Beverly Hills...back at home.

Today, I am back at home after my Southern California trip.  The night before we left, we had a sunset margarita in the hot tub, accompanied by some chips and salsa, and a very filling dinner of homemade enchilladas!  They were delicious.  The other girls had smores to top off the night by one of the fire pits at the hotel (obviously I had way too many enchilladas because I refused the smores!). 

The next day we decided not to get up at 5 a.m. and to take a leisurely drive up the coast and on into L.A. for a few hours of sightseeing.  Unfortunately, for reasons undisclosed here, I had a very bad morning and I was in the worst mood for the rest of the day.  Apologies everyone.

Upon stepping out of the room, we discovered the weather was not going to be on our side.  It was raining.  Lovely.  Extra to the moody pot.  We still drove up through Laguna Beach, just to say we did ;), and took a few pics and then headed into L.A. to drop of Joanne's mom's friend.  We spent a few hours in Beverly Hills, after Kristi cautiously navigated through the busy and rainy streets of the 90210.  Rodeo Drive was dead due to the rain.  We had lunch at Mr. Chow, supposedly a celebrity hot spot.  I wasn't too impressed, but we had chicken satay (mistakenly given to us by the waiter, but oh well), Chicken Joanne (lemon sauce), vegetable and shrimped sauteed/fried rice, lettuce wraps with squab (I'm told this is a kind of bird), and potstickers.  A bit pricey due to being in Beverly Hills but cool experience to say we ate there.  No papparazzi taking OUR pictures though.

We then circled the streets again...GPS...to find the Marc Jacobs store for JoJo.  WOW.  They sell a lot of pricey things there...$600 for a dress, yikes.  Who can afford that crap?!  Although, they did have some affordable stuff in there too, like wallets, keychains, rainboots....after that we went to the Long Beach Airport.  Love L.A. traffic.  NOT.  Even more so not to love:  the Long Beach Airport.  Its pretty small, a little ghetto.  The restaurant there was good though.  Rachel was kind enough to buy me a Dragon Burger and two Blue Moons to take the edge off my moody day.  Thanks RK!

The plane boarded about a 1/2 late due to some serious maintenance issues.  One of the seats had to be fixed.  We ended up in Oakland not too late; however, Joanne's dad ran into some traffic due to construction so he was a little late picking us up.  We got home to Antioch around 11:20 and said hello to the puppies who missed us dearly!  Came home to a sick husband with no voice :(  Back at work.  Hooray.

Beach Bums

Another fabulous afternoon on the beach.  Waves crashing, red wine in hand, a devilishly good Brit chick lit book set in Dublin, Ireland.  These books transplant my mind from my run of the mill life to the hustle and bustle of Europe with character names like Clodagh and Ashling.  I love it!  I will meet you one day soon Ireland.  What else....seagulls flapping in the wind and families frolicking on the beach, Taylor Swift playing on Jo's iPhone.  Simply bliss.  Large birds diving into the water in desperate search for lunch and I wonder, how do they even see the fish?  The seagulls stick to scavenging for food along the beach...and from you.  They say, "Hey you.  Yeah, you.  Gimme that cracker there."  Then you give one a cracker and the whole flock of them zoom over to you in hopes of supplementing their diet with human food.

Enchilladas for dinner!

The Beach and Aquarium

So yesterday we moved into our two bedroom condo and discovered that it also had two bathrooms!  Yay.  That works out much better.  We meandered through the streets of Carlsbad to find the elusive grocery store, Ralphs.  We needed to stock up on a few things, including smore-making ingredients.  Mmmmm.  We then headed out to a beach we saw along the way to the grocery store.  It was a bit chilly out there, since it was a little overcast.  But, the sun did poke out of the clouds every now and then and it felt great.  Of course, we took pictures on the beach and then snacked on veggies and crackers with hummus and a great big Hershey's chocolate bar, with swigs of red wine to wash it all down.  It was a great opportunity to get some reading in, although I realized that I did not remember anything from the book I was already reading.  Thats ok, I read it again and it was like new for me.  Sushi for Beginners.

