Catching Up Post with Guest Blogger - My Sister!

So I did a post about a week or so ago about catching up with everyone while I was a way for a quick trip with my sister to the beautiful city of Seaside CA.

My sister Lisa was with me and she took some amazing pictures which I wanted to use in a blog post, so I asked her if she would write the blog post and she did.

Without further ado...here's my sister Lisa!

Welcome Lisa! 

I have been invited by my adorably cute sister, Alicia, to write a guest post for her blog. I enjoy reading other people’s blogs but have only been moved to write one blog post a few years ago when my father passed away.  I imagine my blog page has been deactivated since then.

I work for a cemetery as the secretary/bookkeeper. My sister and I have a strong background in the funeral industry. We both worked at a funeral home and now I work for a cemetery. I am fortunate that my place of employment is progressive and believes in continuing education. 

That being said California Association of Public Cemetery Association which my cemetery is a member of,  hosts 2 annual education conferences. The conferences are usually in the“off” seasons, so while the locations are beautiful they are also usually fairly cold. I am able to take a guest so my sister lucks out to be my driver and my guest.  The conference in March was in the picturesque city of Seaside, CA.

I 100% agree with the quote in the image above. While the conferences are quite educational the best part of the trip is the ride to and fro. Sis and I are able to bond, laugh, cry, sing and most of all SHOP!!! 

I am not a shopper in any way shape or form. I generally avoid shopping like it was the plague but I do love to shop on our bi-annual mini-vac. This year I went hog wild and walked out with over $350.00 worth of merchandise; an all time max on spending. I am set with clothing and shoes for 10 years.

I am in classes from 8:00 am to about 3:30 or 4:00. Once I am released from prison, uhm Class, Sis and I usually escape for about an hour on a small drive to see the local sites. 

(all photos taken by Lisa with her iPhone)

Our first trip was a quick trip past Monterrey and Cannery Row to enjoy the view of the ocean and the splashes of the water against the rocks.  

The 2^nd day we just rested in our room at the Embassy Suites and pigged out on Chips and Salsa, which we purchased at a small Mexican grocery store. Yummy and very SPICY!

Our final day sis drove me around Seaside and showed me the many sites she uncovered while I was educating my cemetery brain. 

Alas, it was time to head home so we gassed up and Starbucked up and headed home… Oh wait, silly me! I forgot the best part… the “17 Mile Drive” featuring Pebble Beach! 

Not only do you see gorgeous views of the ocean but also Million dollar homes. I checked Zillow.com and on some of these multi-million dollar homes the property taxes alone are $20,000.00 a month. Yes a month not a Year!!!! 

All these photos that I've shared were taken on the 17-Mile drive. If you ever make it up to the Monterrey/Seaside/Carmel area please do take this tour, it's amazing!

Ok, it's me Alicia again, thank you Lisa. I love it! A blog post that I didn't have to write! Thank you sis for taking me along on these adventures, they are the high-point of my year! Love you bunches!

Catching up Post

Surprise!!! It really is me!

Tomorrow will mark almost three months since my last blog post. So much as happened! Some good, some bad.

Today I'm coming to you from the Embassy Suites in the beautiful city of Seaside California. This place is gorgeous and I'm feeling a little guilty that I'm not out there enjoying the sunshine and the smell and sound of the ocean, but I've been here two days already and I have had my share of nature! It doesn't take much, I'm really more of an indoor girl!

I'm here with my sister Lisa, she's got a conference for her job and I get to come along as her plus one. She's working 9 to 5 and I'm just enjoying the sites, shopping, eating and now sitting here in the lobby finally having opportunity to blog for a bit. 

I wish I had a picture to share with you that would portray the beauty of this place, but so far I have only taken one picture from the window of our hotel room. You can see the ocean there on the horizon.

So today is our last full day here and we leave tomorrow. I had planned to take a little road trip and check out some antique shops and thrift stores, but to tell you the truth I am dead tired! Lisa and I are both suffering from allergies and we coughed all night. Right now I have laryngitis and poor Lisa is in the a conference room across from where I am sitting and I keep seeing her coming outside to cough! She is really struggling as her lungs are much weaker than mine. She's been to doctors and they all tell her it just allergies, but that doesn't make the actual symptoms any easier to bear.

So anyway, I'm still so in love with doing art, but as usual I'm a Jack of all Trades, Master of None! I started with sketching and took a class for that, then I got into Acrylic Painting and took a class for that, I still love acrylic painting, but I've gotten away from it for awhile because I am finding it really hard to concentrate with all that is going on in my life.

The new love of my life is Mixed Media art as some of you are aware if you've been reading my blog for the past year. I'm still doing mixed media and I've joined several great Facebook groups, my newest favorite at this time is a Mixed Media artist by the name of Dawn who has a YouTube channel called Let's Make a Mess Today.

My reason for liking Mixed Media is that it is so freeing, you can pretty much do ANYTHING and nothing is wrong. But Dawn is even freer than that. She has this awesome journal she uses called a Fatty Patty in which she saves images, ticket stubs, book marks, magazine photos, bits of fabric, ribbon, buttons, paperclips, anything and everything that she can find. What I like best about her is how as she's creating she's talking as though we are sitting right there with her, which makes for a great crafting buddy because you can turn her off when ever you want and she's always there waiting for you.

I'm really new to her channel, I've got my Fatty Patty journal that I named Pretty Patty after my best friend in high school who passed away several years ago, she was beautiful inside and out and my journal is going to be beautiful inside and out as well!

So far I've only contributed one page to the Facebook Group, it was the dedication page, dedicated to Patty.

