29 Things I'm Thinking Right Now

i'm alive. and this is a real blog post. not a mirage. i know you haven't seen one of these from me in a while, so i understand the confusion. you get 29 thoughts that have crossed my mind recently in honor of the 29 days i didn't post this month...you're welcome.

-one of my favorite friends, keri, got married over the weekend. it was an incredible wedding.

-getting pampered at a salon as part of a bridal party rocks. free champagne. and you hear things like how your eyelids are perfect pallets for makeup. and how beautiful your hair is. and that your eyebrows are shaped perfectly.

-bachelorette party was in vegas. it was my first time there to really party since i've turned 21. it was a lot of fun. and it was not a lot of fun. both. at the same time.

-vegas recap: long drive. edc weekend. don't like techno music. coyote ugly. big ass pizza. sleep. pool party. lots of booze. lost sunglasses. thunder from down under. lax @ the luxor. tired feet. hotel pizza. coyote ugly. sleep. sunglass shopping. win big money. pool party. expensive dinner at hakkasan. long ass line for afrojack at hakkasan. long ass walk to hyde at the bellagio. long as wait at the bellagio. sleep. pack. drive home. sleep.     

-you're not supposed to fall in love with a stripper. but i did. one that's in thunder from down under <3

-69. the amount of times we heard "that's a big ass pizza" while carrying a pizza down the vegas strip.

-your phone screen can still shatter while being totally enclosed in a lifeproof case.

-blood orange vodka rocks.

-ninja mimosas rock. thanks juliette :]

-my job at the safari park still rocks.

-baby cheetahs are the cutest. we have one at work right now.

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-i'm still overwhelmed at my office job. a month and a half left and i'm done.

-anyone else think that ice challenge is stupid?

-i need to pick up on this fitness and healthy eating thing again. it's totally been abandoned this month.

-i need to actually WEAR my fitbit. it sits in my purse and only counts those steps.

-i like soccer. i like team usa. i like competitions that take place on a worldwide stage. i can't get into the world cup this year. not sure why.

-i miss playing soccer.

-i've committed to using a lilly pulitzer jumbo agenda for the rest of my life. i'm obsessed. with lilly. and with consistency. *i've used the small for 2 years and loved it. just needed to go up in size. and this is totally not an ad.

-i'm really good at holding grudges. that's not nice of me.

-television: so over pretty little liars. super behind on sytycd. wish cara maria didn't get ko-ed from the challenge. picked up on mad men. ellen still has reruns on. i might re-watch the hills.

-my next teacher test is in 2 weeks, and i haven't studied. i start today. my notes will be titled "pink lemonade" because i'm using a yellow legal pad and a pink highlighter. 

-i complained about that whole angels stadium thing to management. they apologized. and someone offered me free tickets. i didn't take them up on it. i'll elaborate more on this soon.

-3 weeks ago i did a wine and paint thing for another friends bachelorette party. i've always wanted to do something like that. and i loved everything about it other than the part where i suck at painting. 

-i'm getting california fever. i want out. never thought i'd ever say that...but i feel like i need a big change in my life after i finish my credential program. looking at dallas and nashville right now. this might just be a phase.

-i need to read mocking jay. 1st part comes out in a few months and i still haven't cracked open the book!

-i need to stop spending money! but a savings account totally burns a hole in my pocket!

-my biggest struggle right now is deciding between carrying a cross body messenger bag for school and a purse with handles for personal crap OR a cross body purse for personal crap and a shoulder tote for school.

-tony gwynn is gone. i'm sad, but not distraught like i feel i should be.

-tony gwynn memorial was the coolest/weirdest thing to attend.

Opening Day, 2014

Yes, I made it out alive. Real life just gets in the way of blogging. Oops. Anyways....BASEBALL! 