Back at the room, we had a great authentic Guatamalan meal of black beans and rice with fresh salsa and BBQ chicken, steak, and shrimp.  It was delicious!  Pile that all into fresh tortillas and you've got yourself one tasty meal.  I think I ate a bit too much, my baby belly decided to make an appearance.  We all settled in after the big meal and watch Bride and Prejudice!  Yes, I said BRIDE and Prejudice...its the Bollywood-style remake of the classic Jane Austen novel.  If you like Ms. Jane, Bollywood, and singing, then this is the movie for you!  I highly recommend it, and I have seen it too many times to count :)  We could hear the waves crashing on the shore last night too.  It gives you such a feeling of serenity, not to mention it reminds me of home...Maui home.  Oh how I long for you too Maui.

This morning we leisurely got up and got ready and had a simple breakfast before we made it to the aquarium at Legoland...free tickets remember!  We spent some time there this morning.  Its always nice to see the underwater creations; the fish are so beautiful, so colorful!  I always wonder if I could sustain an aquarium at home, but then I remind myself of the difficulty at keeping up a tank, not to mention the fact that the fishies need more room than I could give them.  We're back at the room now, just polished off the rest of the beans, rice, and salsa for lunch!  We are on our way back out to the beach again.  Can't pass up one more opportunity to feel that soft sand between my toes before going back home tomorrow!

We are getting up early tomorrow to head back home, but not before making our way through the famous Beverly Hills and Hollywood areas.  Beverly Hills Cop theme song stuck in my head.  Hehe.

Another Day By the Water

Alright, so we made it down to San Diego (Carlsbad) safely yesterday evening.  Before we left Bakersfield, Joanne gave us our presents from her China trip, BEAUTIFUL handmade silk scarves.  They are so colorful and who doesn't love a good scarf.  The trip down to So Cal was much more eventful than the trip to Bakersfield!  The GPS is now Kristi's sworn enemy.  We stopped in the L.A. area to pick up a friend of Joanne's mom.  We ended up in a bit of a ghetto, although we got fresh mangos off the side of the road.  They were yummy!  Its ok.  Just a slight detour.  We made it to the right spot eventually, though Slauson Road will forever be burned in our memories.  After a so-so lunch at Denny's, where my sandwich tasted like it was grilled in maple syrup, we headed on down to the beautiful seaside.  Oops.  We went to the wrong hotel.  This was not technically anyone's fault.  The number for the hotel actually covers TWO hotels...so they gave us the wrong address.  I will have to say that Kristi gets the award for driver of the year.

We arrived at the Seapointe Resort just in time to unload our mountain of luggage (six ladies, its necessary) and to head down to a brief champagne reception.  It is really pretty down here and the condo rooms are very nice.  Our room has metal seals posed on the lawn just outside our slider!  You'll see the pics.  We spent the evening unwinding in the hot tub with our CUPS of wine.  We like to go big, so we splurged on a couple of cases of Two Buck Chuck...who doesn't enjoy a $1.99 bottle of wine :)  Believably, we crammed all six of us into a one bedroom condo for the night.

This morning we got up and headed out to the complimentary breakfast.  How can you go wrong with free eggs, biscuits and gravy, and sausage!  It was delicious and the hotel had a raffle for all the guests staying here this week.  Kristi won two tickets to an aquarium in La Jolla!  Side note, JoJo already scored free tickets to the aquarium at Legoland, which we are probably going to enjoy tomorrow since the weather forecast predicts rain for us :(  JoJo kindly donated two of those tickets to the raffle for others to enjoy.  The hotel has quite a bit of activities planned for the guests, including sailing, pizza bingo (woot), a scavenger hunt, metal drum lessons (not to be missed), and Mary Kay makeovers, among other things.  What are we going to do with ourselves!  Lol.

