I know this is a day late but, Merry Christmas 2021! I hope you all had a wonderful, restful day with family and friends yesterday.
Yesterday my family and I pretty much did nothing. It was fantastic. We had a nice breakfast in the morning which featured my great aunt’s cheesy potato casserole recipe. Since we don’t go to her house for Christmas breakfasts anymore, she shared the recipe with us and since then, we’ve been using her recipe to keep some traditions going on Christmas morning.
After our breakfast, we opened presents and while the material goods and presents really aren’t what this season and Christmas are all about, I still really enjoy getting gifts and giving gifts! We got my sister a rice cooker for her apartment and I was very excited for her to open it. She was excited to get it too. 😊 The gift I was most excited to receive was this really cozy and big, fluffy jacket from Lululemon. The security tag was still stuck in the pocket when I unwrapped it yesterday. I didn’t want to ruin the pocket and try to take out the security tag myself, so we made a trip this morning to free my jacket from the little tag. Anyway, I can wear it now and I’m obsessed. My sister and I also got the new Mario Party game for the Nintendo Switch and we have enjoyed playing that since yesterday. Mario Party is just a good classic, fun game and you really can’t go wrong with it!
We enjoyed a really yummy pot roast for dinner last night and that was pretty much it for our day! We did also take Boo on a walk yesterday and he always enjoys walks so that’s fun.
Christmas 2021- you were a good one! I hope you all have a great rest of your weekend. Take time to be with family and enjoy the rest of 2021. See you all in the new year!
I’m sitting on a plane writing this and it most definitely won’t be uploaded until late tonight. Oopsies! I just had a wonderful weekend in California. I went to visit one of my really good friends from school. Her and her family live in Sacramento and were wonderful in letting me stay at their house for the time I was there. Just a heads up, this is going to be a long post, so get comfortable!
I arrived late Thursday night and was welcomed by cooler temperatures (in comparison to the oven that Colorado has been lately). On Friday, my friend showed me around Sacramento and we went to Old Town as well as Downtown Sacramento. Old Town was super cute and there was this fun candy store we went into. They had the most taffy I’ve EVER seen in my life. As a recommendation, I ask you all to never never never try chicken and waffles taffy. It’s gross. That’s all I have to say about that.
When we went to Downtown Sacramento, my friend and I stopped at this really pretty place for lunch called The Bank after walking around for a bit. We went to Pressed Juicery prior to lunch and both got rose lemonade and a watermelon pomegranate juice. Healthy and yummy juice options there for sure! I just wish we had one in Colorado. 🙁 I’m pretty sure they’re expanding out of California, but not quite yet…
The best way I can describe The Bank: its an old bank turned into an upscale cafeteria with really good food options. They had burgers, Mexican food, pizza, poke bowls, a bakery, and a bar. The burgers at Station 8 (that was the name of the little restaurant) were what my friend and I got. So yummy too by the way! I got the Bank burger and it came with mushroom gravy and sour cream on it in addition to many of the tradition things you find on a burger. The fries were good too, but too much for one person. If you stop by The Bank, I would recommend splitting the fries with another person.
After lunch, we walked around Downtown a bit more and then my friend took me to the Starbucks Reserve, which is basically a fancy Starbucks. There are only a couple of them in the country, I think. That was pretty cool and then I got a very yummy drink from them and a couple cup to keep (I’m a dork). I got the nitro dirty chai. 10/10 would recommend!
We finished out Friday watching movies: Primal Fear and A Few Good Men and then went to bed because the next day was going to be a long day. We were going to San Francisco!
The next day started around 6:15 in the morning and we went to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast on the way. At this moment, I remember thinking, “Thank goodness Colorado time isn’t too different from California time!” Waking up that early wasn’t too bad. I think the drive was around two hours. After finding parking, we went to Union Square and went to this one mall that had a Nordstrom with like eight different floors. There was practically an entire floor dedicated to shoes! It was crazy. At that mall, we walked around Nordstrom for a while and then stopped by American Eagle and Lululemon. I was very excited to go to the Lululemon. 🙂
After some shopping, our next stop was the Museum of Ice Cream. Wow was that a fun place to go. If you’re ever in San Francisco, PLEASE go. The amount of ice cream you receive and the fun you have is worth the price. You do need to get tickets in advance though, just a heads up.
You enter the museum by going through the “pink portal” which is just a pink tube slide. After that, my friend and I were greeted by a person in a jumpsuit with otter pops. We created ice cream names for ourselves (I was Ana Banana haha) and then moved onto the next room. The next room was a cute little diner where we got s’mores ice cream. The cone was dipped in chocolate and the ice cream was dusted with graham crackers. It fully tasted like a s’more! Room after room, we got more ice cream and got to take so many cute pictures. There was a lot of fun stuff to do in each room too!
Like in one, we got to make bracelets, there was one where we got to play with fun mirrors, there was one with those giant frosted animal cookies you could sit on, there was another with cute unicorns you could take pictures with, and there was another room where you could write words on a wall with magnetic letters. There was also a room with a pool filled with sprinkles that had a slide and diving board. That room was pretty cute too. We got ice cream sandwiches made of chocolate chip cookies and pink vanilla ice cream at the sprinkles pool.
