A San Diego Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we decided to drive to San Diego to spend it with Ricky's family. Ricky has made this drive once on his own, but I hadn't ever made the drive from San Jose to San Diego. Ricky said it was about 7 hours without traffic. That seemed long and I didn't know if it would be worth it for such a short trip. But airfare was pricey and we couldn't get any extra time off work, so we drove. We left on Wednesday right after work, and drove back on Sunday.

We left right at 2:00 pm on Wednesday, and traffic was pretty bad in one spot on the 101. We got to San Diego around 11:00 pm. I like road trips that are about 3 to 4 hours, so the end of that drive was a little miserable for me. I was actually exhausted after work, so Ricky did most of that drive.

Anyways, on Thanksgiving, we started the day by going to Balboa Park. It was so nice, and reminded me a little of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Some of it was closed for the holiday, but it was fun just walking around and I feel like we still got to see a lot!

Here is a look at the Japanese Tea Garden - so pretty!

This is outside the Prado Restaurant, where their neighbor works

We wanted to go inside the Botanical Building, but sadly, it was closed.

It was actually double-closed, because it was Thursday and a holiday!

Ricky and his brothers had to recreate the statues lol

You can see Ricky running away in the background after helping Jake onto Alex!

Loved this tree!

We actually didn't get pictures of Thanksgiving dinner that night, but that was fun! It was at Aunt Heather's house, and it was delicious! We played some Super Smash Brothers and Family Feud after dinner.

On Friday, we went to lunch with Ricky's friends Fernando and Brian. Fernando chose Chick-Fil-A since there's not one too close to him. I honestly thought Chick-Fil-A was only a Utah thing, so we enjoyed eating there. It was actually totally outdoors! You walk up to the window and order, then sit in the outdoor seating and get your food from the counter when your name is called. It did also have a drive-thru. We then went to Brian's house and hung out. We played some Toontown Rewritten, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, and we watched a show. Brian's parents ordered us pizza, which was delicious! That was a fun day!

On Saturday, Alex gave Ricky a badly needed haircut! Then we took the family pictures for the Christmas cards outside in the front yard. Later, we went to Old Town San Diego and went to the Mormon Battalion museum. That tour was sooo good (and it was free), and I highly recommend it for anyone visiting San Diego!

Ricky getting a haircut!

The Mormon Battallion Historic Site

In front of the Mormon Battallion

Panning for gold after the tour

At the end of the tour, they took a nice picture of us to keep

Lastly, here are some photos of Teddy and the new addition to the family, the cat Sia. Also, a photo of the traffic we were in driving back on Sunday. It was bumper to bumper on the 5. It took us just under TWELVE HOURS to get back home! We left at 9:15 am, and arrived home at 9:05 pm. That was literally the worst drive ever! Traffic was so bad!!!!!

Bumper to Bumper traffic for hours - absolutely miserable!

Mom's Visit, Part 2: San Francisco

On Saturday, we headed to San Francisco. We went to Golden Gate Park again, which is probably our favorite thing to do there. We started off with the Harmon Tower, which is a must-do in Golden Gate Park, and absolutely free! Then we walked by the Lily Pond, where Ricky found some blackberries. We then went to the Conservatory of Flowers, and walked around the exterior, which was beautiful. We didn't want to pay to go inside though. We decided to pay to go into the Botanical Garden, which was the same price, but sounded like it had more to do. It was pretty fun. There are so many small parts inside of it, such as a Redwood Trail, Garden of Fragrance, and Ancient Plant Garden, to name a few. Our favorite part was probably the Garden of Fragrance. But I also enjoyed the Ancient Plant Garden. It was a little confusing at times because there were so many paths, but not enough signs. So at one point, we thought we should be in the California Garden, but we were really in the Succulent Garden. Anyways, Golden Gate park is huge and we still haven't seen it all! See last year's San Francisco trip for more San Francisco adventures.

Harmon Tower

Ricky and I found the same spot we stood in last year for a picture. Last year, you could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, but it was too foggy this time. P.S. I'm wearing the same shirt and Ricky's wearing the same jacket as last year!

Mom at the Conservatory of Flowers

There were plenty of flowers outside the building!

Ricky in the succulent garden (I think)

We ended with dinner at Cliff House! My mom had the salmon with lentils, I had the pork chop with broccolini, and Ricky had the braised lamb with shiitake mushrooms. Ricky's favorite part was the shiitake mushrooms, and my favorite part was the cornbread with sausage that came on the side for me. It was a crumble and it was SO good! The view was also beautiful!

Mom's Visit, Part 1: Shopping and Apple Picking

My mom came and visited us over the weekend a couple weeks ago. It was so fun to have her here! Our weekend started on Friday, which was our Girls' Day! We started off the day getting pedicures. It was so nice! The chairs had massage, and were amazing! We felt so relaxed afterwards. It was a great way to start the day!

After getting pedicures, we headed to the Gilroy Outlets to do some shopping! My family loves the Park City outlets, and I realized the Gilroy Outlets are my version of those. It's a little bit of a drive, but worth it for the deals!

My mom with her cute little basket in the Jelly Belly store!

After shopping, we headed to Gizdich Ranch to go apple picking! I had some apple pie, then we got to work picking our apples! It was a fun experience! And the drive to get there was through the mountains, and really pretty!

We got to pick 4 types of apples: red delicious, golden delicious, gala, and pippin.

We ended the night watching a movie. It was a wonderful day!

A day in the life

Most of the time I just share stories about the trips I go on. Well I thought I would share a little about a pretty typical week for me.

So when I go to the downtown EY office, to avoid paying $7-10 for parking, I will often take the light rail.

Here is one of the stations kind of near my house. Normally it is pretty non-descriptive, but it looks like today, someone left some notes for me to look at!

Looks like there is a little spanish learning going on there!

Looks like I was having some framing issues, but here is part of one of the light rail cars

And here is the park right by my office where I get out. Looks like there were some Geese that day.

I don’t always go to the office in downtown. A lot of the time I work out of client locations, which can be all over the bay. Last week I spent some time in Palo Alto. As I was walking to get some boba, I walked by the city hall. And saw this

Looks like some high-tech trees!

When I went to the boba place, they had a fruit tea menu, which I thought was great. But most of the fruit teas still had real tea in them! So I found an item on the menu that didn’t mention tea, and asked the store owner, just trying to make sure there wasn’t any tea in it. He asked me if I had had wintermelon before, and I said no. He said maybe I should pick something else as it is an acquired taste. I didn’t see really any other options, so I plowed ahead. Apparently you pick the sweetness of the drink at this boba place. I was going to get 100% sweetness, but the group talked me down to 50%. When I tasted it, it was pretty good, but I thought it could use more sugar. So they added another 30%. I think I will just get 100% next time.

And that was some of my travels this week, just another week in Silicon valley.