Kelly Clarkson Concert

So I wrote this whole post earlier this afternoon and for some reason my other computer is acting strange and wont load Gmail correctly and deletes everything I try to post on my blog. I doubt this second entry will be as good since now it's late and I have to wake up early, but I'm going to try to remember what I wrote about earlier.

So, last night my mom and I went to the Kelly Clarkson concert. I had been really excited for the concert since I got the tickets the minute they went on sale in the fall and it came up a lot faster than I expected! Her opener was supposed to be Matt Nathanson who I love, but he scheduled himself on Dancing with the Stars for last night and I didn't fin out until the morning of! Man, was I ever bummed since the last Kelly concert I saw was supposed to have the Veronicas open and when I got there it was some random person I had never heard of. So anyways I was really bummed I wasn't going to see Matt play, but the traffic was so horrendous getting to the parking lot (like 30 minutes to get 4 blocks bad) and I missed the entire opening act anyways. If it had been Matt I would have been so angry, but since it wasn't I felt okay with the fact he wasn't there, haha.

Anyways, I got into the Event Center at San Jose State University just as the fill in opener Carolina Liar was finishing up and found my way to our seats. We were in the 26th row on the floor, which theoretically should have been great, but I am short and the people in front of me were not so I had to find little pockets of space to see through. Luckily Kelly happened to be standing in one of the few voids for most of the concert and I could see her! For those of you who have never seen Kelly Clarkson play live, she is one of the most dynamic and powerful artists out there. Her voice live is unbelievable and just as good if not better than on her albums. Her crowd is also quite spectacular as the demographics are really wide spread and EVERYONE knows the lyrics to everything and really sings along. She also really goes out of her way to talk to the audience and point out things she sees in the audience and really connects. She always has great stories that she shares with her audience and I always love that. Oh, it was my sixth time seeing her live by the way! She sang for almost two hours and everything was just phenomenal. A few of my favorite songs were left out, but considering she has five full albums out now I absolutely expected that and I felt her set list was really great! She even did a few covers by Florence and the Machine, Bruno Mars, and Carrie Underwood which were amazing. I definitely enjoyed her performance and I look forward to her next album and her next tour in the future!

After the concert we had the pleasure of attempting to get out of the awful parking structure. We drove out of our parking space and drove about 15 feet to the line of cars to get out and then we sat in park for no less than 45 minutes. It was ridiculous how long it took to get out of that place. We were literally in PARK. Not inching, just sitting. So we finally ended up getting out of there and vowed to never park in that structure ever again should we find ourselves back at that venue for anything. We also vowed to take the side streets on the way there since 7th was so bad. We had a great evening all in all though, so I can't complain! I just love concerts and dancing around and singing (admittedly poorly) along with the artists. I have no more planned right now, but Zac Brown Band is coming in April, so maybe I will snag a ticket to that!

Also I posted a few videos I took with my iPhone at the Lady A concert on Friday in "Clips from Lady A". I'll add a few more from my mom's iPhone later when she uploads them. They are just short clips, but they're still fun.

Clips from Lady A

I uploaded a few video clips I took at the Lady Antebellum concert on Friday night. They aren't whole songs, but they are still fun to watch! They were amazing and I am already excited for whenever I have the chance to see them live again! The first is Darius Rucker and the next three are Lady A. Enjoy.

Darius Rucker - Alright

Lady Antebellum - Dancin' Away With My Heart

Lady Antebellum - American Honey

Lady Antebellum - Need You Know

End of the weekend

Yesterday was the final day of HKHL at the Culinary Institute. It was a pretty good day and I finally got to get in the kitchen. I was assigned to a ridiculously easy recipe (peanut and ancho chile salsa) that really only required knowing how to dry roast quickly and blend things in a food processor. It was fun, but I wish I had gotten to do a little more. The lunch at the very end of the conference was delicious and after it I was on way way home, but not before getting a cookbook!

When I got home I pretty much just lounged around since I was so tired from getting up exceedingly early the last three days in a row and my mom and our friend Michelle brought home dinner. We all ate for the first time around our new fire pit table outside and it was quite nice. After dinner my mom and I decided to go to the 9:15 showing of The Hunger Games downtown. I had really high expectations for the movie after hearing how great it was, and honestly I was not super impressed. I thought that there were a lot of things different or added or omitted in the movie. Maybe I would have liked it better if I had not read the book, but I just didn't love the way it was translated. I am glad I see it, but I wouldn't pay to see it again. Anyways, we got back late and went right to sleep and I didn't wake up until 10 for a change! I am sadly still exhausted, but it will take days to recover from my loss of sleep over the weekend. Now its back to working like it is every Monday. Have a wonderful week everybody!