Opening Day Night. The tailgate/barhop started at 10:30 am...for a 5:00 pm game. We were ready to party. The season ticket crew plus a lame-o Dodger fan packed into a truck and headed towards downtown San Diego. We parked in the tailgate lot and used our pre-purchased parking ticket because planning ahead rocks. Cruised over to Bub's and met up with some friends for some breakfast and Mama's Peach Tea. And Fireball. And life size Connect 4. After that, we headed to Barleymash...because St. Germain Sangria. It was a little different than the time before, but still so good. After thattttt...Titled Kilt. More booze. After thatttttttt, back to the tailgate lot to meet up with more friends, close out the party and head into the game. Photos of the same 8 people in similar poses for your viewing pleasure:

I'm not a fan of repping your gang with peace signs in photos...Chels knows this, but it happens. And this is the look you get from me when it happens. Whatever. She gets a pass for it today A) Because everyone does it now just so I can get upset. I've learned that no real reaction (or vocal scolding for it) is the best reaction. B) Because it's Chelsea's birthday today and she gets to do whatever she wants...within the law. Or without, as long as she doesn't get caught. Happy Birthday ChewSaw <3

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We scored probably my most favorite Opening Day tee's, camouflage print and a Jerry Coleman star. Headed to our seats, watched the opening ceremonies, PLAY BALL! Wandered around the stadium, saw a tri tip sandwich sign, spent $10 on a sandwich, and was left very disappointed. Sat in front of 2 very annoying, sort of racist dudes. Padres took the lead and won the first game of the season. Headed back home in the most awkward ride home ever. Being nice to a veryyyy drunk girl who is in love with one of the dudes in the truck makes for some great jokes that will never get old. And that's it.  

Did you go to Opening Day? Or any of the games played thus far this season? Do you plan to? You better! Because BASEBALL!

Also, a super sweet giveaway where you can use your winnings towards sweet stuff to wear to your next game! Make sure you check everyone who is part of it out and of course, make sure to enter! P.S. Guessing game time! I'm on the bottom left...can you guess what stadium my photo was taken at?! The winner gets nothing extra other than the satisfaction of knowing you get it right!  

Kristin : Brandi : Michelle : Lisa : Kelly

Marty : Emily : Chelsee

a Rafflecopter giveaway

4 Obvious Reminders For MLB Opening Day

MLB Opening Day. My favorite day of the year <3

There’s a few different “Opening Day” celebrations happening this year. The first is the officially official Opening Day of 2014 which actually happened a week ago when the DBacks played against the Dodgers in Australia. The second is Opening Night which is this Sunday, March 30th, Padres v. Dodgers at Petco Park…the game I’ll be attending :] The third is Opening Day which is Monday, March 31st. The last "Opening Day" is your respective team’s Home Opener which might happen Opening Night/Day orrrr you might have to wait at least 3 games for their away series to finish up before they head home and have their Home Opener. Regardless of what Opening Day you’ll be attending, baseball season is starting and that’s a wonderful thing. So there’s some things you should know for that first home game of the year…

BUT FIRST! Let’s start with a small font disclaimer. I might not be totally qualified on advising of things to know for Opening Day. Even though my friends and I have been to first home game of the season at Petco Park for the last (at least) 4 years…I wasn’t totally “there” ifyouknowwhatimean. #toodrunktofunction. Also...these suggestions are based on opening day and busy games at Petco Park. Some suggestions might totally apply to your local stadium, others won’t. Sorry ‘bout it.

Tickets. 
Do you have any? If you’re planning on going to the game, I’d suggest getting some. At this point, it might be a little too late for some of you because Opening Day might be sold out. That’s the case with the Padres…Opening Night sold out about a month ago, so anyone looking for face value tickets is kind of SOL. The remaining options are overpriced Stubhub, unknown third party ticket sites, sketchy Craigslist, or scalpers. If you find a sweet deal, awesome! You can totally keep reading. If not, and you don’t have tickets, bookmark this for next year when you plan ahead! If you don't have tickets but still want in on the action, head to a bar near the stadium and watch it on tv! You'll most likely be among others who failed in getting a ticket having just as much fun! 