I'm pretty sure by now housekeeping has finished our room, so I'm going to cut this short at this time and just let you all know I'm still alive and kicking and I would like to promise that I will blog again soon, but it seems that as I get older, I have less free time and more commitments and when I do find a moment for myself I tend to do Art more than Blog, but don't give up on me, I hope to retire soon and then I will have plenty of time to do both!

Alicia~~

Mini Vacation to South Lake Tahoe

Every two years I have the pleasure of accompanying my sister Lisa to a conference she goes to in South Lake Tahoe. For me it's a mini vacation. I get to spend time with my sister and I get an all expenses paid vacation to a beautiful ski resort, win-win!

Our favorite part of the trip is the drive up and the drive back. Those two days are just for us and Lisa doesn't have to worry about work or meetings, seminars or classes, it's all about the fun, food and shopping...not to mention "sister time!"

We headed out around 9am on Thursday, October 4th for a trip that Google Maps says should take us 5 hours and 56 minutes. We arrived at our destination at around 7 pm, which means it took us roughly 10 hours, I think that's hilarious! But we stopped for coffee and sat and enjoyed it along with a yummy danish. We also stopped and did some shopping in Fresno and pretty much maxed out our spending money!

Next stop was for lunch at our traditional lunch place, Mi Casa (which means My House) in Turlock, California where they make a dish called a Molcajete and it is out of this world amazing! It's like eating molten lava out of a stone bowl!

I don't know what all is in there but it was delicious and big enough that we were not able to finish it and we shared one! We ordered the chicken.

From there we just headed straight to Tahoe driving past some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Beautiful majestic pine trees and mountains. For someone born and raised in Arizona, seeing views like this is just surreal!

Lake Tahoe in the distance

We missed the meet and greet, but that was okay because we were dead tired. We checked in, put our stuff away and just went to bed. This is where we laid our weary heads that night, isn't it fabulous?

Photo Credit - Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel 

The next day (Friday) Lisa was up bright and early as she had to meet her coworkers for breakfast downstairs at 7am. I lounged around until 9am and then went downstairs for their complimentary breakfast which was delicious! I spent the rest of the day touring around and shopping the various shops.

We met up for dinner with the rest of her coworkers at the American River Cafe inside Harrah's Casino which is right across the street from the hotel and at the state line, just crossing the street puts you in Nevada!  The meal was delicious and the company was great. Lisa works with the nicest group of people and I've gone on several of these conferences with them so I fit right in. We shared a yummy Asian Salad that had Apples in it, a first for both of us with apples and we loved it!

On Saturday I decided I was going to give my FitBit a workout and let the car have a rest. I walked all around the area of the hotel and into all the cute little shops. I found a  beautiful bracelet for my sister Lisa, which was great because it was her birthday! I picked up little souvenirs for my mom and my son and daughter. 

I headed back to the hotel to meet up with Lisa who was all done with her meetings and we did more walking and finally stopped to have dinner at one of our favorite places in South Lake Tahoe. We literally have dreams about this place called Base Camp Pizza!

To celebrate Lisa's birthday we started off with some adult beverages. Lisa had the Happy Camper which was a yummy concoction of Don Q Pasion Coco and Limon Rum blended with fresh mango puree and pineapple juice finished off with a float of Whaler's Dark Rum. I had the house red, I have no idea what winery it was from but it was delicious. We sipped our drinks enjoying the ambiance and the beautiful view of the mountains just outside and waited for our pizza!

That's me in the purple sweater...it was so nice to wear a cozy sweater! You can see my wine glass with the mystery Red wine. We ordered the Hawaiian with Red Onions which included Canadian Bacon, Juicy Hawaiian Pineapple and Fresh Red Onions. I could have this every day for the rest of my life with no complaints. We had two slices left which we had cold for breakfast the next morning while getting ready to check out of the room and it was even better cold!

On Sunday morning, October 7th, we checked out and had already planned that on our trip back we were going to stop for lunch at a little place we had stumbled upon on the trip up. We knew it was in Placerville, California and that the exit for it was Bedford. 

On the trip up our GPS led us through Placerville and we came to a stop sign and when we made the turn to head to Tahoe we turned on to the most beautiful street we had ever seen! It was like something out of a Hallmark Movie. Ton's of lovely little shops all lit up (it was already dark). 

I kid you not...it looked exactly like this photo from the website of The City of Placerville except that they were celebrating Breast Cancer Awareness Month so all the windows had bright pink lights in them. We didn't even think to take photos we were so in awe!

Photo Credit - City of Placerville

We just knew then that on the way back we had to stop and have lunch at one of the cute little shops. It was day time when we went through again, so even though it was still a very pretty little street, it wasn't as magical as the night we just drove through.

We walked around checking out the restaurants and you can see in the photo above way out in the distance on the right side a sign that looks like it says Mels...well it does. It's a Mel's Diner! Remember Mel's Diner from the movie American Grafitti? Lisa had to eat there and I'm glad we did because it was so fun and delicious. It was packed for a Sunday afternoon but everyone was so nice and patient. I had the Cheeseburger Plate and the fries were fabulous, Lisa had the Chorizo and Egg Breakfast which she said was very good.

On the wall right behind where Lisa was sitting were photos of famous people that had eaten there. One photo of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz even had a copy of the personal check they paid with, I guess the diner never cashed it so they could have the souvenir. Their meal was for $60! They must have fed their whole entourage for that kind of money. I don't know why we didn't take a photo! But we will be back!

Then our adventure in Paradise was over and we headed home. From an elevation of 6,287 feet to an elevation of 348 feet...hard to imagine that we had traveled so far! But we made it home, safe and sound with some great memories made.

Happy Birthday Lisa and I'm ready to go again whenever you are!