Some of the dips/sauces our kitchen session made. We made the one on the right.

The final lunch at the conference. 

More Healthy Kitchens and Lady Antebellum

Two more days of the Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference have passed and they have been quite good! I have learned a lot about good ways to eat and cook and I've also gotten to eat some great food! Yesterday at lunch the person I was sitting next to said that Carla from Top Chef and The Chew is one of her best friends! That was awesome since Carla is one of my favorite chef personalities. Today began the workshops as well, so I had a morning workshop about building a better breakfast and and afternoon workshop about the health benefits of wine (complete with tasting of course). We had six wines, three white and three red, and I learned that I really do not like Zinfandels. Tomorrow is the last day of the conference and I finally get to be in the kitchen myself, so I am excited for that.

Last night I finally got to use my Christmas present which was tickets to the Lady Antebellum concert! It was such an amazing concert from the first opener Thompson Square, to the next opener Darius Rucker, to the main event. Since I was driving from St. Helena I was a little late and missed most of Thompson Square, but I saw the song of theirs I know best and they were really good. Darius Rucker's set was about an hour long and I realized I know way more of his songs than I thought. He even sang some of his famous Hootie and the Blowfish songs from the 90's which was awesome. After Darius played there was a L.A.D.P. which was a Lady A Dance Party! It was really fun and they played a ton of great music and shower people in the audience dancing with the person with the best moves getting to watch the rest of the concert from the inner circle of the stage. The guy who won it was awesome and totally deserved to get the big move! Lady Antebellum finally came on after the D.P. and man they were awesome! When they came up through the stage the section that rises up got stuck and they had to climb out of the hole while singing. It was actually really funny and awesome. They sang all of their biggest hits and I could have watched them for many more hours. They even brought Thompson Square and Darius Rucker back to sing with them and they all sang Blackwater together, which is one of my favorite older songs. Their encore was their most famous song, Need You Know, and then it was over. It was a pretty great night! I wish I had my camera but at least I got some memories with my phone!

Darius Rucker

Hillary climbing out of the hole they were stuck in. They all just kept on singing.

First Day of Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives

Today was the beginning of the Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in St Helena, CA. Whew that was a mouthful. The first day was short but quite good. We had an introduction by the director of the conference which is put on by Harvard School of Public Health and the CIA, followed by three chefs giving demonstrations. One of the chefs, Suvir Saran, was on season 3 of Top Chef Masters so I was pretty excited about that since Top Chef is awesome. After the demonstrations there was a reception with a ton of food and wine tastings. All very delicious stuff. At the reception I got two cookbooks and got them both signed by the authors (one of them was Suvir). All in all it was a fun start and I'm excited for the three days to come. I'm staying in Napa tonight so I can sleep in a little tomorrow morning (well so I don't have to get up at 5 something), but tomorrow and Saturday I'll stay at home to save money. That's all or now, goodnight!

Finishing the Trilogy

Tonight I finally finished Mockingjay, the third and final book in The Hunger Games trilogy. I swear that half of the nights since I started reading the books I have myself been in the arena in my dreams. It is truly amazing how consuming these books are. I'm a little depressed about the ending, not because it isn't right, but simply because I have begun to feel like I am in the book and I am Katniss (as I'm sure many other people have felt as well). There is just something hopelessly tragic about the fact that any circumstance has its evil and there is no escaping it.

Anyways, the books were amazing and I am really excited to see the first movie that comes out tomorrow at midnight! I wish I could see the midnight premiere, but I'll be at a conference. I'll see it by Tuesday though. For now I just need to read something a little bit lighter to stop the restless sleeping.

Quilting

So, even though I have yet to get my quilt I made over the summer finished, I decided it was time to start making my first non-t-shirt quilt so I have something for my bed when I move. I figured that a month and a half should be enough time to get something done. Whether it will look good is tbd I guess. I am hoping I can pull something off. So far I have successfully made my own bobbin and set up the whole machine, cut a bunch of pieces, and started sewing a bunch of smaller pieces together. I realized that if I continue the way I planed I would need to make about 1,000 squares, so I'm already certain my vision is going to considerably change. This is going to be an interesting project.