Parking. 
I haven’t had much trouble with this, but I know how much of a pain in the ass it can be. For starters, consider traffic. Leave with enough time to either totally avoid traffic altogether, or budget enough time to be okay with be moving at a crawl…or slower and maybe miss some of the game. Everyone and their mom goes to Opening Day, and since everyone is headed to the same area, the roads are gonna get backed up. Also, because everyone is going to the same area, everyone is probably going to be parking in the same area too. Don't get stuck without a parking spot! If you can, buy parking passes in advance. That way you know you've got a guaranteed spot no matter how late you leave and how much traffic you sit in. You don't want to spend 40 minutes looking for parking half a mile away and pay $40.  

Transportation. 
How are you getting to the game? And home from the game? Alive? I hope so! The most important point with this is to make sure you've got a sober driver. To and from the game. If everyone wants to party, look into public transportation or hiring a driver! 3 years ago my friends and I took the train and trolley to Opening Day. From what I can remember, it was kind of a blast. We were able to bring booze on the train, party on the way down, and had reliable transportation! If you gave your limo driver the night off, download an app (Uber/Lyft...whatever) and have someone pick you up! Or book a night at a hotel in the area and walk/cab it. The other thing to keep in mind with transportation is to make sure you think about traffic. If you're anything like me, you'd rather be an hour early than 5 minutes late! You don't want to leave home/work too late, get stuck in backed up rush hour and game day traffic, and miss the first pitch!

Pregame. 
Load up a truck with some tailgate necessities: booze, food, bbq, tables, corn hole, etc. Head to the stadium early and party before game time. Why? A) Getting to the area early enough to tailgate means you've most likely avoided backed up traffic and have a better chance at being on time to the game! B) If you're there early, that means parking lots aren't crowded yet and you've got a better shot at getting a spot! C) $15 bottle of Fireball for everyoneeee beats 2 $8 shots of Fireball at the stadium/bars. D) PARTY! Just make sure to drink responsibly. And if you don't, hopefully someone is keeping an eye out for you making sure you're safe! Thanks friends for helping me with that last year!)

Our Plan.
Season Ticket Crew+1 are headed to Opening Night. The game is at 5:00-ish, but we're headed down at 10:00 for some brunch. Followed by some bar hopping for sangria!. Followed by some tailgating. Followed by the game. Followed by...work Monday morning. Hopefully we make it out alive!

Is anyone going to Opening Night/Day or your Home Opener? What are your plans for the day? Let me know!

Also, can I just mention how excited I am to be co-hosting Fan Friday this week? Other than my love for baseball,  I'm kind of obsessed with Sarah over at Venus Trapped In Mars. I kind of love sports a lot. So when I started blogging, and reading blogs, my main search was for other bloggers like me who love sports too...with no luck. Until my friend Kayyyyyy did a guest post for Sarah and the rest is history! Because of her Fan Friday link up, I've been able to find so many other sports loving bloggers like myself! And I love it! 

TL;DR: I love sports. I'm obsessed with Sarah, her blog, and Fan Friday. Thanks for letting me co-host!

If you're sharing anything baseball related today, make sure you link-up!

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This City I Live In: San Diego, Part 1

"Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means 'a whale's vagina.'" -Ron Burgundy

San Diego is a place I consider to be heaven on Earth. I am a born and raised San Diegan (San Diegoan?) and could never imagine leaving this wonderful city permanently. Erin at Two Thirds Hazel mentions in THIS POST that even though she's lived in NYC for a few years, she has yet to visit a lot of the great tourist attractions that surround her and she plans on changing that. I will too, in regards to San Diego. I've seen a good part of the beautiful city that is San Diego, but when it comes to the actual tourist attractions...I fail. 

Why? San Diego is big. And the town I grew up in is kind of far from anything worth seeing in San Diego...according to those all these different "must see" lists. Other than that, life and other priorities like school, going to baseball games, concerts, and bars got in the way. So I've been inspired to create a (multi-part...because it's kind of late and I want to go to sleep) San Diego To Do List for myself of places or things I have heard so much about an never visited or done, or I visited/did these things wayyyy back when.