We also found out that we get to upgrade to a two bedroom condo!  Score!  Though we will only be staying here until Wednesday, it is still exciting to have more room.  And the hotel staff is going to move all of our stuff for us.  And yes, the upgrade was FREE.  I am dubbing today Free Day.  Its a bit cloudy and chilly outside today, so we arent sure what we want to do (definitely a trip down to the beach for me).  We'll see how the day goes.

PS, it turns out they have wireless internet here.  Sweet!

San Diego Trip - Day One Down

Woohoo!  Day One down.  We are in the lovely Bakersfield, CA and its quite an interesting place to be.  I took a peek out the window today and saw a ton of oil rigs pumping oil up on the hill.  Ah, what a sight to see!  Our ride down here was pretty uneventful.  I-5 does not exactly provide travelers with exciting scenery.  We, of course, got off to a late start.  I don't know when we are ever running on time :)  We got into the BAK just after 7:00 p.m. and we had pizza and salad waiting for us!  Yum.  Can't go wrong with pizza right?!  It was nice to see everyone again thats for sure.  We did have a slight mishap though when someone backed into our travel-mobile (aka Kristi's truck)!  Oops.  Good thing Kristi and her husband are pretty chill about it.  We also got a wonderful slide show of JoJo's pictures of her trip to S. Korea for the International Convention, and China as well.  Very cool.  Speaking of pictures, I discovered that I had left my camera battery on the dining room table at home.  I have the camera.  I even have the charger and carrying case.  How could I have left the battery at home?!  This would have been my first real trip to use my new camera.  Sad face.  Oh well, at least Rachel was prepared and I will have to steal hers from her.  It is also a nice camera and really the first camera that inspired me to take photos so I'm ok with that.

Our accomodations for the night included a camper/trailer.  Unfortunately, the "landing gear" didn't get set down so we were rocking all night.  I got a little motion sick...it reminded of me of our days living on the Dayspring...a boat my mom's ex-boyfriend owned.  A sailboat to be exact.  Yes, we lived on it for a period of time.  That was also an interesting experience that I could probably write a novel on.  Love you mum.

Its morning time and the smell of coffee permeates the air (none for me of course) and there are donuts in the kitchen and fresh french toast!  I haven't touched them yet but I don't think I can pass up a good donut.  We will probably head out in a few hours to make our way to our final destination, after stopping in L.A. to pick up one more!  We will then be six people on this glorious adventure.  I can't wait to get there.  Champagne reception anyone?  Don't know if I will be able to use a computer for the next few days so you may have to hear about the rest of the trip when I return home.  TTFN!

My Blogger Intro

So, I am starting to ride the wave of blogging.  I decided to get this up to share with everyone about the places I travel too, which at this point, does not include a long list of places.  However, I do have a few trips up and coming and I like to share my experiences with people (if they are willing to read about them!).  Thank you Kristi W. for the recommendation and Eleanore for an example of the idea, which I am now stealing from you.

Currently counting down:  3 days until we leave for San Diego (well, technically Carlsbad) via a stop off in beautiful Bakersfield, CA.  We're (me and my lovely sis-in-law RK) are going to be staying with some friends of ours at a timeshare they scored for cheap.  We'll be driving down Saturday afternoon to Bakersfield to visit my sis-in-law's family for a night, and then on down to the San Diego area the next day.  We fly back in on Wednesday, Oct. 14, on Jet Blue...scored tickets for $29.00 plus fees (thanks JoJo)!  I'm pumped to be able to have a few days off to just relax by the pool, read, drink wine, and listen to my iPod.  And we will be right by the beach, which is my happy place.  More to come on that.

Also, I am counting down yet another trip back home to Maui (yes, I try to go home at least once a year).  Will I have anything new to report?  Maybe.  And maybe I just get to write about places that I've been to a million times before.  I'll be there from Nov. 26, 2009 to Dec. 6, 2009, and my lovely sis-in-law RK will also be accompanying me on this trip.  Stay tuned for words about food, the beach, more food, and relaxation.