San Diego Adventure

Having lived my whole life in California, I have always wanted to spend a weekend being a tourist. I wasn't sure how this was going to happen by the end of the year. Then, I talked to my friend Hannah who is living in San Diego for a few months. Hannah was on of my Resident Advisors that I supervised last year and over that year we bonded over our relationship with the Lord and the journey that He has us on. Hannah and I talked about how fun it would be to have time to hang out and we picked a weekend for me to come visit. She lives right in downtown which is such a fun place to be.

Thanks Hannah for such an awesome, relaxing weekend!!!

Making some chocolate!!!

Growing up, my mom would always make birthday cakes for my brother and I. She would also make chocolates and would sell them. As she made them, I learned how to do them too! She has boxes and boxes of molds that I recently organized for her! She has everything from Bart Simpson, to a large Hershey's kiss. She has every holiday covered and even has one with my name on it!

Recently I decided to start making chocolates again. My friends in elementary school got them for most special days as school ( my mom even made chocolates in the shape of feet for our walk a thon!) but my college friends hadn't!

Last year, I made chocolate lips for my friend Melissa's bachelorette party and for my own birthday party and I wanted to make some more.

Here are some pictures of the favors from Melissa's party!

Before Thanksgiving, my friend Becca had a girls craft night and I decided to take some chocolate making supplies to share with the girls. It was fun to be able to share some of what I know and remember how fun it is!

Here is the chocolate that we used!

And some of the final products!

For Christmas, I thought it would be fun to bring back one of my favorite things that my mom and my aunts used to make. They are chocolate spoons, where the chocolate has been flavored and then you use the spoon in your hot coffee.

I decided that this would be a fun gift for my friend Becca, because she was loving the idea and for my colleagues at work.

The necessary supplies....

The fun flavors I chose for the chocolate...

How it turned out!!!

Then I thought that my bible study girls needed some chocolate covered pretzels!!!



Love that I am making chocolate and I really want to learn more about chocolate making and get as good as my mom!!!

With a little nephew on the way I think I will have lots of party to make chocolate for!

I Ran A 5K!!!

Over the summer I worked out with a personal trainer and during that time I got the crazy idea to run a 5K. I dont know where this inspiration came from since the last time I had ran was in high school on the rare day my swim coach would had a run to our workout. Since I was in a time of trying to challenge myself, I decided there wasnt a better way to be challenged physically. In October I met up with the RockHarbor running group with my friend Karissa. It was a 3 mile run and I never thought that I would finish! But it got me ready to start training for my race. On Halloween I signed up for the San Dimas Turkey Trot, found an 8 week training schedule and started running.

My training schedule started with a 1.5 mile run and went up to 3 miles by the race over Thanksgiving morning.

My lovely mama graciously got up at the crack of dawn with me to get to the race which luckily was only a 5 minute drive from my parents house.

As I checked in for the race, I ran into an old friend, Briana! I went to graduate school with her sister Yvania and knew their whole family when I was a lifeguard at the Via Verde Country Club, I even taught their little sister how to swim! It was fun to hear her experience with 5Ks and to know I had a friend in the crowd. My mom and I even saw the Priest from the Catholic church that I grew up in. Definetely didn't expect to see him!

The race started and I felt good, until I realized that the race was going to be all about hills and I had trained in the City of Orange that has little to no hills or even incline!!!

Luckily since the race took us all around Puddingstone Lake in Bonelli Park, there were some incredible views. I wish I was able to have my camera with me because they were picture worthy!

Luckily my mom took pictures as she waited for me!

Finally, I could see the finish line and tried to get there as quickly as possible. My time was around 45 minutes and I was aiming for 35 minutes. I felt okay about it since my training time had been on flat land and the race was all hills.

Overall, I am so glad that I was able to do this and I was able to cross something off of my list of things to do by the end of 2010! Now it is time to decide if I was going to do another one!!!