Kelocity.com

A runner with an appetite for adventure!

A New England Garden Salad July 24, 2011

Filed under: Boston,Family,Food,Travel — Kelocity @ 7:42 pm
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Ahh! I miss my blog! We just got back from a whirlwind 9-day trip to New England. It was an awesome week filled with family, friends, sightseeing and a wedding! It feels like we’ve been gone for a month! My google reader has 250 unread posts, there are piles of laundry and mail to sort through and we’re tuckered out, but we wouldn’t have changed a thing, it was a fantastic trip.

Last Friday night (July 15th), we boarded a red-eye flight to Boston. I wish I could say I slept, but we had a stopover in Texas and I just couldn’t get comfortable. We made the most of it, and Irving even got some real Texas French Toast before our next flight!
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And then a few hours later, we were flying over Massachusetts! IMG_6317

We didn’t get to spend any time in Boston this trip, but it still excites me to see the skyline every time. Though I’ll probably never live there again, it still feels like home when I go back.
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As soon as we arrived, my mom and sister were excited to show off the vegetable garden they have growing in the back!
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My mom has been working really hard on growing a bountiful garden and this year, it really paid off. She waited til I got home to let me pick the first vegetables!!
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First up, raspberries! One in the bucket, two in my mouth. Delicious!
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Next up were peppers! Those are kind of expensive in the grocery store, I can’t believe these grew in mom’s garden! I always feel so lucky to know the taste of fresh-from-the-earth vegetables. There’s nothing else like it.
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There was even a banana pepper in there!
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Next was butter lettuce! “Pull em’ from the root” my mom said. Aye Aye captain!
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Today’s bounty!
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Sisters! It was so fun hanging out with her again!

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Clockwise…. Irving, Chris (Mikaela’s boyfriend!), Me, Mikaela… and Gizmo.

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Oh yea… don’t forget the herbs! Mint, Parsley and…. Rosemary?
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Of course we served our fresh garden salad with dinner! I love cookouts!
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Dining al fresco! So fun!
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And dessert was poundcake with berries (including our Fresh Raspberries!)
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Later, we had a campfire out back! I feel like this is the epitome of living in New England in the summer.
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I was the only one who wanted a s’more. Those guys are weird. YUM!
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Stay tuned this week for pictures from the rest of the week!

Do you live away from home? Living on the opposite coast from family is tough, but it makes going back all the more sweeter.

 

How to Store Travel Keepsakes July 7, 2011

Filed under: Scrapbooking,Travel — Kelocity @ 9:06 pm
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When we travel, we bring back a lot of mementos. Things like ticket stubs, airline tickets, postcards and brochures. Most of that is slowly making its way into my scrapbooks (photos forthcoming!) But the rest of it ends up in ratty white envelopes.  That’s just not how I want to preserve them. We travel around the world, the last thing I want to see is museum tickets smashed inside a box. I want my future kids to thumb through them someday and marvel at all the things his/her cool parents did. And white envelopes just wouldn’t want to be very impressive.

I love old looking things like bundles of love letters, and treasures wrapped in brown paper packages tied up with string…these are a few of my favorite things! (couldn’t resist!)
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I just love the idea of preserving my memories to rediscover them down the road. I don’t really save a lot of things, but things like this really make me happy.

For a while, I’ve been looking for the right kind of envelope that would look classy, be functional and last through the years. I wanted something similar to this, but I couldn’t find them in the size I wanted. Plus I didn’t really like the orangey office-style color.
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But this week, I found something fun in Paper Source. We bought all of our wedding invitation supplies there, so I knew I could trust the quality.
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I bought two packs of the A9 envelopes in the “paper bag” color. It almost looks like recycled or homemade paper. Loved it!
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They were simple and elegant, and I didn’t want to mess too much with them, but I had to label them somehow. I just acquired a set of stencils from a friend and I’m in love with the font. It’s classy and fun.

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So I got to work labeling them. First up was Italy.
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I hated it. Especially the way the year looks at the top. Nothing popped. And duh! If these envelopes were upright in a box, I couldn’t read the label! I had to put the country at the TOP of the envelope. I’ll chalk that one up as “practice”. Let’s start over. This time, in pencil first!
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Then I went over it with a black sharpie.
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Then I used a cute little stamp in the lower right hand corner to put the date.
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It’s definitely closer to what I had envisioned… but still didn’t pop.  This baby needs color!
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I love Sharpies. Especially these ultra fine tip ones. I did a few trial runs on my “test” envelope to see how the colors looked on the brown background.
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Yep. This would work.
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Success! I think they look cute!
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Here’s a few more I did tonight.
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And most importantly, They’ll look great once filled with travel keepsakes and all lined up in a nice box.
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What do you think? Will my non-existent future children like them?

How do you store travel keepsakes?

 

This List is Bananas! July 3, 2011

Filed under: Travel — Kelocity @ 7:01 am
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We are up to San Francisco this weekend to see some family and escape the Los Angeles Heat (Rumor has it that it was supposed to be 110* there this weekend!!) But before we left LA, I had a schwaggle of errands to run first.

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PS…how does ‘bananas’ end up on my to do list. LOL If you’re wondering, I had to freeze some ripe bananas for smoothies this week.