Petco Park Tour

Yep. I've been to Petco Park at least 60 times since it opened back in 2004. What I've never done is an official tour of the park. Other than my own drunken wandering, I have sort of gotten to do mini unofficial tours when we've been invited to the park for season ticket stuff and seen the club house, dug out, press box, underground restaurant, batting cages, super secret Sony (I think?) Club. It seems like a lot, but I feel like they're hiding a lot more stuff that I need to see! My friends and I have talked about doing a tour, but we've just never been able to make it happen. Hopefully it happens this season!

Balboa Park

This place is incredibly beautiful. And so big. It's a park, has museums, theaters, gardens...the list goes on and on. I've made quick stops to the outside parts of Balboa Park and driven by plenty of times, but never made it my sole destination. I really need to make some trips to see all the great things this place has to offer. 

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San Diego Zoo

It's world famous. I visited as a kid and haven't been back since. The pandas are kind of a big deal and I know nothing about them. The San Diego Zoo is actually part of Balboa Park but I felt like it deserved its own bullet on my to do list. The great thing about adding this to my list is that now that I'm working at the Safari Park...I'm pretty sure I can get into the San Diego Zoo for free :] This visit is most def. happening this summer.

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Old Town 

This is a place I've definitely been recently. Did some Day Of The Dead volunteering and have had dinner and drinks at a few of the restaurants here, but they've also got a park, museums, a haunted house, and a bunch of other points of interest worth seeing but never really spent time at. According to the internet, Old Town is supposedly the birthplace of California and what it was like back in 1850. A visit needs to happen ASAP since I'm kind of obsessed with California. 

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USS Midway

A super dope aircraft carrier. Or at least I think it's super dope. I've seen it from afar while driving around downtown San Diego but I've never visited it. The USS Midway is a museum where you can see military sleeping quarters, the engine room, jail, and so much more. Having not visited the USS Midway is kind of unAmerican. Oops.

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Have you been to San Diego as a tourist? Any must see places I should add to part 2 of my list? Let me know! 

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In other super exciting news...This Friday, I'm co-hosting a special MLB Opening Day edition of Fan Friday with pretty much my favorite blogger ever and baseball soulmate, Sarah over at Venus Trapped In Mars. Soooooo, if you're just as excited as we are for baseball to (un)officially start MAKE SURE YOU GRAB THE BUTTON AND LINK UP FRIDAY! [Ignore the fact that the button says April. This is happening March 28th!]

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Friar Feud

Guess who is back for Fan Friday?!! ME! 

It's been a longggg while since I last blogged about baseball...if you don't count Wednesday.

Fair warning...this post is a little wordy, but worth it once you get to the videos! Anyways... I mentioned in that Wednesday post is that I got to do Friar Feud at a Padres game a few weeks ago! Friar Feud is  their version of Family Feud, where 100 people are asked a question and you have to guess what the most popular answer was. 

I got a call from our season ticket rep about 6 hours before the ball game and asked if a couple of us would like to do it and I told him I'm sure two of us (out of five) would be down. He put us down and it was game on for that night! I kind of started to freak out because these questions are usually about history, and gold gloves, and averages, and titles, and so on and I'm more of a master of the game of baseball being played on the field...not so much on the team's history! I wasn't sure if I should study, what I SHOULD study, how far back I should go, etc. So I kind of just said screw it, I'll wing it. Between Marcus and I (he was the other person in our group that volunteered to do it) we shouldn't be too far off. 

We cruise down to the stadium, watch a couple innings of the game, and am picked up by one of the Pad Squad people and we pretty much power walk to where we needed to be...which was behind home plate. While we're hustling to get around to the other side of the stadium I ask the chick if she knew the question...and maybeeee the answers. She didn't know either. Damn. Once we got to the area where it took place, we had some time to chill. It was then where I learned that this wasn't a team thing and that it was gonna be me against some other girl. They wouldn't let me switch with Marcus either because it had to be girl vs. girl. Damn. Now the pressure is really on!

