when you host visitors or are a visitor to the area, if not for the celebrity homes then for the views and for seeing parts of LA that you wouldn’t normally feel like driving to. Then we went to the Pantages Theatre to see Hello, Dolly! where everyone promptly fell asleep because I didn’t calculate our energy levels when planning the ultimate Los Angeles experience. Oh well.

Overall, it was an amazing few days and I’m so happy they could make the time to stop here before their beach vacation. I love showing people around as well as finding new fun places for myself, so come visit whenever you can!

Scooters & Sea Lions

If your parents, like my dad, ever get tired of visiting you in the city where you live (and to be fair I cannot blame them for LA is a tiring place), a fun thing to do is to meet them in other places and have an adventure for the both of you. My dad attended a weeklong conference in San Diego for work at the end of last month, and, lucky for me, he decided to tack on a few extra days so that we could explore.

Last year, we spent my 30th birthday trip together at Mammoth Mountain, but this time we took a sunnier route… or we mostly intended to, but it’s actually been pretty dreary and cold down here in SoCal for the past month— it even snowed?!

No matter! We didn’t let the rain or grey skies ruin our plans to go out in the Gaslamp District. I put the cap on sober January when we found a trailer park themed bar, and I lost my favorite ring when I got too enthused about arcade basketball.

By day, we rented Bird scooters for dad’s first time and took a pretty long ride (for scooter riders) up the coast to La Jolla. We got up close and personal with sea lions. They’re near enough that you can just about reach out and touch them, if you’re in the business of disturbing nature’s peace, so obviously it was the highlight of the trip, if not my entire life.

After we had scootered back down, we took our chances at spotting some whale migrations at the Cabrillo National Monument. Unfortunately, whales were not in the cards for us this trip, but we still saw some pretty nice views of the city.

Whale sightings or not, it was an excellent opportunity to spend a weekend out of town and an easy way to get some dad time in. I’m glad we can always find new ways make the most of our time together! I hope you’re finding some joy in these late winter days, too.

This Year So Far

Where have I been? Maybe you are wondering.

Everywhere, it feels like!

Something about January has felt powerfully rejuvenating, but in the way that I want to stay introverted and careful about letting the heat leak out from within me. So I’ve been in my room, working on projects and experiencing what it’s like to plant my feet back in this new home. At the end of December, I really was everywhere. I took the most successful red-eye flight yet to New York to have a full day in NYC with my sister.

We saw the tree and ate some yummy brunch foods. What more can you hope to get out of a wintry day in Manhattan?

I didn’t get much recovery time, because the next day my dad drove us up to Vermont for a beautiful day of skiing. It was sunny and warm and everything ideal for a now-turned-California girl returning to the East Coast in December! Of course, we included our usual stop at the Vermont Country Store. I showed that I haven’t grown up all that much over the years— I ate all the free samples and a whole bag of assorted candy!

The rest of the week at home in New York was refreshing and full of fun and family. I was so grateful to be home this year because, if you remember, last year was a little lonely for me in another country. But I’ll take a Christmas wherever I can get it!

Then it was back to NYC for a full family fun day. Big aLICe Brewing kept us all happy and getting along, in spite of conflicting opinions about how we should spend the day. I’m glad my sister got to take charge and show us around her part of the city a little bit.

I returned to LA with a few days left of 2018 to spend enjoying the beach. I definitely wanted to close out the year with the ocean, taking some time to reflect on the big move out here and how I never have any idea where it will all go from here!

Our Canyon Ranch Vacation, Day 3

Our last full day of fun! I’m not too sad because my regular life is a lot like life at The Ranch, and I’m sure my mom’s is, too. I was nervous to fly back to LA the next day in the midst of all the wildfire crises, but I am lucky enough not to live in the evacuation or danger zone. It feels extremely sad and scary to have a natural disaster hit so close to home. I feel guilty for not being in LA to endure the chaos, but thankful to be somewhere safe and flame-free.

6:15am We wake up early again. Today is a little easier because mom agreed to turn on the heat in the room last night, so it’s not quite so chilly as we crawl out of bed and out the door.

7:00am Another morning walk. We decide to join the 50 minute power group this time. It ends up being much like the normal paced 40 minute walk because a couple tagged along who didn’t know what they were getting into. I just like walking and being outside, and I don’t wear a watch, so I don’t mind either way.

9:00am Zumba!!! I love taking Zumba and I love that the instructors here give us belly dancing wraps with fancy silver coins hanging from them. We dance and dance and dance.

