Photos From Around the World

Some friends, Laura and Ryan from the blog “Round We Go”, recently completed an “around the world” trip, which they memorialized through the photo journey in the video below. It’s so breathtaking, I had to share it with you guys.

I am so happy our friends got to have this incredible experience and also grateful they are sharing it in such a beautiful way. Watching this reminds me of two things:

1. There is SO MUCH to see in this world. Must. Plan. More. Trips.

2. Our time on this beautiful earth is short, and I want to make sure I live every moment I’ve been blessed with to the fullest

What one place in Laura and Ryan’s travels would you most like to visit? And I must reccomend their blog http://roundwego.com/ they are both amazing writers.

A Perfect San Francisco Saturday

This weekend we took a couple days off skiing to go to San Francisco to see my parents who were in town visiting my sister Amy and her husband Mike. Amy and Mike are one of those couples who rock at entertaining and hosting guests, so I wasn’t surprised when they had the perfect Saturday planned out for us.

We started the morning off with a trip to the farmer’s market in the Ferry Building. The sights, sounds and smells were a lovely way to start the day.

We grabbed a quick bite of “Mexican Breakfast” food, which consisted of sauce-drenched tortilla chips, eggs, beans and avocado.

After the Farmer’s Market in the Ferry Building, we headed into China Town for Dim Sum at City View Dim Sum. If you haven’t tried Dim Sum before, it’s a very unique dining experience.

Basically as soon as you sit down, waitresses will wheel around carts of various Chinese foods, like dumplings, chicken feet, sticky buns etc. You pick what you want and eat it Tapas style with your table.

It was a great way to sample a lot of different Chinese cuisine with everyone weighing in on what they liked and disliked as we went.

From there we walked through China Town and caught a bit of a parade taking place to help raise money for a local martial arts group.

We made our way through San Francisco’s China Town until we got to our next destination – tea tasting! Luke happens to be a big tea fan, so he was especially excited about this part of the day.

We were greeted by a boisterous man who asked that we call him “Uncle.” He led us through the tea-tasting experience all while touting the health benefits of tea. To prove his point, he asked us to guess how old he was. My dad guessed 60.

Turns out he’s 80!! Whoa- if tea drinking makes you look 20 years younger, then sign me up!

We tasted about eight teas in all and at the end felt like we had made a new friend – Luke especially.

Rounding out our day of “Asian appreciation” in San Francisco, we all headed to Suchada Thai Massage. This was our first experience with a Thai massage and I have to say it was the most unique and experiential massages I’ve ever gotten.

The massage itself is almost painful, but in a good way. Your masseuse literally walks on your back, uses their elbows to dig into knots and stretches you in ways you didn’t think you could stretch.

There were times I felt like I needed to tell them to stop because it was so uncomfortable, but right when I thought I hit my threshold, they moved on. In the end, I left feeling totally loose. I could tell they did a lot to help my back and neck.

On the way home we stopped for some pictures by the water.

Thanks for coming to visit mom and dad and thanks for showing us a great time in San Francisco Amy and Mike!

The New & Improved ABattyLife!

All my talk about “shaking things up” has motivated me to FINALLY launch the redesign of my blog I mentioned way back in August on my one-year blogging anniversary.

TA-DA! Here it is!

I chose this design because of it’s ability to let me post much larger photos than my old design. Like this crazy-pretty sunset from last week.

I love taking photos and always felt a little sad when they were shrunk to a small size in my old posts.

This design also lets me distinguish categories for my posts so you guys can search for what you want easier. I still get a lot of friends in Chicago asking me how they can find all my wedding advice, so now it’s all available in the “wedding resources” tab above. Same thing with my food and gift/party posts.

The header is a little cheesy, I know, but couldn’t help myself when the option to get a cartoon graphic made of Luke and I popped up! My pal Kieran, the same guy who did our wedding invites,  did that image for me.

So what do you think? Are you digging the new look & feel of my blog? Bear with me while I work out the kinks.

Breaking Out of the Routine

We’ve officially been living in Lake Tahoe for almost two months. Life is settling down and we’re getting into a daily routine.

Weekdays:

Wake up > shower > drive to work with coffee/radio > work, work, work > drive home > stop at grocery store > make dinner > watch Luke do the dishes :) > read/watch tv > go to sleep.

Weekends:

Wake up > have coffee and breakfast > drive to mountain > ski, ski, ski > drive home > pick up dinner > take a loooong steam shower > relax > pass out from exhaustion.

You’d think after all the stress of moving, I’d  be happy to welcome a regular routine, but actually, part of me misses all that excitement I felt during our move.

It’s not that I’m not thrilled with our life here, it’s just getting back to a more “normal” existence is leaving me a little desirous of something exciting to happen.

My mom says I’ve always been like this. As a child I used to tell her “Mom I have NOTHING to look forward to!!” even though I had plenty of fun things going on.

Luckily, I have some events on the horizon that should shake my routine up a bit.

– Next Saturday, Luke and I are having a date night in Reno. We’re going to the Adam Carolla comedy show and then staying the night at the casino.

– In February, two of our dear friends are coming to visit from Florida for the weekend.

– In March, we are going to Breckenridge to visit our friend who also just started working for Vail Resorts and of course skiing.

– In May, I am going to Vegas with some of my college girlfriends. I’ve never been with friends (always for work) so I’m super excited  about this one!

What do you do when you want to break out of your regular routine?