Let’s see…. have lunch, put some receipts into Quicken, Pack for the weekend…. next up… bring all of our paper, cans and bottles to the recycling center. When it’s 92 degrees, it’s not fun being around sweltering trash piles and heaving box of newspapers into bins. But at least I am saving the environment… and I got paid a whopping $1.90 for my cans. I really wish my condo had recycling, because it’s borderline not worth it to even bother.
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Next up (ahead of schedule thankyouverymuch) was Costco to fill up my car for the 6-hour drive.
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Done and done. Then I went to Target to pick up a few things.
(What? Your target doesn’t have a palm tree out front?
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After that, I hit up Citibank quickly. And then snuck a quick trip to Trader Joes for some road trip essentials.
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I swung by and picked Irving up and we hit the road! We were expecting lots of holiday traffic, but it really wasn’t that bad. A couple of hours in, we broke out some homemade sandwiches (turkey and cheese on pretzel rolls!)
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We chatted so much that I forgot I was even driving. Soon enough, we were already at Harris Ranch (our favorite stop half way there!)

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When we got back on the road, Irving took over the driving and we broke out the pop chips! (Salt & Pepper flavor! Full review coming soon!)
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We arrived at 11pm and went to bed soon after.

 

What are your holiday plans this weekend?

 

Bean Burgers & A Bookstore May 13, 2011

Filed under: Dining Out,Food,Pasadena,Travel — Kelocity @ 9:26 pm
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Irving and I won’t see each other much for the next two weeks, so we decided to make tonight special and go on a date. We’ve been married for almost two years, but I still like to go out on dates once in a while. I even made Irving open my car door for me <— That makes it officially a date.

I even got all fancy and put fake silver earrings on. I go on dates in STYLE, people.
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We headed over to Montrose, which is a cute little neighborhood off the least used highway in California. Seriously, there is never any traffic on the 2. Gorgeous!
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Our destination was The Black Cow Café. We’ve had a coupon for ages and decided it was about time to use it. (We are not ashamed!)
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This place was AWESOME! It felt like a restaurant straight out of a movie. You could totally picture two random strangers bumping into each other here and sipping coffee for hours (they hand drip all their coffee!) It was so cute and everyone seemed to know everyone else.
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Right when we sat down, we were presented with some Ah-Mazing bread. It was doughy and had the most delicious seasonings on it. (We even asked for seconds).
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Our waiter, Victor, was probably the best waiter I’ve ever had in my life. He was funny, to the point, and offered great suggestions. I ordered the Black Bean burger. He asked what I’d like on the side: “Fries, Soup, Caesar Salad or House Salad”. I told him caesar salad. He shook his head and said “nope, go with the house salad, you will love it”. Ok house salad it is!
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Victor, you were right, it was epic. It had sprouts, rasins, sunflower seeds, chinese noodles. And the dressing. Oh, the dressing. They make them all in house. Perfection.

The burger was great too. I don’t order veggie burgers often (ok, this was my first time EVER ordering a veggie burger), but it was really great. It tasted like a falafel.

Irving got the meatloaf sandwich that he devoured in about 15 seconds. Victor brought him ranch to dip his fries in and instructed him to mix some hot sauce in it. Well when he walked by and noticed Irving hadn’t mixed the hot sauce in it yet, he gave him a stern look and Irving got scared and mixed it in. You should have seen Irving’s face light up when he tasted it. He declared it “out of this world”. Yea. We’re going back to this place for SURE.

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Then we took our party to Pasadena where we walked around a little bit. Our first stop was Distant Lands (our favorite travel book store in Los Angeles). We were on a mission to find a travel book for our trip to Europe. We LOVE the DK Eyewitness series, so we quickly found what we were looking for. We bought the Eastern Europe book. I’m so excited to read through it!
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Eastern and Central EuropeDK Eyewitness Travel Guide Germany

They probably thought I was weird, but I was so excited to take a picture in front of their bookcases.
Travel + Books = LOVE!
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After walking around Pasadena a bit more, we headed back home. Date night was a success.

Any suggestions for things to do/see in Germany?

 

Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo… May 11, 2011

Filed under: Travel — Kelocity @ 3:18 pm

So many cities, where should we go?

This fall, we’re heading back to Europe for a two week trip around Eastern Europe. We couldn’t be more excited. My heart flutters when I think of cobblestone streets, fresh baked croissants, old castles and gelato (Poland has Gelato, right?)

I haven’t been to Poland or Berlin yet (the main reason for this trip), but I’m excited to trek back through Prague, Vienna and Budapest for a second time. I went in 2003 with about $20 in my pocket, so I’m excited to revisit them and explore the sights again with Irving.
He woke me up at 6am yesterday to tell me that the flights have dropped. Still sleepy-eyed, I dragged myself to my computer to scour all the major airline search engines for some deals. We ended up on Delta ($1100 per person — not sure if this is a good deal or not, but it was the cheapest we’ve seen in months).

It made the most sense to go LAX to Berlin roundtrip. But here’s the kicker… the tour ends in Berlin and we don’t fly out for three more days after that. I basically view Europe as my playground, so my mind starts racing…. Three wide open days in Europe! We could go to Amsterdam, Denmark, Munich, Paris, The Alps…!!

Europe really isn’t that big, you can get halfway across it on just about one tank of gas. If we rented a car, we could go ANYWHERE! This is a lot of pressure.

Any suggestions for amazing European hot spots?

If we did jump in a car and cruise across Germany, there’s only one thing I’m afraid of…

Driving anxiety aside, this is a big decision! We’re definitely leaning towards Salzburg and Munich. I’ve been to both before, but I think Irving would LOVE the Sound of Music tour. Plus driving through the Alps alone in a small european car sounds so romantic.