Christmas Parties & 1/2 Way to an M.B.A.

This weekend marked the beginning of my winter break, also meaning that I am about halfway to receiving my Masters in Business Administration.  Boy did I work my tail off to get this far and I see now I really wasn't sure what I had signed up for when choosing to do an accelerated program.  But, I am still here and succeeding!  I was really looking forward to this break, the last few months have been a whirlwind of non-stop studying, exams, projects, presentations etc.  If felt like I was always having a midterm or final and had little time for much else.

The first weekend of my break we actually had two separate Christmas parties.  It was a great way to start off the break!  The first one was an ugly sweater party in Pacific Beach and I was able to see friends from high school.

I am bummed that I didn't get a photo of Charlie in his "ugly sweater" but maybe I can convince him to wear it again.  It had little kittens in stalkings all over it..Pretty funny. 

The next night we went to another party hosted by our friends Matt & Alyssa who have just shared the news that they are recently expecting!  We are excited that they have moved so close to us (just about a 5 minute drive) so we will be seeing them more.  

They also have a great place that is decorated very true to their personalities. 

The picture is a little dark but we have Charlie, Matt & Adam. 

Charlie & I 

Sunday morning Charlie took me out to breakfast at one of our favorite spots, The Menu. 

I have been acclimating to having free time again!  It is so strange to have that pressure gone suddenly.  I have been able to workout again, start reading recreationally and of course, BLOG!

Thanksgiving

We had a pretty mellow Thanksgiving.  Lots of good food & drink as usual.  I was just so relieved to have a few days off of school.

Kitty & Dad did a lot of the cooking.  Jana brought a few things and Charlie and I brought appetizers.  Other then that the parents did everything else which we very much appreciate!

Pavel & I

You can see in the background that Jana was schooling Charlie on how to carve the turkey. :)

Unfortunately this was the only picture I took of the meal/table. 

As always, very thankful for this guy!

Rosarito Beach, Baja California

 A few months ago, my cousin, his now finance, and a few of her friends, Charlie & I, purchased a package deal for the Rosarito Beach Hotel which included champagne breakfasts, massages, and two nights in a suite. Originally we were planning to go the weekend of Thanksgiving but ended up going the weekend before.  It was an excellent precursor to the few days off for the holiday.

We had so much fun!  This was Ryan's first time in Mexico.  Our suites were beautiful, I couldn't believe what a great deal we had yet again stumbled on.

The first evening we were there we ventured around town, eating some street tacos and settling to have dinner at a very authentic seafood restaurant.  Charlie and I had bacon wrapped shrimp, some unknown fish soup, with a few shots of Don Julio y cervezas!

The next day we all headed to the beach, found a restaurant right on the sand, and ordered a bucket of beers.  Hours later we had purchased some local commodities, swam in the ocean, played football, eaten chips and guacamole and feeling all around EXCELLENT!

View from our patio

All of us walking around and getting into trouble :)

We were all so excited!  

Ryan, Kim, Myself & Charlie

I have a feeling we will be back here before we know it!

A New York Visitor

The weekend we got back from Cabo Charlie's childhood friend was coming to visit San Diego, actually California for the first time.  He would be staying with us and we were looking forward to showing him around and doing the tourist thing!

The day that he came in Charlie had a cousin that was getting married in San Diego and actually really close to where we live so we stopped by to snap a photo and say congratulations!  Sorry we didn't stay longer Cadawallader's! But Mark and his bride Katie looked great and seemed very happy.

On Saturday we took Shawn to the swap meet ( you may laugh but most of our friends are captivated by all the junk and deals at this place ) then we went into Ocean Beach and Sunset Cliffs.

San Jose Del Cabo, Baja California Mexico...AGAIN!

Well if you read our blog about our visit to the beautiful location of Southern Baja you could probably easily make sense of the fact that we really enjoyed this nook.  Upon our original return I was so excited about it that my Dad was very curious if it was all that I had been telling him...It was but he wanted to see for himself.  So about a month after our first time departure there were schedule a return trip for a long weekend but this time bringing along my Father.

It was just what we all wanted.  I found a great little place on airbnb that had a pool, large living room, two bed, two bath and right near the beach.  The weather was perfect 80's all day everyday and although there wasn't a huge swell predicted to come through the boys did get waves!  It was actually perfect for them.  Not too big but consistent.

My Dad was in awe of this place that we had introduced him too, a two hour flight, inexpensive to stay and explore.  Friendly locals & waves.  Couldn't ask for more!

Well normal I would post a bunch of photos but my dear Dad actually put together a slide show with music from our trip with some beautiful background music (played by the ever talented Jiri Svoboda)

Turn up your speakers & enjoy!

Celebrating our 9 year Anniversary

Yes thats correct, Charlie and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary on September 29th.  It's sort of surreal how long it's been but we've never paid too much attention to the length of time and just continued doing what has felt right to us.  A true cliche in the fact that we have always just followed our hearts.

We didn't want to do any gift exchanging so Charlie made a list of ideas and I narrowed it down to a spa day at Glen Ivy followed by an overnight stay at the South Coast Winery in Temecula.  One of my friends from school happens to work at guest services at the resort and she was able to book us a really nice package (including mimosa breakfast, in-room jacuzzi, wine tastings, & complimentary bottle of wine) for a very reasonable price (even for a poor graduate student).  This was the first time Charlie go to experience a place i have been going to for many years.  We sipped champagne in the jacuzzis all day reading our books.  Followed by the traditional mud bath and more pool lounging.  It was a really relaxing time and we both totally enjoyed ourselves.

