Going: San Francisco

I've been home from San Francisco for almost three weeks. It's actually been nice to have a break from traveling to catch up with friends, focus on getting some projects at work done, and get caught up on school. The 21 days between my San Francisco and Scotland trips (I leave on Friday!) has been the longest "travel break" I've had this year, and with how busy the rest of my life has been, it was a needed break. I'm definitely itching to get overseas later this week, but first I need to jot down a few details of my first time in San Francisco!

This was a work trip, and it was pretty jammed with work. I flew into Sacramento and immediately drove two hours to a meeting. After the meeting I had to drive down to San Francisco, which took almost five hours because of a huge rain storm and washed out roads. The meeting was fantastic and definitely the highlight of such a long travel day! Needless to say, I was exhausted and a little weary from the drive, so I opted for an easy dinner of In 'N Out in my hotel. My first choice would have been to try out some fun restaurant in San Fran, but I had to be practical and give up that dream.

I stayed near the airport, so I was south of the city, but it suited my purposes very well. My hotel was clean, comfortable, and on the water. There was a nice walking path along the water, which was a great way to start and end my days.

The meetings I had on the second day didn't start until noon, so I had a chance to get up early and go to the top of Twin Peaks, a park with a panoramic view of the city. After that, I got coffee and breakfast at a "toast bar", something I had heard about on a radio program. It was delicious, and I even went back there for a snack later that afternoon between meetings. The rest of my day was full of driving and meetings. Between meetings, I did have a chance to visit the park that is on the show Full House and drive past Fisherman's Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge, but that was the extent of my "sightseeing". 

My final day in San Fran was nothing more than a meeting and heading to the airport. I had such a productive trip, but I was a little bummed to not be able to do more sightseeing or try more restaurants. The weather was generally great, other than the rainstorm, and it was a wonderful break from the junky Minnesota weather. I'm excited to visit again when I have more time to grab some good food and enjoy a park. I've heard great things about the Alcatraz tour, and that will be my top priority when I'm back there!

Going: Indianapolis

For the last three years, my sister and I have gone to the Big Ten Basketball Tournament. It has become one of our favorite weekends of the year!

The tournament was back in Indianapolis this year. We LOVE the tournament in Indianapolis. Downtown Indy is easy to get around (we don't even get a rental car - you can walk everywhere) and the city does such a good job of hosting big sporting events. The streets are renamed for the teams, there are designated bars for each team, the hotels are decked out and prepared for all of the fans.....it is all such a fun atmosphere. 

We were lucky to get a hotel reservation - we literally couldn't find a room for months in advance, but I have a higher hotel status due to travel with my old job, so we were able to finagle a reservation. We stayed at the the Homewood Suites - a brand I've never stayed at - and we really, really liked it. The room was huge and they even have dinners during the week, so we could have had a nice, free meal on Thursday (but we chose to go to our favorite downtown restaurant). The breakfasts were great, too.

We went to all of the 11 basketball games in the four days. It really, truly is SO MUCH FUN to see so many good games. We enjoy chatting with people sitting around us, eating stadium food, and doing our best to participate in the festivities (I played a halftime game this year). My sister has Gopher season tickets and she generously takes me to quite a few games, so we get very familiar with the players on the Gophers, as well as the other Big Ten teams. 

Scotty's is our favorite place to grab a bite to eat and a drink between game sessions. If you are ever in Indy, you need to get their pickle chips and a flight of martinis. So good. 

Of course it's great to have four days of uninterrupted time with my sister to catch up and relax, too. All in all, it has become a tradition that we really look forward to, and one that makes us bummed when it is over! 

Going: Kansas City and Camp

Four days after I got back from Vegas, I turned around and went to Kansas City for the weekend. My best friends' youngest kid was having his 1st birthday party and I just couldn't miss it. We had a great weekend of just relaxing and talking and eating and not getting out of our pajamas. I drove down with a friend (who is actually my best friend's sister) and we also had a good road trip - talked about all kinds of good things and hard things, sang LOTS of songs, and just enjoyed the drive. It felt like it had been a long time since I had gone on a long drive, and since I love windshield time, it was fun to have a quick road trip.

