The Throwback to February Post

Ok, so here this is, even though it was the beginning of the year, just because I already had it written!

After journeying with me halfway across the country for the 4 or 5 days it took us to drive out here when I moved to California, Christy didn’t get to spend much time here. But now she has made it back to San Diego, this time in an airplane! So since she was with me for almost 24 in California the first time, I think this counts as a return visit. Yay! Just one with more time in California and less time everywhere else!

We tried to have all sorts of fun in San Diego this go around.  (Although how could we beat multiple state geocashing, Mike the Headless chicken, and adventures with the Becky head?) Well, we gave it our best go. We did some whale watching, at which we also saw a very large band of sea lions all swimming and diving, presumably trying to catch fish. The marine life folks on the boat said they had never seen something like this before.

 

We explored the beach at Coronado Island, which I really like. There were a ton of shells washed up on the shore in one area, including many sand dollars! This is the first time I’ve ever seen a live sand dollar, so that was pretty exciting. Here are a couple, with a coin next to them for purpose of showing the various sizes. 

 Here's Christy and I hanging out on some rocks on Imperial Beach (at Coronado).

Christy and Ethan and I also had a fun time exploring Balboa park, seeing cool buildings and interesting plants, holding some birds and feeding some ducks a dog biscuit. Which they seemed to enjoy quite a bit.  

 We also explored the cove, and a new cute dessert shop, and ate some great fish tacos, all in La Jolla. And drank lots of coffee. Of course we went to Birdrock Coffee. Its pretty much a must!

It was great to have Christy in San Diego and I can't wait until she comes back!!

At long last?

Uh, this is kind of awkward. That first post after you haven't posted in a really long time. And I already felt awkward enough about not having posted, but now people are commenting too . . .

I never promised to be good at this (see first post, lol), and I've partially written at least 2 posts since the last one, just never finished them and never posted them.

So it took me awhile to figure out how to proceed. So here's what I came up with. I thought I would give a quick list (actually its not so quick) of all the things that have been going on, for those of you who are trying to keep up. Some were the usual kind of stuff I generally post, like friends visiting, ect. Some is really real life stuff, the kind that has been hard and sad and isn't the most fun to write about. But since it is called “Adventures and Real Life”, and since I mostly post stuff that is more adventurey, I'll tell you the real life stuff too.

So here it all is. In some semi-kind of order, but not exactly. Sorry for how long this is. I guess a lot happens in a year.

In February my friend Christy, who first debuted on the blog on the move to California, came to visit. It was awesome to have her back. I pretty much wrote a whole post about this, and I think I'll just post it next, kinda like those throwback thursday things that happen on facebook. :)

Then in March my friend Jennifer followed for her second visit to San Diego, which was great. Always glad to have people back!

My grandfather, whom I was close to and had lived near to for 4 years of my grad school career, passed away in April. This was hard. I was very grateful to be able to go home for the funeral. It was a good time of remembering him and spending time with family.

In May, my friend Ashley, (who is the one who got me to start this blog) came with her husband and I got to hang out with them and Tomomi, so that was cool. I was so looking forward to posting about that since she was the blog instigator, but I didn't get to it, and I think she still has the picture of us all! Hey Ash – if you are reading this, if you send me the pic of us all outside the Mexican restaurant, I will put it up!

A couple from church that I was good friends with (the ones I went to Six Flags with), moved to the east coast. I miss them.

I had the pleasure of being in the wedding of two other friends from the UCSD Graduate Christian Fellowship. It was great to celebrate with them. But then they moved to the east coast too.

My parents came to visit at the beginnig of July. We had a great time! Some highlights were touring the Taylor guitar factory and trying to watch the San Deigo fireworks. . .