Overall, the Museum of Ice Cream was a super fun, super interactive, and super cute place to visit. If you ever plan to make a trip to California, take your family to San Francisco and this place in particular and be prepared for A LOT of ice cream.
After our ice cream adventure, my friend and I walked around Union Square a bit more and spent an hour inside Tiffany’s. No, we didn’t buy anything, but the gentleman assisting us allowed us both to try on a few pieces which was really fun. 🙂 Maybe someday I’ll be able to afford some of that jewelry.
Our day in San Francisco was still not over! We went to Pier 39, where I got to see Alcatraz from a distance, ate a bunch of mini doughnuts covered in cinnamon and sugar, went on a carousel, and navigated my way through a mirror maze. After our fun at Pier 39, we headed to a small beach where my friend and I took some more pictures and I truly got to see the Golden Gate Bridge.
By now, dinner was rolling around and so we hopped back in the car and took a short drive over to Ghirardelli Square. There, we had dinner at the San Francisco Brewing Company (great pizza and virgin drinks there by the way!), and then went to get some chocolate. I would have ordered a milkshake or some ice cream but I was all ice-creamed-out from my adventures earlier in the day.
After dinner and some more shopping, we began the journey back to Sacramento which began with a stop at a viewpoint of the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh my goodness was it cold and windy, but the view of the bridge and San Francisco as the sun set was spectacular. Lots of good pictures from there! Then it was another two hour drive back to my friend’s house. I crashed that night, that’s for sure. The next day was going to be much more relaxed, THANK GOODNESS.
On Sunday, my friend and I went to see the new Lion King movie which I am proud to say that I really enjoyed. Disney did a fabulous job sticking to the plot of the original movie (which they’ve struggled with in their remakes, in my opinion). That made the movie a lot more enjoyable to me. After the movie, my friend and I stopped for lunch at In-N-Out because what trip to California would be complete without it?
This was my first time ever going to In-N-Out and I was pleasantly surprised by the simplicity of the menu and of course, the tastiness of the food. That was a good burger. Does it beat BurgerFi? In my opinion, no. But it was still a very yummy meal. After lunch, we went back to her house and just relaxed until it was time for me to head to the airport for my trip back to Denver and here we are in the present time. 🙂
To my friend, if you ever read this, thank you so much for showing me Sacramento, San Francisco, and just California in general! I had a blast with you and your family. And thank you to your family for allowing me to stay at your home and have fun with you all for a weekend! California is a fun state to visit and explore and I look forward to visiting it many more times to come. Have a good week everyone!
This isn’t even stuff that happened this past weekend, but it did happen the weekend before and I felt the need to share now. My mom and I had a mission, and that mission was to find a new tennis skirt at Lululemon. And of course the closest Lululemon was in Boulder. Since I was home for the weekend, I took a trip to Boulder, the home of the enemy (Go Rams!), and went to the 29th Street Mall.
I honestly forgot how scary Boulder was. I used to visit all the time considering that my dad worked at CU Boulder, but it has gotten weird, let me tell ya. There were just a lot of weird stores and the overall vibe was just a little weird. Regardless, I found my skirt at Lululemon and will happily be wearing it on the court whenever I get the chance. We also found a couple of really cute racerback tank tops and another cute shirt for working out in. I would definitely consider Lululemon to be on the more expensive side of clothing, but the quality is amazing, and their clothes last for quite a long time, so the price is worth it.
After our time at Lululemon, we walked around Macy’s and then Brandy Melville, which I didn’t realize was an actual, physical store. I’ve known that you can shop at Brandy Melville online, but like I said, I didn’t realize it was an actual store you could shop at in person. I also knew a bunch of girls that LOVED Brandy Melville clothes in high school and made the biggest deal of it, but I’ve never really understood that. If Brandy Melville is your style and you love it, I’m not judging, but still, wow.
There’s honestly a lot of clothes that are that way in my opinion. As long as you’re comfortable and confident in what you wear, then that’s awesome! There really isn’t a need to go around making a big deal of other people’s outfits, judging them for the brands they wear. Clothes are clothes, let’s keep that in mind. Kind of like with the brand Supreme, I never understood the appeal. Super limited edition, super “cool”, and super expensive. And the only thing that separated Supreme hoodies from a perfectly good and comfortable hoodie from Kohl’s or Target was the logo.
Anyway, back to the story of my weekend. After our walk-through of Brandy Melville, my family and I stopped at Starbucks (woohoo) and finished our Boulder afternoon adventure with caramel cloud macchiatos. And if you get the cloud macchiato iced, it’s even better. Honestly, the cloud macchiato is my favorite all-time drink at Starbucks. It’s beautiful and so tasty and so different from any other Starbucks drink I’ve ever had. It’s unfortunate that it’s a limited edition drink, but it’s really not too big of a deal. Hopefully they’ll bring it back around!
I hope you all have a great week. I’m glad that the weather is finally getting warmer, especially after having a horrible bomb cyclone x2 this past week. See you next Sunday!