After the spa we headed to the resort to check in.  Our plan was to order room service or go to the hotel, but soon after arriving it was really apparent that the room service was way out of our price range so being the type of (not so) classy people we are, we went and got a take out pizza & beer.  The room was really comfortable and pleasant.  It felt like we were really out of town.

The next morning we were a little surprised to wake up to rain and windy weather!  I didn't think twice about packing any warm clothes and only spaghetti strapped dresses.  But we didn't let it phase us, we headed to the hotel restaurant for our brunch and mimosas.  The food was delicious as we expected and we were so relaxed from the whole weekend.

The gloomy but beautiful view of the vineyards from our patio

Patio Selfies

Might be the only picture we got together but it is a good one.  

Thankful that I get to share my days with my best friend and partner.

So there is another event that we will always remember on our anniversary too.  But it is something we look on with loving and fond memories.  Our beloved first baby (also child to Charlie's sister Jess and mom Kathy) was put down for the big sleep.  He was reaching 14 years old and we have all known for months now that it is time for Johnson to be with other boxers and pugs on a beach with with endless burgers and pizza in an eternal doggy heaven.

I flew back to NY for a hot minute September 12th and these are my last pictures with him.

Getting my kisses in before my flight. 

We loved you very much Johnson Psillos! You brought a lot of joy and happiness to people from Texas to New York to California and back again. 

Baja California South, Mexico

During my school break Charlie and I decided to take a week and explore Southern Baja, specifically Los Cabos (San Jose del Cabo) and Cabo San Lucas.  It was only a 2 hour plane ride to the most southern tip and fairly inexpensive. We inadvertently split up our stay between the two mentioned locations not really realizing they were two different cities but it really worked out to our benefit.  Los Cabos was a pretty small beach town, with not much else besides beer, food and waves!  Charlie did purposely pick our first place on Airbnb because it was was a two minute drive, down a hill to a surf spot called Zipper's where they hold a lot of contests.  It did not disappoint.  We didn't time it like this but were  there was a South swell and it was just perfect and consistent.  Charlie was in heaven, surfing 5 hours a day!  Unfortunately because it such a local spot I didn't bring my camera out here because it is rather secret and we didn't want to tick off any of the locals.  Another spot we ventured to that Charlie had read about in  lot of surf blogs was called Shipwrecks.  It was about a 40 minute drive on a dirt road that just opens up between two cliffs and all the sudden your at this secluded epic break which only happened to consist of people from Encinitas and Trestles but the crowd never exceeded 12 people.

On the drive to Shipwrecks it was wave after wave

This is a good view of what we were seeing on the journey.  Long stretches of dirt road along the coast.  There was a few "communities" with scattered homes, mostly they were uninhabited.

 I also wanted to include a video of the drive just to give you a better feel for it..

Driving Baja

                        A few times I questioned Charlie about if we were going the right way..

                                                       Stopped to watch the set come in

You can get a sense of how far the "road" stretched in this one. 

About the only person we saw on the drive, a scarecrow. 

Charlie had a perma smile the whole time we were in Cabo.  He caught so many waves!  Again I didn't take many pictures at the actual break..Sorry Dad!

We saw many burros, perros y vaccas on this trip.  Someone came to the beach with their dogs and the dog ran right after these guys. 

I don't think the dog was going to do anything but he was scaring the donkeys. 

Later the dog chased a herd of goats too. 

Probably the only wave I caught on camera and Shipwrecks. 

La playa. 

We were seeing a lot of animals on this road, herds of cows, lots of donkeys and goats.  

This guy was slowly walking up to our car and we decided to stop and feed him..

Well all we had was a bell pepper but because it was 99 degrees and had been in our cooler he gladly ate it!

Below is a link for the video of us feeding him! Because it was on google drive i couldn't get it to load to youtube so settled for this..Please ignore my incessant laughing.

Donkey Feeding!

After 3 days in San Jose del Cabo we were off to Cabo San Lucas.  We got a privately owned condo right on the Marina.

We had a beautiful view and were right in the heart of town with tons of restaurants, bars and shops.  We spent a lot of time exploring different places around town and surprisingly met a lot of Americans that had relocated there.  And you guessed it, brewing ideas in Charlie's head!

Cabo is really well known for these Arches.  I think they are pretty recognizable, movies magazine advertisements.  It was pretty majestic at times (when the pirate ship booze cruise wasn't underway with blaring techno music and obnoxious strobe lights) and we did a really nice dinner one night at a hotel overlooking the ocean and the arches.  

One of the beautiful sunsets we watched from our room.

And thats all I have for pictures!  I didn't bring my camera out as much as I wanted to because it was sort of nice and I didn't want to get buzzed and neglect it somewhere.  We did have a lot of pictures on Charlie's phone but when we were leaving we had a beer at the bar and he was charging it, then suddenly they were doing final boarding and we rushed on the place leaving the phone behind.  Disappointing but I told him if thats the worst thing that happens to us on vacation its OK.  

Cabo, we will be back and tell all our friends and family about this gem!