In July, I moved out of my apartment and in with Vickie, a gal from church. I'm renting the spare bedroom in her adorable house in the North Park neighborhood of San Diego. She has a cat, Peepers, and an adorable new black lab puppy, Ninja. They keep us both on our toes. And give me plenty of amusing stories to tell people at work! But now I do have a 30min freeway commute to work. Which has been different but is working out okay. (got rear-ended on the on ramp the second week of it all though. could have been much worse)

Oh, but before I moved in with Vickie, I was “in transition” between places for 2 weeks. So I had fun living with Cynthia, my friend from lab, and her absolutely adorable kitties, Jorge and Marcus. (they are the best kitties ever! Don't tell Marcus, but Jorge is my favorite) :)

My friend Erin also came for her second visit to San Diego. We had some fun despite my getting sick. She is the first visiting friend to see the new place!

My (now no longer) boyfriend got a faculty position, also on the east coast. (notice any patterns here?). He moved in August. Sadly, we broke up some weeks following the move. Still hurts, not gonna lie. But I guess that's what these things tend to do. Hurt for a while. I'm hoping the "and then get better" part is not far off. Feels like it is taking its sweet time.

Sometime earlier this in the year, maybe March, I added in a new project at work. Although interesting, the nature of it was for me very exhausting. I have great respect for all the scientists who do this type of cell project, but after feeling very mentally and emotionally exhausted from the nature of the project mixed with everything else going on in my life at the time, I took a break from the project in September. Don't know if I will rejoin it again or not. . . I sure feel better without it. And its not like I don't have other things to do.

I got some much needed rest and relief from these exhausting and sad parts of life in September by going to visit my friend Cari and her family in Colorado. I hadn't seen them since I stayed with them on my drive out to California, so it was great to catch up with them and all the changes in their life. Nothing to make you feel better than an a good friend you've known for a long time!

I had another birthday. Cynthia made pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting (both things I love!). And my housemate took me to see Wicked, which I have never seen before! It was really cool, I had a great time!

Now its almost Thanksgiving, and then almost Christmas! I'm looking forward to going home at the end of the year.

So that's pretty much it. I'm sure I could have elaborated more on everything, but maybe just putting it all out there and then moving on with present life (except for maybe a throwback post or some pictures) seems like a good way to go. Until next time, which I hope won't be that long again!

It's been too long. . .

Well, again, I’ve let quite a bit of time go by without updating the blog. (Sheepish looks abound.) I think back at the very beginning I never promised to be very great at this. . .

I guess the end of the year and the beginning of the next is usually a pretty busy time, so perhaps its okay!

Some highlights. . .I’ve seen a few friends in the last few months.  My very good friend Danielle just happened to be in California for a bit of time in October/November.  I’m so very glad that it worked out for her to make it down to San Diego to visit me!! She came just after my birthday too, so seeing her was a good late birthday present! We realized we have been friends for almost 20 years. Over half my life. That’s a long time. Pretty cool to still have people around  for that long in my life, and that even though we have changed and found ourselves  here and there geographically over the years, that we still consider each other a dear friend.

While she was here, we explored a new beach up near Encinitas, and of course what is a beach trip with a coffee loving friend without Peet’s on the beach!      

I did get to go home for Christmas again. I’m very grateful that I missed the very very cold days the Midwest had shortly after the new year, although it was cold enough for me while I was there! We made it down to Kansas to visit family in Wichita and Canton like we usually do. It was good to be home, even though I had just been back in August.

I got to spend New Year’s in California, but up in the Bay area with Ethan. They have nice beaches there too :). Here is a pic of Half Moon Bay which we visited with his family.

Also, my high school youth pastor and his wife happened to be vacationing here in SD after Christmas and stopped by to have lunch with me at work! It was great to catch up with them!

And now is when I try to blame the fact that I didn't get all this posted sooner on being sick twice and getting jury duty within the first 6 weeks of the new year!  First time ever summoned, got put on a case. I was juror #8. Fun stuff.  Also, got to go to a Gungor concert. Pretty Awesome. I"m sorry if you don't know who they are. You should find out.

And now I’ve had 2 friends visit in the last month, which has been great as well.  Perhaps I will leave more stories for those for the next post!  Which hopefully will not be so long in coming.

