A Nice Long Weekend

Even though it is Monday night, it is officially the end of my long weekend. I took a 4 day mental health, stress-relieving long weekend from last Friday through, today, Monday. Friday was a nice relaxing day. I slept in and then headed for a nice work-out at the gym. After coming home and cleaning up, I headed over to the clinic (yes, on my day off) to get a massage. This was my first massage from Claudia and was our Christmas gift from the clinic. It was a good massage, but I was so sore in multiple places for a couple days after the fact. After that, I went to a matinee of 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl. A very sweet, cute film that even surprised me, who was just looking for a light chick flick. Friday evening, we headed out to eat at Chipotle, which is always good and took a trip to Trader Joe's.
Saturday morning, we packed up and headed down to La Jolla and the University Town Center, where they had the "Bodies" exhibition on. It was a really neat exhibition, but pretty basic if you had any anatomy training at all. It was nice to explore the organs and so on, as that is really NOT my specialty. I recommend taking this in, if you ever get the chance. http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com After the exhibition, we walked around the mall area and went to Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, and Restoration Hardware for fun and a different change of pace. We then checked into our hotel in Old Town San Diego and explored the area. We had supper there (Mexican, of course) and headed back to the hotel, where we watched the return from the SC primary.
Sunday we were going to spend some more time down at the ocean, but unfortunately, it was raining, so we just decided to head home. After returning home, we went grocery shopping and checked out the pets at Pets Mart. We saw a beautiful 8 month old golden retriever, but unfortunately, we just do not have the room for him right now. Too bad.
Today our big task was to look at some houses in the neighborhood with our realtor. We went through 6 homes and saw some definite NOs and a lot of maybes. We saw one home that required no work and is move in ready, but it has a pool. We're not sure if we want to deal with the expense of that at this time. But, we'll see. A lot of the maybes we may take a second look at as we mull it over.
Tomorrow, I head back to work for another short week, which is always nice. We've had a rainy week and looks like we will have another semi-rainy one ahead. It still is a nice time to be here, as everything is so green and there is a lot of snow on the mountains.

A Quiet Weekend

We have had a quiet and uneventful week in SoCal. We enjoyed sunny days and temperatures in the 60s every day, so that was nice if I didn't have to be inside working! Tuesday evening, we met with our mortgage officer to go over loan options and amounts. It was a productive meeting. He referred us to a realtor, Natalie, who has sent us some listings. We already have picked out about 6 homes we will take a closer look at. She wants us to look at them ASAP, but we will have to wait until the weekend after next, most likely, as we have been busy. We'll roll the dice and hope the listings will still be available.
Yesterday (Saturday), we helped Josh and Erin (Nick's roommate from college and his girlfriend) move into their new apartment, about 2 miles away from ours. They have a really cute apartment and are both really excited to get settled. They were nice enough to take us out to dinner to CPK (California Pizza Kitchen), which was fun. It was a nice reward for a minimal amount of work, as they had a small rental truck. We are excited to have them near and actually have a social life with people our age.
We both have 4 day weeks this week-Nick has Monday off due to MLK and I took Friday off. Next weekend, we are planning to go down to San Diego for a relaxing weekend. I also took Monday off, so we will be able to take our time. We have not decided if we will leave Friday night or Saturday morning. We plan viewing the "Bodies" exhibit and possibly going to the zoo. Hopefully, it will be sunny and we will spend some time on the beach. Probably a different one from last weekend though..... ;)
Hope everyone continues to enjoy January-I know we are-it has officially been my favorite month here in Riverside . Everything is really beautiful. I will post pictures and a summary of our weekend in San Diego!

A Beautiful Day at the Beach..........in January

Today Nick and I decided to take advantage of the phenomenal weather and head down to the beach to do some hiking just north of San Diego. We took off in the morning and it took us about an hour to reach the beach. We headed to a local mall for a quick lunch and happened to see they also had an exhibit for "Bodies"-the one with the cadavers doing activities. We were happy to know that that was so close to our doorstep.

We went back down to the beach (see photos) and started our hike. Nick had mentioned to me before we went that we would be hiking along Black Beach, which is a nudist beach. I really didn't think there would be anything to see there along those lines, but the weather was so amazing, that we really did see quite a few people running around with their wobbly bits only. I would say it was about 75% men and 25% women, and that's even stretching it. We saw naked men jogging and men and women playing volleyball. It was pretty funny at first, but as it went on for a mile of the hike, we soon got used to it. Maybe on our next trip, we will try to fit in more ;).

