Easter 2015 in San Diego

We had a really nice Easter over here.  About a few weeks ago we were at dinner at my Dad's and he was making noises about having to cook so I offered to host it! My first time cooking not only Easter dinner but dinner in general for my family.  I was excited to have this experience for the first time.

Charlie had worked six days that week so was also very eager to have a nice relaxing Sunday with a bunch of good food too.

A running joke in my family has been that the Svoboda's suffer from a syndrome where their eyes are much larger then their stomach, which always results in too much food and too much eating!  I suffer from this as well, hence we had A TON of food.

My family was in charge of bringing appetizers and dessert while I focused on the main course.

I had written and planned out what time I would start everything and how long it would take (a little OCD methodical tendency) so that I had the timing down.

As I was cooking I realized that there would be a few more things that I needed so Charlie offered to skate to our local Sprouts and pick it up for me, comes home with these :)

and of course a bottle of champagne. 

We were doing dinner at 4 so we were able to just hang out and relax a little (well other then all the cooking!).

Our appetizers consisted of 4 different cheeses, hard salami, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives & bread.  Very Euro.  Our main course was a balsamic,Dijon and thyme pork loin with slow cooked garlic, rosemary and Parmesan potatoes with salad, corn and a sauté of garlic, carrots and onions!  Yes i know, we balled out.

Don't let this picture fool you, i was the chef in this kitchen!

It was a little cramped once all the food was there but we managed!

My Brother Pavel, anxiously awaiting..

We did actually get a group shot before the food frenzy began!  Pavel, myself, my Dad, Charlie, Jana and Kitty.  Jana is my Grandmothers sister's daughter.  She grew up with my Dad, walking him to school, and she helped my Mom raise me also.  She has been a very strong and present figure in my life but I never know if I should call her cousin, aunt, etc so I just stick with family :)

And then it began..

The food turned out delicious.  The meat took a little longer then we thought but we started a little late so it ended up all working out perfect.  For dessert Kitty baked some delicious Czech style pastries and Jana made a lemon cake.  Although we were all stuffed by the time dessert came around we managed to eat more..

Everyone really seemed to enjoy the meal and I really enjoyed the company.  This is an Easter for the books!

Hope everyone else had a nice holiday too.

Pacific Beach Living

When Charlie and I came back to San Diego we were really up in the air about where we wanted to live.  We really enjoy Oceanside but the commute just didn't make sense no matter how much we tried.   I was pretty set on living coastal.  Unfortunately where Charlie works, no matter where we are on the coast, it is about a 30-40 minute drive.  He repeatedly said he didn't mind so we set off to look at Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach.  I preferred OB, I like the scene there a little more and there are also a ton of dog friendly places (my hidden motives) but we were looking at literal closets for $1200 a month.  I mean 300 square feet apartments or complexes that have like 30 residents in them and you can look into each one of their places.  We weren't having much luck.  Everyday we would drive up and down different streets looking at for places.  At first we wanted to do a beach cottage but what we were seeing was small and somewhat dumpy (kind of a side effect of living by the beach in San Diego, not paying for nice new place but location rather). After a few weeks i was looking on my Zillow app and around 5pm a place popped up in PB.  It was an apartment but one that had only about 6 other tenants.  It was an upstairs place with 2 parking spots (almost unheard off for this area), a large patio and laundry.  One disappointing thing is that there is no garage.  Any who, I called the real estate manager again the next morning, probably right when they opened and the guy said since i was first person he had spoken to (apparently there was a TON of inquiry about the place but timing got us in there first), if brought in the application he would show it to us first. So when we went and looked at the place I was pretty set on it, Charlie too, so we put down the deposit.

We are about 6 blocks from the beach.  Just about a 10 minute walk.  We are one block from the main strip and have already become locals to some of the taverns.  My cousin who Charlie is good friends with, lives about a 10 minute bike ride away.  Also, we have a great market with cheap organic produce that is a 5 minute walk away.  It is so convenient.  Needless to say we settled in pretty quick.

This is a real picture I took right when we came out!  I sent it to my friends in NY :)

This big kahuna is just down the street from us.

A view of our apartment from across the street.

A little bit of a better view of our patio.

My handsome man.

We were really fortunate that we got such a spacious living room and an actual dinning area.

We bought a table and 4 chairs on craigslist for like $40 and my brother and I reupholstered and painted for less then the cost of the table.

Our whole house is craigslist, we got this couch with delivery for $350! Charlie was on top of it.

I really enjoyed decorating this wall.  Charlie made me the hexagonal shelves as well as the wall mounted bottle flower holders.  I was really touched he made these for me so I really prize this wall! Of course the center piece is my anniversary present to Charlie, a wood burning of our names and anniversary date.  Above that is a picture painted by one of my friends (She has a great shop on Etsy called Studio South Seas!)

One of my favorite pieces is our map of Long Island.  

We are really enjoying PB life here.  It is a little chaotic at night but were usually in bed by the time its really wild.  We are much more the day timers and happy hour attendees.  It is nice to be so close to the beach and town!