San Diego Neighborhoods

Boy it has been awhile since I have posted! Sorry to be so sporadic.  Just have had a lot going on.

I’ve been saving some pictures to put up a post about something I find neat about San Diego. I think many big cities have neighborhoods, and San Diego is no exception.  It has been fun exploring the quaint neighborhoods, finding places to eat, coffee to drink, ect. (parking in most of them is not the part I find quaint, haha) One of the things I really enjoy is that some of the neighborhoods actually have signs!

Little Italy:

Little Italy is near downtown and the waterfront. Its awesome, because as I’m sure you can guess, it has lots of great Italian food. The other thing that is neat about it is that it has this Farmer’s Market full of fruits and vegetables, flowers, crafts, and food vendors galore!  I first went to this Farmers Market last fall with some gals from church - Diana, Grace, Hong, and Victoria. I had a very interesting food experience here (I think I told you in my post from Sept 2012  that I would tell you about what I ate there and post a picture. Well, here it finally is!)  We all decided to split. . . . A SEA URCHIN!!! And here we all are pictured with it! So, when you buy it, it is technically still alive on ice. They pretty much just cut off the top, and you eat the stuff inside. It kind of tastes/has texture like salty buttery flan. Well, at least I can say I’ve tried it! OH! And Little Italy is home to Extraordinary Desserts, which if you have been following the blog (or come to visit me!) has come up before. I need not say more. :)

North Park:

North Park is also a neighborhood full of awesome places to eat, and people do actually live in this neighborhood too. I was introduced to North Park by my friend Cerise. She’s cool like that. We went to this great breakfast place, and then we went to this coffee shop called Café Calabria. In part, I really like it because it has character, and I feel like I could actually sit and hang out in it, unlike the coffee shops near where I am in University City/La Jolla, where they are all so busy and all chains anyway. (even though I love Peets!)  And this is one of those coffee shops where they make awesome designs in the foam of your coffee. The second picture of coffee is a drink they have there (which I've never seen anywhere else) called Bicerin. It's basically Nutella, shot of espresso, and a bit of foam. Stir and drink the chocolately hazelnutty coffee goodness. Yum.

Birdrock:

So Birdrock is this small neighborhood south of downtown La Jolla and north of Pacific Beach. All I know about it is that to get through it you have to go around 5 consecutive roundabouts, and that there is this fabulous coffee shop called Birdrock Coffee. It is the San Diego version of Stumptown, for those of you who know what that is. They roast their own coffee and you can get a cup of Chemex coffee, purportedly the best way to make coffee ever. And Amy, my friend who I tried out this great coffee place with (see pic below!), thinks its better than Stumptown. :)   The coffee shop is a few blocks from the beach, and its pretty open – all the windows/walls in the front are open, you can feel the cool sea breeze as you sip your latte. Totally chill. The morning we went there, they had live music, and they apparently do this quite often!  It was really great.  Everyone else thought so too 'cause there were a lot of people there!  Means it must be a great place. I need to go back. . .

Gaslamp District:

This part is downtown, near the San Diego Conference Center, so I’ve been here for Society for Neuroscience meetings before I ever even moved here! We would come down here to find lunch and dinner while at the conference. I don’t actually spend much time there at all in now that I live here. It is full of random shops, clubs, and restaurants, and houses the Ghirardelli Chocolate Store. It’s like a coffee shop, only for chocolate and ice cream.  And by this I really just mean, it smells like chocolate! And you can buy chocolate, and gigantic ice cream sundaes covered in fudge and brownies!  (this gives me good memories sharing these sundaes with several good friends on fun trips to Chicago too. . . ) 

And I’m leaving out Hillcrest, Clairemont, all the beaches (Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, ect), Bankers Hill, Point Loma, and many more. I haven’t even explored them all!  Just wanted to share a few highlights I’ve found though!

So. . . maybe this post really was an excuse to talk about food and coffee. . .