10:00am I take a yoga class on surfboards. The surfboards are indoors on platforms, so it feels a little silly, but I’m pretending to branch out and try new and different things while still doing what I do every day.

11:00am My mom and I take a TRX fusion class with straps that hang down from the ceiling and heavy kettlebells. I’m a little worried since we’ve already been working out for like 3 hours at this point and it’s marked on the schedule as a Very Difficult class, but we have a good time anyway. The instructor is entertaining, and I appreciate his enthusiasm although we stop giving full effort about halfway through the class.

12:00pm We return to lunch in the main restaurant. This time, there’s a pasta bar plus the usual lunchtime offerings. I again eat everything and end up feeling much too full after. I’m glad there is enough exercise around here to balance out all of the deliciousness.

2:00pm I meet with Leslie the psychic for a Tarot card reading. They really do have everything here! She tells me that I attract narcissistic partners (I’m a blindfolded woman surrounded by swords!) and that my near future will contain a wonderfully sunny period followed by the image of two people leaping from the windows of a burning tower. Things are looking good…

3:00pm I’m back in the room trying to write a book for National Novel Writing Month. I’ve been sticking to the daily word requirements, and I won’t let vacation knock me off track. I will end up getting knocked off track after vacation, but that’s another detail for another time.

4:00pm We make our daily visit to the spa for a quick dip. I bounce back and forth between the cold and hot tubs, and I think I could get used to this. The cold pool is very icy, but I can definitely feel a difference in my muscles the following day.

5:00pm It’s Spanish paella night! We’re excited so we get there too early and end up having some time to kill. We look around to find the “Live Ranch Music” and find that it’s an elderly man playing piano in the lobby. We run back to the room to grab our books to read on the couch by the fireplace. Someone requests that the pianist play “Thanksgiving Songs”, but isn’t sure if there are any or which ones he would like to hear.

6:00pm BINGO time! They’ve moved the game far away into one of the conference rooms, and we walk along the winding paths to get there. The adobe buildings all look similar so it’s easy to get lost here, at least for us, but there are usually signs and friendly employees to point you the right way. We have a nice time playing Bingo for prizes, but neither of us comes close to winning unlike the group of women behind us who each win 2 times in a row!

8:00pm We have to exit Bingo early to get our second round of massages. It’s not a huge loss because our cards are all duds, and getting an immediate massage is a much better prize anyway.

Our Canyon Ranch Vacation, Day 1

In case you missed it, my mom took me to the most wonderful wellness retreat in Tuscon, Arizona a couple weeks ago, and I promised I would tell you more about it. The purpose of the trip was to celebrate my belated 30th birthday. I moved to LA about a month before my b-day, so I wasn’t ready to make any travel plans to close to the move date. Luckily, my mom is retired and her golf and tennis schedule allows for frequent vacations. And, if you didn’t already know, my yoga teaching schedule does too!

I learned about Canyon Ranch when I was younger, because my mom used to go with her girlfriends for a week every year. She would come back carrying logo-bearing tote bags and fancy water bottles and tell us about pampering spa treatments, so my sister and I have always been curious. Unfortunately, Elayne the vet was busy slaving away at her internship and couldn’t join us this time. Hopefully there will be a next time when the three of us can go together.

Before leaving, I knew that we were going to a nice, outdoorsy type of spa place, but I didn’t know what to expect. My mom had revealed that there would be yoga classes and healthy cooking demos, but that’s the extent of what I knew. I imagined a bunch of older, already pretty healthy women treating themselves to spa day. But during our 4-day relaxcation, I found that Canyon Ranch actually offers a lot more than spa services. I was pleased to find a more holistic approach to health— the classes range from cardio bootcamps to lectures on technology addiction or running on an underwater treadmill. There were people of all sizes and adult ages. People suffering from loss, mental illness, and addiction. Families celebrating together. Men and women on their own learning about self-care. There seemed to be something for anyone interested in improving their physical, emotional, and mental health or simply looking to recharge and reset the system.

Here’s a daily schedule of some things that we experienced:

Wednesday

11:00am I arrive after a quick up and down flight from LAX. Driver Dan picks me up at the airport with a sign that has my name on it. I feel very elite.

12:00pm I check into the resort and find my mom at the outdoor cafe. We split a tasty portion-controlled salmon burger and some desert bars. I learn that everything on the menu is all-inclusive, but it’s not a buffet, so you can really order one of everything on the menu if that’s your game.

