seeing you from the ocean

Has a year already gone by since I graduated from college? I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! I had a lot of fun this past year and am a little nervous to get this next year started. My family spent our last holiday in our Fremont house over Thanksgiving (i know a little sappy). But regardless of it all I had an amazing break. It was fun to eat some yummy turkey and mashed potatoes with my family. I also was able to see San Francisco from a different view. I went out with Krystal and her family on a boat out on the bay. We went to the piers, bay bridge, angel island, alcatraz and my favorite underneath the golden gate bridge. It was incredible and probably on my top ten favorite days!

my little gems

A couple weeks ago I went and saw two of my favorite nephews! Everytime I see them they get cuter and cuter! Evan is becoming a quick little mover all over the place and Christian says the darndest things. His little voice gets so high and he chats so fast trying to fit in breaths! The best part about the trip was waking up to Christian crawling into my bed sticking his cold feet on my stomach and practically touching his nose with mine waiting for me to open my eyes. He then says "Auntie Rachie let me know when you wake up". Oh I love it. I can not wait to spend Christmas with those little gems.

so whats the key?

okay I only have 5 minutes but there are just somethings I cannot seem to get out of my head. So bare with me as my thoughts spill out onto the this blog entry. Lately I have really come to realize that there is never going to be a time in our lives when things are easy. For the past few years I have for sure taken the sympathy card for hardest time in my life. Everyone always feeds me with support that this time when we as young adults, figuring out what we want to do in our lives, who we want to be and where we want to end up is the hardest time in our lives. BUT i beg to differ. I don't think there is ever a time in our lives when something is easy. As a child figuring out how to tie our shoes can be a quite daunting task that may have brought some of us to tears. Then there is the teenage years which heavens I was still deciding if being "cool" was important to me, moving onto college I mean WOW choosing a career? What could be harder? Then you graduate and life is great because you are finally making your own money to spend on clothes (that's an obvious for me) BUT then have to decide what is the right thing to be doing? Then comes marriage, for all I know it could be cake but lately I have come to find that even being married brings on its own different struggles. Then kids come into the picture and hello- GOODBYE thinking about yourself. And then somehow age catches up with you and you end up with physical ailments. SO what does all of this have in common? LIFE'S HARD! SO here is my question whats the key to happiness? How do you make it through all of this and enjoy the journey?

PS. in case some of you are wondering if I am mondo depressed or something? NOPE I am actually really happy in my life but the more people I talk to in different age brackets this is what I have come to fine!

A few of my favorite things.

Today I took a long nap. I woke up about 3 times and every time I did I could hear the rain just pouring down outside my window. I instantly fell right back to sleep grabbing the covers and wrapping them tight around my body and snuggling up with my pillow. I seriously love this time of year. I know I have repeatedly mentioned it several times but its true. So I when I woke up from my nap I walked outside to see some of my favorite things!
And of course because of the great mood I was in I decided to do some baking. YUMMY Gooey pumpkin butter cake!

dreams do come true

I love this time of year. My poor brother Jordan has to endure a paragraph or more every week about the changing of the leaves the cold weather and new sweaters I get to wear! BUT on top of the wardrob change I love baking. And that is an understatement. I love anything with pumpkin in it or decorated as one! So with the help of David and Nate we made sugar cookies. It took a long process of 4 hours! BUT totally worth it!

As you can tell the cookies turned out to be real beauties!

ALSO on an extremely positive note...drum roll.

I AM GOING TO THE CHRIS BROWN CONCERT!!!!! (also Bruno Mars and Drake) And while I am sure the majority of you are probably thinking grow up Rachel this is the ulitmate concert I have waited for! 54 days AND counting!

check

today i made a check mark on my bucket list. i watched a movie in a theatre by myself. while this was not planned and in the moment i felt like every insecurity was screaming at me i am so glad i did it. the worst part was the first 5 minutes when the previews had not started and you are sitting in your seat wondering if everyone thinks that you are a loser for getting all dressed up (boots and curled hair) and attending a movie ona Saturday night by yourself. BUT seriously after that it was a little magical. I whipped out my water bottle and 6 tangerines and sat back and laughed, cried and smiled through the whole thing. it was almost invigorating. I recommend it for anyone who wants to boost there confidence up a notch.

moving on....

so for all of you who are wondering what i have been doing with my life lately here is a brief update!

I went to the Jimmy Eat World concert a couple weeks ago with Julie, Jeni and Kim (hollar!) It was SO FUN! It felt like a plaid festival which I totally was fiting in with. The band was just as good live as there cd! ALthough the last 10 mintues were by far my favorite part. They played all of my favorite songs in a row and i found myself jumping around and getting a flash back of the Jack's concert. it was THAT fun!

I also went to Utah and pretty much spend the whole weekend with my better half Krystal! It was perfect and really put me back in focus with my life!

THIS weekend I went to the Half Moon Bay pumpkin festival with my Ashley! Did you know that H.M.B is the pumpkin capital of the world? It was pretty magical. The smell of the ocean in the back ground while eating pumpkin ice cream and pumpkin pie. YUMMY! It was so fun!! Ashley and I spent hours chatting it up and enjoying all the pumpkins!

ALSO the last 6 months I have been working on a quilt. I didn't officially start working on it until lately but i have had the fabric for a while! here is a teaser of what it is going to look like!

Where did my daddy go?

So recent news from a very valuable source (kim) informed me that Chris Brown was originally suppose to be going on tour with Usher. key word: SUPPOSE TO. My daddy isn't going on tour with Usher...nope Trey Songz is. And while I still enjoy looking at Trey Songz I was fully disapointed that my daddy is not joining yummy usher in concert.


Dear Chris Brown,

why do you keep making dumb mistakes in your life? Please get it together so we can be together!

Loving you always,

Rachel