So in the 20 minutes we had to chill, our Pad Squad person scored the question AND ANSWERS! Sweet. We do a little pow wow to the side and she reads me the question. I immediately knew 2 of the answers before she had a chance to tell me them...and Marcus can TOTALLY vouch for me on that. After I give her the answers, she tells me...uhh those are good, but I'd go with this one since it's the first one on the list. Okay, cool. It's typed up on paper so it's gotta be official, no?

Nope. Check out the vids...

Marcus' view

Chelsea and Lime's view

First of all, how crazy antsy was I?!! Second of all...Gah! I was fed the wrong answer! Glenn Hoffman didn't even PLAY for the Padres! He's a base coach! Ugh. I do take some comfort in knowing that I did say Scott & Jerry Hairston AND Adrian & Edgar Gonzalez during the pow wow...but I didn't win the $50 Friar Funds...instead, I scored some random prize. Hahaha. Oh well, I guess that's what I get for cheating and not trusting myself! 

I've got my last baseball games for the season in this next week, including 2 this weekend! So it'll be a good one :] Hope you all have a good weekend too!

Life Lately...Part 1

It’s been 20 longggg days since my last blog post. Oops. Life’s been a little crazy and school started…so blogging took a back seat. But, I’m sure you’re all having Marty withdrawls. Riiiiight. Ha. Anyways…I’ve done lots of cool blog worthy things, just never had the time to write about it. Gonna split it into a couple of posts though, because it's sort of a lot.

Luke Bryan-

I had been looking forward to this concert for months! Luke has a comfortable spot in the rotating top 3 favorite country music artists alongside Dierks Bentley and Lady Antebellum. A buddy of ours hosted a tailgate that started 7 hours before the concert! Got there around 1:00 pm and partied until 7:00 pm when the concert started! Florida Georgia line was the the 1st opening act and they totally won me over as a fan! I was kind of meh about them before this show, but they lit up the stage, and they had the lawn area filled up like I’d never seen it before…for an opening act! Thomspon Square came on stage after them and rocked some, but not as hard as FGL. Luke Bryan was the main event and I think my super duper high expectations of this guy blew it for me. It was a good show, he preformed all my favorites and shook his booty…but I was left a little underwhelmed. Oh well. Not a lot of pictures from this night because they were mostly on my camera instead of my phone.

SELFIEEEEE.

LIFE SIZE INFLATABLE BALL!

The crew :] Jessica and her peeps chilled with us too!

Padres v. Mets-

The season tickets crew (minus Ashley because her job is lame) caught a Thursday night game against the Mets. I got a call from our ticket rep while I was at work asking if we wanted to do “Friar Feud” and I said I’m sure one of the five of us would be down. I ended up being the one that did it…was asked to name two brothers that have both played for the Padres. I ended up losing and won this random consolation prize. You’ll hear more about this injustice on Friday…

ON TV/THE BIG SCREEN!

Random consolation prize for losing. Haha.

Stone17 Beerfest-

Stone is a local craft brewery in San Diego that tons of people love. I don’t drink beer, so I’m kind of meh about it…but their restaurant is pretty beautiful. They do an annual beerfest fundraiser for the local Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, Surfrider, (and a 4^th organization I don’t remember) as their anniversary party. I had a friend who volunteered to be a beer pourer but couldn’t do it. It sounded like a cool event so I said I’d be down to do it! I learned that beer people are super serious about their beer. Haha. It was a lot of fun, hopefully I get to do it again next year! And I totally recommend any beer drinker friends to buy a ticket for next year…super fun and super cool event!

Padres v. Mets-

A friend from NY was in town for the week and we arranged to catch a Padres game together. We had brunch on the field and all the players and coaches were out to sign autographs for everyone. We got to meet Padres manager Bud Black a second time, 1^st baseman Yonder Alonso again, and our favorite bullpen catchers Justin Hatcher and Griffin Benedict! The NY-ers in town got lucky because the players rarely come out to say hey. Haha. It was a good game, Padres won with a walkoff!

Brent & I

Lime & I with Bud Black!

With Yonder Alonso!

Lime & I with Hatch & Benny

Oh! And met this super hot Mets catcher!

Mmmmkay. That's enough. Good stuff, right? Check back tomorrow for part 2!