A Perfect Day at Badger Pass

Tucked between the mountain crests of Yosemite National Park is Badger Pass. This hidden gem boasts of three (functioning) lifts and 8 runs, all of which bear intimidating names such as, Turtle, Beaver, Rabbit, and Chipmunk, which may be a true testament to the level of difficulty of said runs. A serious skier may scoff at our humble local ski resort, but after the countless days I spent there during high school, I feel a certain loyalty to the mountain.

Most days of skiing are good at the very least, but every now and then there's a day that surmounts the rest, usually when the mountain is covered in a blanket of fresh powder. Joel and I were lucky enough to have such a day while we were home for the holidays. There were 8-10 inches of powder, blue skies and practically no crowds. Pure bliss.

Newport Boat Parade

My amazing friend Amanda has connections with a family that lives on the Newport Marina and invited me to view the Christmas Boat Parade with them from their Duffy boat. I love boat rides, and Christmas lights, and Amanda so I was thrilled to accept the invitation. As expected, the parade did not disappoint, nor did the immaculately decorated homes. I've seen the parade in years past, but trolling around the Marina amongst the lights added another layer of awesome to the evening. Thanks Mander!

Private Joel Hendrickson

Joel came home from Fort Knox, KY for the holidays! It was great to see him and crazy how much he's grown up in the last few months! I guess the Army really does turn boys into men.

The Accomplice: Hollywood

This year our office did something a little unconventional for our holiday party. Instead of the typical evening of dinner or bowling, we got tickets for "The Accomplice: Hollywood," something my boss had seen promoted by Niel Patrick Harris on a night show.

Initially, I didn't know what this was, and honestly, even after looking at the intentionally vague website, it was still unclear what exactly what we were signing up for, but I figured that anything that Neil Patrick Harris had his hand was sure to be fun at the very least. We scheduled our "show" for a Saturday in December and were told that we would receive a call the day before the show regarding our meeting place...

I don't want to say too much and give anything away in case any of you decide you want to do this, but I will say that it was great. Even despite the incessant rain and slipping all over the completely tractionless Hollywood sidewalks (Seriously, really poor planning Hollywood.), we all had a great time, had some good laughs, and were introduced to some interesting places.

Running in the Rain

One of my New Year's Resolutions last year (I always have about 20...) was to run in a race of some kind and I am proud to say that as of last weekend I exceeded my goal by completing my second 10k of the year! Jenn, Rhianna and I spent the last two months training for the Santa Monica Christmas Run and we were happy to finish strong last Saturday, despite the torrential rains that so conveniently decided to pour down that morning. The rain didn't phase us, we are far too hard core to let a little water slow us down,  but we were quite the sight in our rain coats and ponchos. 

A Long Time Gone

Over the years I've taken innumerable trips between LA and my hometown, Oakhurst, but I only consider a few of them to be "road trips." Last weekend was one of them. 

Jenn's sisters were hosting a bridal shower in the mountain area so we; Jenn, Eric (her fiancee), Rhianna (a fellow bridesmaid), and myself decided to make a weekend out of it. Our weekend was complete with a 10k training run, an outing to the one of the local bars (dare I call it a "saloon?"), and a quick trip to Yosemite. 

Here's a quick glimpse at our weekend;

This is the view from what used to be my bedroom window. 

The (glorious) Hitching Post

Proof that kids are allowed to run amuck in mountain bars...

Even with pictures it's hard to capture the feel of the evening, there's just something special about a small town bar. We saw a handful of people we knew from earlier phases of our lives, including Jenn's first kindergarten boyfriend, and my older brother's best friend for all his life until they recently lost touch. We kept hoping we'd see an old high school teacher to complete the evening. No luck. 

We also got a taste of Christmas in Oakhurst as we witnessed the annual tree lighting. It's a big community event and Santa always makes his grand entrance in a fire truck. Each of the small trees around the big tree represent one of the mountain area schools and are decorated with ornaments made by the students at each respective school. I made many an ornament in my day, ahh,  memories. 

We ventured up to Yosemite despite predictions of snow. 

Ice Skating in Curry Village was  the main focus of the day. The rink was practically deserted, and with a dusting of snow, some hot cocoa, and half dome towering over us it make for a fabulous afternoon. 

My friends have serious skating skills. 

Merry Merry Jolly Jolly

Ok, guys, the holidays are upon us and we need to take advantage of the festivities! It is a personal holiday requisite of mine to see at least one boat parade each year because they so effectively spread the Holiday Cheer, so expect to be hearing from me, dear readers, to see if you can join me for any of the following parades. :)

Naples (Long Beach): December 19

Newport: December 16-20 with fireworks on the 20th

Venice Canals: December 13 (This one is elusive. Last year the date changed last minute and we went on the wrong night...)