1:00pm We’re early, so our rooms aren’t ready yet, which doesn’t bother us. We stop at a shoe shop in the hallway to talk to the foot specialist about my lingering foot problem (I have a bone spur on one of my heels). Before I even stand up out of the chair, she comments on my right foot collapsing inward. She watches me walk from 4 angles on a treadmill and has me step across a sensory pad. My mom and I both end up getting new running/walking shoes. Mine are meant to correct the way I’ve been compensating for the heel spur. This ends up being the most valuable life takeaway of the trip for me. I can run pain-free again!

3:00pm We take our first class— Yogilates. I realize that I miss the strength and slow control of Pilates; it was my gateway into yoga and my first teaching stint. I feel inspired to incorporate it more into my yoga classes.

4:00pm We stay for Yoga Vinyasa flow, even though I said I was going to branch out and try other forms of movement on this trip. Oh well. You can take the yogi off the mat, but you can’t put the yogi back into a room full of mats and expect them not to practice.

5:00pm We decide to skip meditation class, having just done two hours of controlled movement and breathing. We head to the room to check in and unpack.

5:30pm We visit the spa area and change into our bathing suits and plush robes. There’s a eucalyptus aromatherapy room, a regular steam room, a sauna, two hot tubs, a cold dipping pool, showers, a nude sunbathing area (maybe good for sunning the skin, but I’m with my mom, so come on…), and a room where you can apply masks and body scrubs. And if you lose your towel or robe there are about 600 other towels and robes available to you.

6:30pm Dinner time. I order almost everything, and it is all delicious.

8:30pm My mom made us facial appointments. What a treat! I would pay a lot of money just to lie down on the facial bed again because the way it is sloped and padded makes me the most comfortable I’ve ever been. Usually I would change someone’s name if I’m going to talk about them, but Euvgenia, my Eastern European facialist, has the most amazing presence and facial skills. Seek her out! Afterwards I visit the restroom where all the walls and ceilings are mirrors and there is a hanging chandelier. I can’t tell if I’m just extremely relaxed or I’ve been transported into a Las Vegas drug-induced experience. 10 out of 10 either way.

10:00pm Easy bed time.

Family Fun

Do you know how it feels to decide exactly what you want from a very young age, and then work hard every day throughout your life in pursuit of that goal? Me neither!

But ya know who does? My sister! Last weekend our family traveled to Boston to celebrate her success in achieving her lifelong dream of becoming a veterinarian.

We enjoyed brunches and blueberry beer, and I almost fell asleep post-red eye at the Red Sox game. It was a celebration of dedication, persistence, and family in the wonder of New England spring.

Happy Mother's Day

Moms! They're mostly the best, simply for growing you inside of them for almost a whole year and then usually taking it even further to always be there to answer your frantic string of phone calls when you need something, in spite of the times when you might have ignored all their text messages, phone calls, and voicemails when you didn't need anything. They are putting up with a lot every day!

Mine is the type who will spontaneously come to Delaware, Texas, or California whenever you ask her to, with about two weeks notice or less. She's often the "Why not?" when everyone else around me has said "No" and the "Get both!" when two items at the store are asking me to choose just one. She's a woman who made it so that I never wondered what, as a female, I would be able to do. Jobs, sports, solo travels, equal paychecks, using my voice to speak my mind-- there has never been a doubt that the whole world of possibility is open to me. 

We may not always see eye to eye on things like having health insurance or not needing a cosigner for a housing lease at age 30, but I love her and can't imagine a life without such a fierce lady to guide the way.

Guess what? It's gonna be...

Just kidding, y'all. It's already May. But I did go to see Justin Timberlake on April 30th and, if you are asking me, he missed the chance to turn himself on stage into a living meme.

Of course, the show was still rhythmic and smooth, and I got to dance to "Cry Me a River" next to my mom which was everything I'd hoped it would be and more.

My aunt and cousin flew down from Portland with a group of their family friends, and we spent a little gals' weekend exploring Pasadena. Pasadena is a good place to go if you like nice things and if you like pretending you live in a quaint small city where you can walk places instead of in one of the most sprawling urban metropolises in the world.

We went to Universal Studios on Saturday, which was how you would expect Universal Studios to be on a Saturday, but we really enjoyed ourselves. It turns out that long lines are a great time for catching up with friends and fam. One of the gift shop employees gave us speed passes for the Harry Potter castle ride which really sent our day at the park above and beyond. Thank you gift shop man! It was so nice to have a whole weekend to relax and reconnect with family and new friends.