The Ranch

This weekend my mom and I are up at The Ranch, which is the family farm in Grimes, Colusa County, CA. It's been really nice to be up here. It's so calm and relaxing, and best of all Grandma cooks! Yesterday we went to my cousin Hayley's baby shower which was really quite lovely. It was great to see the family we don't get to see too often. I even got to meet Jake John and Sofia, some of my cousins' kids. The funniest part was meeting my second cousins' cousins on the other side and finding out that she works with one of my best friends. It always fun to have "it's a small world" moments. After the shower we went to the Foster's to meet my cousins dog Remy who is an adorable little frenchie (who sheds like crazy).

The rest of the day was pretty chill and we mostly just watched March Madness. We also found some funny pictures from when we were young, and I posted a few at the bottom. Oh and we brought the dogs up here with us too! They absolutely freaked out when we got here because they thought we were leaving them somewhere strange, but now that they're getting used to it I think they really like it up here. They haven't even been in their crates since Friday, do they've been a bit spoiled.

So back to the bay today and back to work again. I have some exciting things at the end of the week so hopefully its not too dull until then!

Me and Christine in ~1988

Me and Christine in ~1988

Baby Christine! So cute.

Chris and I take a bath and Molly apparently has no interest (~1989)

Max's favorite chill spot at the ranch. Sleepy Maxy is so happy.

SoCal Trip

This week I took a trip to Southern California with my mom! We had a blast, but boy was it exhausting. We took the hour long flight from SFO to LAX on Tuesday morning, and when we landed we immediately rented a car and headed for the most magical place on earth, Disneyland! There is absolutely no possible way to not have a great time at any Disney park in my opinion. We went on tons of rides at both Disneyland and California Adventure, and ate lots of yummy food (like watermelon cotton candy!). I got to see the World of Color show with my mom and actually had a good enough spot that I could actually see the show. The last time I saw the show I could barely see between and over the people around me, so I didn't get the full effect. We left around 10pm and drove down to San Juan Capistrano to stay with our family friend Sheryl. It was really great to see her!

We planned to get up semi-early to head back to Disneyland on Wednesday, but we ended up sleeping in and didn't leave San Juan Capistrano until about 10:30. Sheryl met us at Disneyland and the three of us spent the day together and once again had a great time! We ate lunch at the amazing Blue Bayou inside Pirates of the Caribbean, somehow got the front row of at least half of the rides we went on, and got to see the spectacular fireworks show. We also got to bring Sheryl to California Adventure for her first time ever, so it was really fun to see her reactions after all of the rides. We stayed until around 11pm and my legs and feet were almost throbbing. The drive back to SJC was tough since I felt so exhausted, but I made it.

Thursday morning we slept in again which was nice. I got some work done after I showered and then we said goodbye to Sheryl and headed to Newport Beach to go to Fashion Island. We looked around for a little bit and I got a new shirt at Anthropologie and then we met up with my old babysitter Tracy. It was so great to see her since I hadn't in four years and my mom hadn't seen her in at least ten years, probably more. After lunch we decided to head back to the airport via the PCH so we got to see the coast and mostly to avoid sitting in LA traffic around rush hour. The PCH I doubt was faster (in fact it was probably slower), but we had time to kill and at least there was the illusion of movement.

Such a wonderful week, especially since we escaped the NorCal rain! I also finished reading Catching Fire (the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy) and started the next book, Mockingjay. I am obsessed. I can't wait until the first movie come out next week!

Disneyland! Sleeping Beauty's Castle

My favorite little ElephantBee on ATP!

Awesome Space Mountain Picture

Beautiful lights above the Teacups

It's a Small World After All

Mom and I on Dumbo the Flying Elephant

Not too lazy Sunday

Today was the first day of Daylight Savings Time!! I didn't notice the extra hour of light today since we were busy having a family celebration, but I'm sure it is going to be glorious to have the extra time to do fun things. In the morning my mom and I skipped this weeks farmers market and went to Concord to do a little shopping for the baby shower we are going to next weekend and to look at a few other things. I also decided that I needed to call United to change my flight home from Europe so I could stop in NYC for a few days to see my sister and my friends, but instead of speaking to an agent right away I had the pleasure of waiting on hold for a full hour and a half! That was the most ridiculous wait time I have ever experienced, but luckily after exactly 1h33m I finally got a person on the phone and was able to get my flight changed. I now have an extra day in Europe and will be flying from Spain to New York in mid July. I can't wait!