Of Corn and Camping & Friends and Family

Ah, summer vacation back home. It came at a truly needed time. The excuse to get away was to two-fold. One – so that I could attend another annual camping-kayaking weekend with my Iowa City friends (plus see everyone who didn’t go), and two – to go home and see family at our yearly whoever-can-make-it this year mini reunion.

I flew into Omaha, but immediately then next day drove out to Iowa City. Oh how good it was! I hadn’t been back to Iowa City since I moved last June. It was even pretty awesome to drive on the interstate for 4 hours to get there, spending only 25 min in anything that looked like a city and being surrounded by green cornfields stretching to all horizons the rest of the time! Oh, there is something utterly fantastic about being in the middle of nowhere!

It felt so good to be back in Iowa City. It was almost as if I had never left. . . except I couldn’t remember lots of street names and was pretty forgetful about how to get to places I used to know well! However, I had NO PROBLEM getting to Oasis for some hummus and falafel. :) Oh, how I have missed this place! Oh how I have missed Iowa City food in general! Post my Oasis fix, I met up with my friends Katya and Dan to head out to the campsite for the 3^rd year of Camping and Kayaking with Iowa City friends! We went to a different camping place this year than we have gone to in years past. The campsite was. . . so Iowa.  Hehe. It was a picnic bench and a fire pit located on a strip of grass in between a gravel road and a field of corn. Forget camping next to trees. Why not corn? Although it was rather strange, we actually had quite a fabulous time! It was a rather quiet campsite, and I think it is more about the company one spends the time with than where one spends the time at.  A total of 8 of us made it out for this years adventure, and we had quite a blast kayaking down the river, telling funny stories around the fire pit, and drinking our French press coffee for breakfast each morning. (can we say, coffee snobs even when camping? I even brought Peets with me.) And again, it was so great to spend some time in the middle of nowhere, with only friends around. Thanks so much Katya, Dan, Christy, Sarah, Erin, Jenni and Josh for a wonderful weekend! (and thanks to everyone who's pictures I borrowed for below!)

 

I hope this gives you the idea at least, of our campsite next to the corn. The picnic bench is kind of small. And of course we couldn't resist the pictures in the corn!

After the camping I had time to catch up with other great friends whom I miss so much! I got to see Jennifer, and the DuBrava’s, Melissa (and we got to go visit Melissa’s parents, her sister Anna, and their adorable new dog!), Becky, Karen, Jean, Huy, and some of my old lab people. 

Here’s a pic (missing Melissa, who is taking the picture) of a great dinner with some fantastic gals that I miss very much!

After all the fun and friends in Iowa City, it was back to Nebraska for me! I spend the first day and a half in Omaha where I got to hang out with Ani and the kids (and see Jacob for a bit) and then spend some time with Sara and Matt and family in their new house! After that it was hanging out with my family! Although we weren’t a big crowd this year, it was so good to see everyone who did come. I think the life of the party this year was my cousin Jenny’s three adorable girls, so full of energy! And so cute! I felt a little old this year as my youngest cousins Faith and Grace (who recently got their drivers’ licenses) drove my brother and I down to see Grandpa. I remember when they were born. . . now they can drive! We did a lot of eating good food, hanging out around my parents’ house, playing games, going to the park with the girls, and visiting Grandpa. I miss home. One night, a number of us found ourselves on the deck as the sun was setting, just enjoying the actually very nice summer weather, with the smell of grass and earth in the air, listening to the sound of the cicadas. It was so peaceful. I appreciate the chance to have gotten a little bit of time just to slow down, and sit and enjoy such a little pleasure in life with people I care deeply about. Something I forget to do when life get so busy and stressful.

I'm so glad I made it home for the mini-reunion this year, it was so great to see everyone! I didn't get too many good pictures this year of us all, so perhaps I just leave you with a picture my cousin Jenny took (as long as its okay with her if she reads this!) of my brother and Grandpa and I.