We hiked about 2.5 miles up and down the shore, which was a very easy hike as it is all flat right along the beach. Getting down to the beach and back up to the parking lot was a little harder, as it was pretty much straight up. So, at least we got a little bit of a workout. The water was pretty nice for January, as I was able to wade a bit with bare feet. When some of the waves hit hard though, it was pretty cold. I'm not sure what the official high was today, but I am guessing it was definitely in the high 70s, as we were pretty warm at points. I kept thinking to myself-"I can't believe it's January 13."

Since we had such a nice time in San Diego and want to check out the Bodies exhibit, among other things, we are planning to take a couple of days off at the end of the month to spend in and around San Diego. We were debating a 4-5 day all inclusive Mexico vacation in Cabo, but since the temperatures are not much warmer there as it was here toady, we figured we would save a little money and enjoy San Diego.

I hope everyone is enjoying winter back in the Midwest and know for sure-we're not missing it one single ounce!

BTW: I'm not sure if it's the camera or my clothes-but it looks like I've gained somewhere in the ballpark of 100 pounds! I have not gained any substantial weight, but was wearing some baggy, unflattering (obviously) clothes today! Sorry-no baby news or health issues to think about!

A Beautiful Week in January

Although I don't have much to share this week, I thought I would still post. Our first full week at work for quite some time was a welcome return to normalcy. I was able to get to the gym (which kicked my butt Monday morning-after only 2 weeks!) and return to a more sane work schedule. My boss returned from her vacation and decided I had been working too hard and has been very nice by making my schedule easier and giving me an assistant for Fridays. We'll see how long it lasts.
Nick enjoyed his class with some co-workers in Los Alamitos this week, which was about a 1 hour and 15 minutes drive from their office, which isn't bad at all. He has also been keeping busy keeping up with all their work vehicles, which he is in charge of, at least at his building.
Today, and most of the week, we have had beautiful temperatures in the high 60s and low 70s. I was walking around doing some shopping today and really enjoyed not having to wear at coat in January. We have some beautiful views of 3 mountains in the distance, all capped with snow, from last week's storms. The park nearby and the close "low mountains" are starting to green up, which is really fun to see. It truly is a beautiful time here in Riverside.
Tomorrow, we are heading to the coast to the area around La Jolla, north of San Diego to do some hiking. We are hoping to see some whales, as they are migrating at this time of the year. It is supposed to be 71 at the coast and sunny, so it will be a nice time. I will try and post some photos.
We would like to take a vacation (4-5 days) to somewhere warm, but when we checked the places we would go, the highs are only in the high 70s, which really doesn't seem that warm from our perspective, as it is only 10-15 degrees warmer than here (less on days like these). It's funny how a perspective can change so quickly.
Have a wonderful week everybody and enjoy tackling your taxes as the papers start to roll in. I know Nick can't wait!

Catch Up

I'm sorry that I've been so bad about updating my blog this new year, but I will do one quick post now for a catch up.
We had a wonderful Christmas here with my parents. I worked half a day and then we ran around getting various food items and encountered crazy lines at Albertson's. We had passakorf for dinner (a Glad family tradition) and went to Christmas Eve services at a church over by Nick's work. It was a strange little church-I doubt we'll return there next Christmas. We returned home and opened presents. Among several other gifts, my favorite was the Flip-Flop vacuum from Nick for our tile floors. One side works as a hard floor vacuum and the other will work as a wet vac. We'll see how well it works!
Christmas Day we had a lovely turkey dinner and just laid low. It was relaxing.
We worked the remainder of the work week, taking my parents to the airport in Palm Springs on Thursday. We laid low that weekend.
New Year's Eve day I had half the day off, which ended up being a beautiful California Day. It was sunny and close to 70. I took a long walk around the neighborhood and enjoyed the nice weather. New Year's Day we both laid low and didn't do anything of import.
The remainder of last week was busy at work, as usual.
This past weekend, we were able to get together with Nick's roommate from college, Josh, and his girlfriend Erin. They currently live in Chino Hills, which isn't too far away, but will be moving to Riverside in 2 weeks. We are really excited to have them much closer and looking forward to having fun with actual friends (that is, when we're not too busy or tired).
The other thing that I have been working in the past week or so has been a couple of baby quilts. It has been really fun. It has been nice using the sewing machine, as my mom "fixed" it when she was out here. I have had a blast and almost have 2 done, with another on the way!
This week finally returns to normal, at least for me. I was able to get back to my normal schedule of going to the gym before work. It's been so long that I've been there (2 weeks) that I really felt completely out of shape. Work wasn't too bad today, hopefully a good sign for the week ahead! Nick is driving into LA 2 days this week for a computer class, so I am sure he will be even happier he doesn't make that commute daily than he already is.
We're thinking of taking a few days off to do a small vacation, as I have been so busy at work. My partner will be taking 3 weeks off in February for paternity leave. It will leave me pretty swamped, so I would like to get some R&R in ASAP!
That's' all for now!