Our 4th Cross Country Drive

You would think we just can get enough of that drive huh?  Every single time we've done it Charlie says "I'm never doing this again."  Sure enough it happened again!  This time we would be shipping my car out and driving out the Kia.  Also, we were bringing a little extra luggage with us..our friend Kyle!   He was going to be going to CA for vacation for a few weeks so for some unknown reason he volunteered to come with us.  It was nice to have the extra company and driver but as you can imagine it was a little tight...

Leaving NYC

But we managed to squeeze everything and everyone in with a little bit of breathing space left.  Our journey began on February 1st which happened to be SuperBowl Sunday. Our plan was to drive to West Virginia where Kyle has a cousin and stay the night and watch the game.  WV was not our ideal spot to stop because it was only about 7 hours away from NYC but it turned out to be great.  His family was super hospitable and they had 3 kids who were really fun.  Not to mention a free bed!  From West Virginia was needed to make up for miles on that first day so we ended up driving all the way to Missouri.  It was about a 15 hour drive.  Again, because we had an extra driver it really never felt like it was too unbearable.  Missouri was kind of a trip, pretty middle of the country kind of state but we actually liked it more then our stop in New Mexico.  In Missouri we posted up in a hotel, had some drinks and ordered some pizza.  Kyle offered to buy dinner so he called an ordered saying, "Can i get a sausage and pepperoni pie?"  Pretty sure the guy on the other end had NO CLUE what Kyle was talking about, he had to ask a few times before Kyle just said pizza...not pie.  Pretty funny.

Needless to say there were moments (hours) of sheer boredom.

St. Louis Gateway Arch.

What do you do on a cross country drive besides listen to every CD a few times? Take selfies.

As you can see the back was a little snug. 

But we all rotated shifts..

After Missouri we went to New Mexico. Until end of TX the drive isn't too scenic.  I was surprised at the areas where we were seeing snow though.  We saw all the way to AZ.  Leaving New Mexico we got to see some pretty neat looking terrain.

The picture below was actually Arizona!

I liked this shot with the train going by.

Don't remember where "Two Guns" was, most likely NM or AZ.  After a while it all starts to blend.

On the evening of February 4th we arrive in San Diego.  We came in at like 9pm and dropped of Kyle at a friends place in Encinitas.  It always seems like the last 2 or 3 hours is the longest.  I don't know why it hits us that way but maybe because we know how close we are.

My goal was to spend my 28th birthday with my family and we were able to achieve that :)  

Hopefully there won't be a next time but who the heck knows!

 I have to say that one of the hardest parts about leaving NY was leaving Johnson.  The last few days when we were packing up he knew something was going on.  He has seen suitcases enough to associate it with separation.  The last day he was following Charlie and I around constantly.  My heart broke when we had to actually leave him.  When Charlie and I went to Puerto Rico, Kathy said he didn't move, eat, or go to the bathroom for 2 days.  He was just laying under the kitchen table, she actually thought she might have to put him down.  Because he is getting up there (already up there) in age there was a likelihood that when we leave for San Diego it was the last time we would get to see him.  I still can't talk about it too much because i get chocked up.

Going to Puerto Rico and saying goodbye to Long Island

Well whats new other then me going a wall on my blogging and totally neglecting it for the first few months of 2015?  I do have good reasons, like going to the Caribbean, packing up all of our stuff (yet again) and driving it across country, looking for an apartment, getting rejected from grad school and coming up with another plan to go to graduate school.  Things have been all over the place but finally starting to feel established again.

This post I just want to talk a little bit about our trip to one of our favorite spots, Rincon, Puerto Rico.  We decided that right before we would embark on this mayhem of moving again we would go on a little vacation.  I found a an apartment for us right on the water in Rincon.  We had a pool with a view of the ocean and private beach access.  In hindsight, we planned this trip way too short.  We were there only four nights, but I am not complaining!

Since have done this trip numerous times my picture taking is becoming more and more limited. I am actually happily surprised that I took what I did! (ha..)

Our first few days there Charlie got to surf after a long absence.  But unfortunately we miss timed the swell and the last few days we were there it was pretty flat.  With that, we did a lot of snorkeling, swimming, eating and lounging.

We had taken a red eye and got into Aguadilla before sunrise and we were greeted with a beautiful day. 

So much blue. 

I regretfully have to say these were the only pictures of Charlie surfing I got! 

This was the view from our rental.  

Another view from our patio.  I used this to kind of...dig in...to the ladies at my work :D

And this was one of the many gorgeous sunsets we saw.  This one was from our bedroom window. 

This guy came a visited us on the patio. 

Even with storms rolling in the beaches in PR are one of my "happy places"

Although our trip was short it was extremely sweet.   Our time to go back to NY came and went.  When we were on the flight home we were scrolling through the channels and on the weather channel , I kid you not, the following day after our landing the Northeast was expecting a "crippling snow storm."

Not only was it time to go home but we were also getting ready to make a big move, a 3,000 mile move to the West Coast. 

But not before we got just a little bit more snow...

In actuality it wasn't too bad.  This storm did bring about a foot or so but since I wasn't working it made a huge difference! I wasn't having to commute so I could kind of just focus on packing up and getting us going.

We came back from Puerto Rico January 25th and were scheduled to leave exactly one week later on February 1st.  Happened to fall on Super Bowl Sunday.

More to come..

Cross Country Drive

&

Pacific Beach Living