After our morning (well really early afternoon) fun times we came home and finally planted all the plants we bought last weekend so they can't start to grow and get bigger for us to eat them! We lost track of time, which ended up making us a little late for the family celebration I mentioned earlier. We were celebrating my uncle's birthday, which isn't for a month, but since he goes back to Mexico in two days and he will be somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on his actual birthday, today was as good of a time as ever. During the party we skyped with Christine (my cousin) in Scotland and opened a few presents while she was watching. We got to hear all about Bob and Ann's Mexican adventures and enjoyed a wonderful dinner cooked by my grandma. I even got to meet Kelly's boyfriend, which I though was exciting. He was really nice and we all liked him a lot.

Anyways, I fell like I did a lot this weekend and didn't sit around on my butt too much which is always nice. This week should be fun and chaotic too since my mom and I are heading to LA/Orange County in the middle of the week and then up to the farm in Colusa County for the weekend. Fun times.

Babies

Today was all about babies. I began the morning with a beautiful sunrise over Mount Diablo and 7.5 hours of babysitting for Kemmerick and Logan. Running around after the little ones so early in the morning sure does wipe me out! I'm happy I get to sleep in tomorrow!

After babysitting I meet up with my mom and went to my friend Jillian's baby shower. It was a ton of fun and Jillian look really great. I win the game where we had to chug out of a baby bottle with the very tip of the nipple cut off, and I won by a good margin! We got to choose between beer, sparkling apple juice, or sprite and I went with the sparkling apple juice (which I think was a great strategic decision). She is due in about four weeks and is having a boy they are naming Dylan. I haven't met her husband, but I'm sure they will be wonderful parents.

After the shower my mom and I decided to go see the movie Friends with Kids. It was a bit predictable, but I generally like that so I thought it was really good. I mean how can you go wrong when Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph are in a movie together, even of they are in non comedic supporting roles. They were amazing as was the rest of the cast.

So now I'm back at home and ready to finally get some rest! Super excited for the extra hour of light we'll start getting tomorrow thanks to daylight savings time!

Sunrise from my driveway. Such a beautiful way to start the day!

The Hunger Games

I finished reading The Hunger Games tonight and man was it just as good as everyone has said. It totally drew me in right from the get go and now I'm hooked on the series. Luckily for me when I bought the book for my eReader, I bought the whole trilogy as one file so I'm all set to begin Catching Fire! Can't wait to see what becomes of the characters! I'm also really excited to see the movie that comes out in just two weeks. It will be interesting to see how they capture everything that goes on in Panem and during The Games.

So, for those of you that haven't yet read the book, read it now!

Just another week beginning

The first two days of this week have been utterly uneventful. Yesterday I spent the day working and then went to the gym to work out with my trainer Harvey. I also cooked really yummy leek and potato soup from scratch for dinner! Today I babysat for Kemmerick and Logan for about 8 hours. They both took naps which is always a joy and not always something to be counted on. During their naps I finished reading Stiff by Mary Roach and finally started reading The Hunger Games. Stiff was really interesting and I would recommend it to those who are interested in what a human body that has been donated to science can be used for (and to those who are not overly squeamish). There really are a lot more uses for human cadavers than I had ever considered before. Obviously I do not get disgusted easily, which probably stems from the fact that I have actually worked with human cadavers before and I will work with them again in the near future in medical school. Anyways, I am excited to start The Hunger Games and I look forward to seeing what the hype is all about (and to seeing the movie that comes out soon of course)!

SF Zoo Day

Today was a pretty fun day! In the morning mom and I went to the farmers market in downtown Walnut Creek and picked up a few fruits and vegetables for this week. I love going to the farmers market, so thank goodness the one where I live is amazing! I hope the farmers market near school next year is at least close to as good. Anyways, we went pretty early in the day so we didn't have our usual flatbread from Chicks 'n Love (my favorite little stand at the market) but we did pick up some delicious granola bars, some heirloom carrots, and a few other yummy things.

After the market we went home briefly to put our things away and then set out for San Francisco. We decided that it was a great day to head to the zoo! I adore visiting zoos because I love seeing all the different kinds of animals. I posted some pics of some of our favorite sightings at the end of the post. I think my favorite today were the gorillas. They were really funny and being really active. Someone had dropped a water bottle into the enclosure we think and the gorillas were trying to eat it so we notified the zoo, but otherwise everything was so fun! The grizzly bear and the chimps were also funny. I got a great video of the grizzly bear doing double ballet legs in his little pond, and one of the chimps wrapped himself up in a blanket and took a little nap. It was adorable. I also decided I need a miniature donkey after petting one in the petting zoo. The sheep were amazing too. Basically if I could I would have quite the farm of cute and fluffy animals. Too bad I have no time to care for them.