The following weekend I went to Camp for Quilt Retreat. I brought along two friends who were new to Quilt Retreat, so it was a fun weekend of them seeing Camp (which is such a significant part of my life) first-hand. We happened to be there on what would have been Grandpa's 95th birthday. I've missed him a lot since he passed away in November, so it was very special to be at Camp on his birthday. He was one of the founders of Camp in 1947. I always feel so at home and spiritually refreshed when I'm at Camp, and that weekend was no different. 

These quick trips made the month feel pretty busy, especially in the midst of all kinds of other travels, but I'm very thankful for quick weekends away with people who know me well, love me deeply, and truly care about what is going on in my life. These trips were definitely more about who I was with than what we did. I'm thankful for the ability to get away to spend time with people who mean so much to me.

Going: Vegas

Well, it's almost been a month since I've been back from Vegas, and I've already gone on 3 more trips since that time....so I'd say it's about time I caught up on the blog! 

We left for Vegas on a Wednesday night and had a hilarious pilot - we had a ground stop because of the Vice President's visit to the cities, so once we were finally cleared for take off he said "okay folks, we're gonna fly this plane like we stole it!" The general atmosphere on a flight to Vegas is rather festive, so the passengers loved him.

We stayed at the Mandarin Oriental, which was GREAT. There is no casino, which I LOVED. I know, I know, not many people go to Vegas and love having no casino, but I just can't handle the smoke and the noise! Seriously, just get me my AARP card now! :) There was also a nice pool at the hotel, which I sat by every afternoon, and there were great (free) workout classes, which I love so much more than working out on my own, so that was awesome! 

Because of the time change, I ended up being awake VERY early every day. It was nice to get a coffee, do some reading, go to a workout class, sit by the pool....and still not even be noon! We typically ate lunch by the pool and then got cleaned up to go out for the evenings. 

I would say my favorite buffet that we went to was at the Bellagio, and I would say you could skip the buffet at the MGM. My favorite meal was at Olives, where we sat right by the Bellagio fountains. We made a reservation for right when it opened at 5, which allowed us to get a great spot to sit. I would highly recommend it!

We went to the Tim and Faith show and the Donny and Marie show. Both were SO GOOD! We had the perfect seats at both shows and I really, really loved them both!

Other than going to dinners and shows, we just had a really nice, relaxing time. Vegas has never been a place that I've been dying to visit because casinos and night life is not really my scene, but I had a great time with Mom and Ang, and I'm so glad I was invited along. Thanks for making it a fun, relaxing, affordable trip, Ang!

Planning: Vegas

My sister hasn't been out of the cold all winter, so when she called to see if I wanted to go somewhere warm with her, of course I said YES! She wanted to combine the trip with a conference for work, so she found one in Vegas and we bought our plane tickets last week. We'll be there in 9 days! Not a lot of time to plan!

The last time we were in Vegas we were little girls, so we are excited to go to shows and nice dinners this time around. Our Mom is going to join us, too. I'm glad she'll be there to lay by the pool or explore with me while my sister is at her conference. 

We're staying at the hotel where the conference is taking place, so we didn't have to choose that, but there are certainly quite a few shows and restaurants to choose from! Once again, I'm swamped with work and school, so I haven't been much help on the planning end of things, other than my input that I would love to see the Tim and Faith show!

I'm excited to have a(nother) break from school and some down time with my mom and sis! If you've been to Vegas and have a good restaurant recommendation, pass it along!

Going: Mexico

We've been back from Mexico for a week already! The worst part of vacation is definitely the coming back part. Lots to catch up on and lots of COLD. 

We had SUCH a great time in Mexico. With 8 girls traveling together for 5 days there was bound to be some drama...but there wasn't at all! We all got along great and had a completely wonderful time. 