Marina del Rey: December 12 with fireworks

Japanese Furoshiki

My mother is amazingly talented and artistic. She made great efforts to raise four little artist prodigies and always made sure that our grubby little fingers had paints, crayons, paper, pencils, clay, beads, and multiple other art supplies within reach. I truly believe that the artistic gene skipped over me, but my mom seems to think that I have a little artist child inside that will grow with proper love and nurturing. She may be right, as I do love the arts and try to grasp opportunities to do projects and crafts when I can, although judging by my artistic output, my artist child is probably about 5 years old...

Last weekend the Santa Monica Museum of Art held and art workshop to benefit the Ocean park Community Center which helps homeless individuals and families. The art project was to make an original Furoshiki, a Japanese wrapping cloth, which would be used to wrap food donations being sent to families in need. The museum had a room designated a room for the project which was full of tables filled with art supplies and happy citizens decorating their cloths. We were each given two tea cloths, one to decorate and keep for ourselves and the other to donate. I had a great time drawing and painting and was happy to take part of something for such a good cause. 

Long Beach

I know that for some, the city Long Beach is associated with Sublime and Snoop Dogg, riots and minority uprisings, but my Long Beach is much less intense than all that. I spent four glorious years studying at CSULB and have many beautiful memories associated with the city as a result. A few of my good friends are still in the area so I ventured out of my ever shrinking "Santa Monica Bubble" and went for a visit this weekend. And as tends to happen when visiting these days, after exiting the freeway I was overwhelmed with the comfort of familiarity and felt like I had arrived "home." I even went so far as to stop at my usual gas station and run a few errands before meeting the crew.

We took a stroll down the beach to 2nd street and did some window shopping.

Upon returning to my friend's apartment we received a group email from another of our close college friends who recently moved to Peru. Since the three of us were together we decided to call her and say hello. If you'd like to live vicariously through a real live traveler, as I do, you should check out her blog; http://annienperu.blogspot.com/. She takes some stunning photos.

Thai food from Baiplu was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Bachelorette party: Las Vegas

My good friend Jenn is getting married in two short months and to celebrate her last days of singledom we took a trip to Vegas!  

I will leave the details of our weekend to your imagination, really, a weekend in Vegas doesn't need much explanation, but I will say that my craving for a "European" night out was thoroughly quenched. Two years in Spain were enough for me to adapt the mindset that anyone who goes home before 4am on a night out has not really taken advantage of the evening and deserves to have everyone give them a hard time for going home so "early" ("Vas a casa ya abuelita? Solo son las 3...").  Thankfully, Vegas makes it easy to stay out until all hours, and we did. 

I leave you with an image from Sunday's breakfast which was our last stop in Las Vegas and our first step back to normalcy...

Andalucia: Birthplace of Flamenco

"Flamenco music is one of the most technically demanding, yet least understood music in the world today."

I won't pretend to have an extensive knowledge of Flamenco music, but I consider myself very lucky to have lived in the region of Spain where it originated. While living in Granada, I saw a few phenomenal performances in the Albyzin and Sacromonte, most likely never to matched outside of of Andalucia, that gave me a profound appreciation of the music and dance.

A friend of mine is a dancer who specializes in Flamenco and was performing with her dance company this weekend. She'd told me about the performance weeks ago but recommended that I wait to see a later show that would supposedly be more impressive. I'd decided to wait until I discovered a few days before the show that there would be live musicians (!!!) which was the ultimate selling point. By the time I was trying to get tickets the show was completely sold out, but fortunately, my friend was able to find an extra one for me amongst her fellow dance company members.

The theatre was really small so it was no wonder the show was sold out. I took advantage of being alone and slipped into a single "buffer" seat between two couples seated in the third row. (This is an American phenomena that will forever perplex me. From my experience, no one in any other country would be so obsessive of their personal space to leave open seats between themselves and others when sitting down in a theater. Why do we do this?)

It was an enjoyable show. Three different groups of dancers performed. Two were part of the dance school and one was the dance company, of which my friend was a part. She was definitely the dancer of the group that the drew the eye during the performance because she had the sharpest, most authentic performance. This can probably be attributed in part to the three months of training she had in Sevilla, Spain.

Flamenco is such a passionate song in itself that when the musicians performed a few songs without the dancers, my undivided attention on the music combined with my memories of Granada was enough for me to get a little emotional. I suppose that means it was good. :)