On our way home from San Francisco we decided to stop at Navlet's to pick up some plants to start gardening! We bought italian parsley, sweet basil, cilantro, kale, zucchini, peas, strawberries, and two kinds of tomatoes. Hopefully we will miraculously obtain green thumbs. We are pretty excited to pot the plants this week and to start growing some delicious food. We have to grow the basil inside for a bit since it's still too cold apparently, and we had to get a frost cover for the tomatoes, but I think everything should go well. Heres to hoping at least!

The weekend was overall one of the better weekends I have spent lately since I did a lot and had a lot of fun. Welcome back to CA for the week to Bob and Ann. Good luck with all your super fun tax stuff! I'm not particularly looking forward to this crazy busy work week, but another weekend is only five days away!

Walnut Creek Certified Farmers Market

Love this place. Their chocolate chip granola bars are beyond amazing.

Their flatbreads are sooo yummy! Sunday lunch staple!

Gorilla eating his yummy regurgitated food

Mandrill

Hip-Hop-Anonymus

Grizzly Bear

Snoozing grizzly. They are sisters.

The polar bear is snoozin too!

Fuzzy little Wallaby

Koala

The chimp is snuggly in his blanky.

Flamingos!

Funny meerkat sat with his tail between his legs.

This owl was enormous!

BIG FLUFFY SHEEP

Alpaca

A different big fluffy sheep

Wine Country

Today my mom, dad, and I had a lovely day in the wine country. The weather was unbelievably beautiful: pretty warm and not a cloud in the bright blue sky! So much for it finally being winter like I said earlier this week. We drove up to Domaine Carneros in Napa and did the tour/tasting there. Domaine Carneros is known for their sparkling wines made in the Champagne method, but they also do Pinot Noirs. I prefer sparkling wine myself, so this place is right up my alley. I did the tour there about four years ago, but since I had forgotten most of what they said I had a great time doing it again! Our tour guide was amazing and charismatic and definitely helped to make it a great time. My dad even loved it after being skeptical of my choice of vineyard to begin with, and he ended up joining their wine club! After the tour we went to the special fancy wine club members only section for a cheese plate and charcuterie plate with another glass of sparkling wine. I wish I knew what cheeses they served, because they were absolutely delicious!

We left the winery around 5:30 and decided we needed to find a place to eat dinner somewhere in the valley. We ended up just driving north on the highway and stopped in Yountville to see about my parents getting reservations at French Laundry for another time since they had been next to impossible on the phone, but they were just as impossible in person. For tonight's dinner we decided to find a random place that had a reservation available on OpenTable (amazing website and iPhone app that everyone should have in my opinion). We ended up choosing an Italian place called Vercelli Ristorante in St. Helena and it was really good! We shared mushroom bruschetta first and then I had tagliatelle with shrimp that was delicious. All in all a pretty fantastic meal to end a wonderful day in the Napa Valley. Tomorrow we are thinking on going on another adventure to the coast, but we will see!

Vineyards across from the winery

More vineyards across from the winery

The fam minus Molly (who's in school in Texas)

Dad and I at Domaine Carneros

Mom and Dad in front of Domaine Carneros. This picture really doesn't do the place justice!

Mom and I with an enormous bottle of sparkling wine they had in the tasting room.

Awesome quote in the tasting room. "Wine is constant proof  that God loves us and loves to see us happy." -Ben Franklin

Getting to the Final 13...

On American Idol that is! Tonight's results show was way too drawn out, but I still couldn't turn away as usual. The girls I love love love. I think that the five voted in (Jessica, Hollie, Shannon, Elise, and Skylar) were all phenomenal and I was rooting for all of them. Definitely happy about those selections, great job America. The guys I'm only so so on. I love Phillip Phillips and Colton Dixon and the other three don't really stand out to me.

The six picked to sing for the wild card slots were good. I was surprised they gave Brielle a second chance, but then I thought she sounded really good when she sang for her life. I was totally surprised the judges didn't really like it at all. Erika was my favorite of the six singers vying for the three wild card slots. You could tell there were a few emotions being fought back but overall it was amazing. Reid was my least favorite. He was trying too hard and just came off as super annoying to me. I hated his rendition of Moves Like Jagger on Tuesday too, so that may still be affecting my opinion. Can't ruin one of my favorite songs like that! Anyways, so who were the chosen ones? That would be Erika, Jeremy, and Deandre. Solid choices I think.

All in all I'm looking forward to my favorite part of the show where there are only good people and only one person goes home per show. Can't wait to see what's to come, even though I'll miss the last few episodes while I'm in Europe.

The American Idol Season 11 Top 13