I was admittedly a little anxious about our accommodations. Having made the reservation, I was hoping it would turn out to be a clean, safe place that was as close to the beach as advertised. It's always a little hard to know what you are getting when you do a timeshare exchange, but we were MORE than pleasantly surprised. We stayed at the El Cid El Moro Beach in the Castilla tower. It was a 2-bedroom (one room with a king bed and another room with two double beds) with a murphy bed in the living room. It was very spacious - plenty of room even in the living room, dining room, and kitchen, and there was a balcony that stretched the entire length of the suite. Also, there were 3 full bathrooms with tons of counter space, which really came in handy when 8 of us were getting ready to go out for dinner. So, all in all, it was a GREAT room! So happy about that! In addition, the resort was clean and safe, and there were two nice pools just beneath our room. The resort was right on the beach, and the beach was nice as well. We had the GREATEST view of sunsets from our balcony. Here is a picture:

We left the states at 9 on Saturday and had a direct flight to Mazatlan. When we got checked in, we put our suits on immediately and went straight to the pool. We had a few hours to relax there before some of us went grocery shopping and then we went out for dinner. We ate at Gus Gus, which was a great little open-air place with yummy Mexican food and live music. 

On our first full day, we decided to hang out at the pool and beach. We all just did whatever we wanted to throughout the day - walking the beach, grabbing snacks and drinks by the pool or in the room, laying on the beach, reading, chatting, playing the resort games (darts, volleyball, etc.), and on and on. It was a very nice, very relaxing day. We took a taxi to a different part of the city for dinner. It had a cute, vacation-y atmosphere and we ended up eating at Pedro and Lola's - more good Mexican food!

The next day we did an excursion to another beach where we rode horses, rode a banana boat in the ocean, relaxed in the sun, got fake tattoos, and talked and laughed. It was fun to change our scenery and get away from the resort for the day. That night we went to a nice Italian restaurant just across the street from our resort.

On our last full day, we did another pool/beach day. Every morning we ended up waking up pretty early (by vacation standards), which was nice since it made the days seem long and relaxing. After another great day of sun, we got more dressed up for our final night out and went to a place (that I can't remember the name of) that a few of the girls had been to on other trips to Mazatlan. There weren't many other people there, so we took it upon ourselves to start a dance party after dinner. A really fun final night in Mexico!

We didn't have to leave the resort until noon the next day, so we were able to be at the pool for a few more hours before we left. I was so glad that we didn't have to rush off in the morning. We wanted to soak in all of the sun and relaxing that we could! Of course all eight of us stood in the pool lamenting the fact that we were leaving and planning our next trip :)

The best part of the trip was having extended time to talk with my friends. We make good efforts to see each other pretty regularly, but a few hours in an evening is nothing like having hours by the pool to chat. We also had fun conversations at dinners - one person would ask a question and then we would go around the table answering the question. It was refreshing to share about our lives and have so much uninterrupted time together.

I loved this trip and I'm so thankful for my friends that made it so memorable. I feel REALLY blessed to have such fun, beautiful, godly women in my life. I feel even more blessed that we were all able to escape reality together for an extended time. I know that isn't something that everyone gets to do, so I was soaking it all in!

I have a few more posts I could do about this trip - the advantages and disadvantages of traveling "internationally", things I forgot to pack, the advantages of traveling with girlfriends, etc., etc........I promise I'll get to these posts at some point! But my next few posts will be about the plane tickets I bought this week - to Vegas and London! Wheeeeee!!

Planning: Mexico

Guess what. It turns out when you go somewhere every week or week and a half, it is very difficult to keep up with a travel blog! So I'm sorry for the lack of intended posts about planning, packing, etc....but that's just the way it is. 

I'm super swamped this week with work, school, and getting ready for Mexico. The best part of this trip has been going with seven other girls who have been reminding me of stuff to pack and things to get ready all week. We have a string of over 60 emails that we've had going for the last few weeks and it has been SUPER helpful in getting ready! AND I'm not too worried about forgetting anything - if I do forget something, I'm pretty sure one of them will have me covered. 

It has been an INCREDIBLY cold winter so far, and I'm more than ready to soak up some sun! The high in Mpls on Monday is -9 (not counting windchill) and the high in Mazatlan is 80.....wonderful!

I'll try to get back around to posting some of little "extras" I'm packing, but for now I have to get going on the actual packing! Adios!